Conceptualizing the Phenomenon "Laziness" in the Russian and Anglophone Folklore

In the last few decades, cross-cultural communication has received significant attention and discussion among scholars. The dominant explanation for this trend is the process of globalization. Nowadays more and more people have to enter into dialogues with representatives of other cultures for a variety of reasons. Recent research has outlined the significance of analyzing cultural differences through languages. Therefore, ample research has been dedicated to studying how values can be represented in languages. The aim of this paper is to analyze how cultural values, namely attitude to laziness, is reflected in Russian and British cultures. In this research, the phenomenon of laziness will be analyzed on the basis of Russian and Anglophone folklore, namely proverbs. It is expected that the difference in conceptualizing the notion of “laziness” in folklore is deeply rooted in historical past of Russia and Great Britain. We can anticipate that this field of study will be thoroughly researched, since practical implications, which are described in this paper, can be applied to language teaching, as well as to future research in the field of cross-cultural communication.