Dynamics of russian cultural meanings

The article deals with the change in the semantic spectrum of the zoonym 'parrot'. The purpose of the study is to show the dynamics of cultural meanings in modern Russian usage in speech (on the example of using animalistic images in speech), which can be identified through the methodology for analyzing the text environment of lexemes which involves the following parameters: the function of the lexeme in the text and the features of functioning of the lexeme in the text. The author interprets modern speech usage as the usage of a lexeme in fiction and journalistic literature of the 20th–21st centuries. The analysis of examples of zoonym usage in speech demonstrates how the figurative meaning of the word is becoming more positive. The study of the functioning of the zoonym 'parrot' in different types of contexts revealed the neutralization of the animalistic features of the object and the strengthening of the anthropological ones