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This thesis explores the relationship between the Russian language and Russian culture through a detailed semantic analysis of selected expressions relating to emotions, attitudes, and values. The basic idea behind the study is that some words of the lexicon reflect cultural beliefs and attitudes, that is, that the meanings of these words encode ways of thinking and ways of understanding which are shared by speakers of a language. The cultural significance of the expressions under study is demonstrated by their semantic relationship to other Russian cultural key words and cultural ideas. The thesis shows the linguistic and cultural specificity of the words by comparing them with their English translational equivalents. The meanings of these English quasi-equivalents are discussed in relation to Anglo cultural norms. Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) is used to explicate meanings and to state cultural nonns. The explications of meanings are presented in two NSM versions – Russian and English. To justify the use of Russian NSM version, a focused study of the exponents of semantic primitives in Russian and their syntactic properties is undertaken. This study shows that the Russian and English NSM versions are equivalent. NSM provides a culture-neutral tool of linguistic analysis which allows one to formulate the results in a manner free from ethnocentric bias. The thesis seeks to contribute to a clearer understanding of Russian culture and of ways of thinking as they are embedded in the Russian language. The results of the thesis can be applied in language instruction, teaching cross-cultural communication, bilingual sh1dies, cognitive science and cultural psychology.

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