ZOOMORPHIC NAMES OF ROLLING STOCK IN RUSSIAN RAILWAY JARGON

The article is devoted to the analysis of mechanisms of representation of railway rolling stock in professional jargon through zoomorphic metaphorical image. The purpose of the research is to identify the totality of lexical means of explication of this image in railway slang; to give classification of these means; to define most topical models on the basis of which images "animal" and "railway transport" semantically correlate. The sources of the actual material are the dictionary of railway jargon by D. Zinoviev and railway Internet forums and chats. We found 117 lexemes of different parts of speech, which from different sides directly or indirectly embody the image "animal" in the nomination of rolling stock and form a special semantic field. In the paper the structure of this field is described, the core of which is the nomination of animals ( bull, crocodile, parrot, mare ) and parts of their body ( muzzle, horns, tail ), used for the metaphorical name of the rolling stock and its parts and devices. On the periphery of the field there are lexemes indicating habitats of animals; artifacts, people, actions related to animals ( burrow, stables, reins, rider, milk (v), horseshoe (v) ). The system relations within the given field were found: synonymic, antonymic, derivation, syntagmatic connections between its components.