Rakhimzhanova A.B., Narmukhametova N.M.

Eurasian national university named after L.N. Gumilyev, Astana, Kazakhstan

Connotation of English and Kazakh zoomorphic phraseologisms

Contemporary sociolinguistic direction in the study of phraseological units put forward the need for a detailed analysis of their ethno-cultural peculiarities and interlingual relations on the basis of culturally relevant evidences. Not by chance, most domestic and foreign cross-cultural researches in the field of phraseology is not focused on the mechanical detection of parallel structures of units in different languages, and the disclosure of internal connections and interdependence of the studied linguistic phenomena. In the ethnic culture of different peoples phaseologisms including the names of animals – is primarily a statement about the human-being, his spiritual and social terms.

Sufficiently a large number of English zoomorphic phraseological units have full or partial equivalents in other languages, because of the coincidence of mental maps of reality in carriers of different languages and common elements of culture the so-called “cultural universals”. However due to differences in cultural factors, ethnic origin, different lingua world picture and the various literary sources, many zoomorphic set expressions contain an element of value, which is understandable only for the carriers of given culture, served by its language.

For example, in English, there are such verbal clichés like “it rains cats and dogs” (a heavy rain), and “a rat race” (competition), “to suck the monkey” (about the manner of drinking from the bottle), and other. In Kazakh also such clichés are found: “koi auzynan shop almas” (about quiet and mild person); “it olgen zher” or “it arkasy kiyanda” (a great distance away from); “koyan zhurek” (the coward); “tyshkan tirlic” (boring and monotonous job). In general, the traditional choice of zoonyms in phraseological fund of Kazakh and English languages has much in common both in the aspect of theory nomination and in terms of valuation connotation.

Predominantly positive connotation of zoonym “horse” in semisphere of English and Kazakh ethnic culture confirmed by examples of contextual implementation, apparently goes back to ancient archaic trickster, embodied by the literary tradition. “A horse! My Kingdom for a horse!” – exclaimed Shakespeare’s Richard III. Many period of evolutionary development a human-being and a horse passed together in the spiritual and physical harmony with each other. The world history has documented numerous instances of the sublime, grateful and respectful treatment of the owner to his horse. According to the testimony of Pliny the younger, a horse “sat” in the legislature such as the horse of the Roman emperor Caligula, which was “promoted to the senators and consuls”. The image of a horse appears in all the world’s great religions. In the Greek myth Poseidon and Medusa Gorgona had the son – winged Pegasus, a symbol of inspiration. In Buddhism it is Kantka, white horse of Gautama. In Islam – Al-Barak, in Christianity – the horses of the horsemen of Apocalypse. Kazakh people always respected this animal and had special attitude toward this animal. Their positive attitude is reflected in proverbs and sayings such as: “Жылқы – малдың патшасы”, “Ат ұстаған азабынан құтылады”, “Аттылы ақысын жаяуға жібермес”, “Аттының несібі алтау” etc. We observed the collection of Kazakh proverbs where were 350 proverbs about animals. Among them proverbs containing zoonym “horse” takes premier place and precisely all of them have positive connotation. Here we see the table

Animals	Quantity of proverbs	Percent
Horse	105	30%
Dog	76	21%
Sheep	66	19%
Cow	24	7%
Donkey	16	5%
Others	63	18%

The highest percentage of examples with a negative evolutional connotation falls on donkey semisphere. Paradoxical nature of the interpretation of this image in English ethnic culture is that in ancient times, a donkey was considered as a sacred animal. Certain rituals associated with the glorification of the donkey went into the use of a Catholic and the Orthodox Church. In some counties of the United Kingdom and on the west of the USA such competitions as “donkey’s beauty” and “donkey’s parades” still take place to commemorate of the escape of the Holy Family on donkeys to Egypt. In Russia for a long time there was a ritual-Passover detour Kremlin by Patriarch riding on a donkey in memory of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. There is a unit in folklore and in phraseology, however, a donkey – a symbol of stupidity, stubbornness, laziness. Historically it was first mean of transport, transport which was employed by prophets. However, only some settled tribes of South Kazakhstan used donkey as a mean of transport. Even inhabitants of the west, the east, the north and the central part of Kazakhstan did not see this animal. So, Kazakh set-expressions and proverbs with zoonym “donkey” always have negative evaluative connotations. For example, “Есек жорға қатқақта, сыры мәлім батпақта”, “Есектің жүгі женіл болса жатаған”, “Есек семірсе иесін тебер”, “Қарға мақтанып сұңқар болмас, есек мақтанып тұлпар болмас”, “Есекті отқа айдасаң, боққа қашар”, “Есекке күміс ер жараспас”. Such kind of examples can be found also in English. For example, they are “An ass in a lion’s skin”, “If the ass bray at you, don’t bray at him”, “Jest with ass and he will flap you in the face with his tail”. In the studied English phraseological fund only one proverb contains positive evaluative component: “Asses as well as pitchers have ears” (fools and children understand much more than the speaking people think).

Studying the results of cross-cultural research in phraseology enables to make the following conclusions:

Apparently, the most important legacy of archaic zoomorphism is not so much of its semantics (in most cases it is destroyed), is not mythic tradition, but the principle of unity of people and animals in the chain of wildlife within a particular ethnic culture.

Despite of the existence of similarities and structural and semantic parallels, zoomorphic phraseological units in different languages have vivid national characteristics, due to both intra-linguistic factors and features of the national – cultural environment.

Bibliography:

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2. Chepkova T. P. “Phraseologisms with animalistic images”// Russian in school. 1990. №6.

3. Mardanova D.M. “Comparative analysis of phraseological zoonyms in English and Turkish” Dissertation Candidate of philological science. Kazan, 1997

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5. “Kazakh proverbs and sayings”. Almaty, 2001