Philological
Sciences/9. Ethnolinguistics
Candidate of Philological Sciences Gerdt E.V.
Siberian State Automobile and Highway Academy, Russia
Stages of lived time in English and
Russian phraseology
This
scientific research is devoted to comparison of Russian and English idioms that
reflect main stages of human life from birth to death.
Being
one of the basic categories of thinking, universal concept lived time (the term
of Yakovleva E. S.) constantly attracts scientists’ attention of different
spheres.
The
topicality of this research is determined by a number of factors:
Necessity
of integrative approach development synthesizing results of theoretical and
practical studies in different spheres of science on human being especially
research of person’s lived time as national cultural phenomenon in comparative
aspect;
Necessity
of some theoretical problems’ development in the field of comparative
phraseology especially the definition of phraseological unit, idiom,
phraseological meaning. With this aspect the opportunity of development and
improvement of research method of phraseological units in comparative aspect,
taking into account their semantic features, is connected.
The purpose of this research is to reveal universal and specific
characteristics in the verbal representation of the concept lived time in the
semantics of dictionaries’ definitions of English and Russian phraseological
units.
The 507
phraseological units connected with integral and peripheral semes «life stages
in the development of human being» and obtained from different types of
dictionaries make up the material of this research.
The
main method of the research is the descriptive method including some complex of
procedures and techniques.
1) By
the way of continuous sampling method phraseological units with the meaning of
lived time were selected from different English and Russian dictionaries.
2) For
systematization and generalization of the material distributional analysis was
used. The selected phraseological units were subjected to intralingual semantic
analysis, component analysis in its definition form. Also the technique of
material classification according to semantic characteristics was used.
3) As
well for systematization of gathered material the comparative method including the
technique of giving an index of interlanguage correspondence to every unit and
quantitative calculations was used.
4) For
the national specific description of analyzed phraseological units linguistic
cultural analysis including finding out the etymology of given units, technique
of metaphoric modeling, revelation of interlanguage irrelevances (lacunes) and
their calculation was applied.
The
scientific novelty of this research consists of a number of constituents:
à) The description of temporal model of
lived time in English in comparison with Russian in anthropocentric aspect on
the material of phraseological units is given;
á) Mechanisms of thinking of temporal
fragment and formation of corpus of linguistic units with the meaning of life
stages in English and Russian are revealed;
â) Linguistic cultural content of
conceptual, image-bearing and value constituents of the model of lived time in
comparative aspect is defined.
In
conclusion we can summarize this research and outline prospects of further study
of such phraseological material.
Thus in
the issue of comparative analysis of phraseological units the system of
specific images characteristic for English and Russian linguistic cultures were
chosen; also sources of outward cultural interpretation of considered
phraseological units were revealed. They are ritual forms of national culture,
corpus of proverbs, images-standards, symbols, Christianity, literary works,
country-specific information.
The
analysis of gathered material enabled to distribute phraseological units to
universal types of metaphoric models on their image base (anthropomorphic,
naturemorphic, sociomorphic and artifact metaphors). Thus phraseological units
with anthropomorphic images are widely spread in both traditions, the choice of
naturemorphic and zoomorphic images is determined by geographic factor,
phraseological units with sociomorphic images are more represented in English
language, phraseological units with artifact images in English language are
connected with legal category and specific food, and in Russian they are
connected with stages of socialization and clothes.
The
analysis of connotative characteristics of phraseological units, represented in
the dictionaries, makes it possible to show value dominants appropriate for
compared linguistic cultures. Thus, in English linguistic world picture
positive characteristics are legitimacy, initial wealth, age accession, secured
old age. In the Russian linguistic world picture childhood, premarital period,
and «nonlabor» old age are disapproved because these periods are beyond common
life of society in Russian culture. Also in both linguistic traditions old maid
is not approved.
The comparison of phraseological units with the meaning of lived time enabled to find
out mismatches at verbal representation of life way: reflection of youth
period, marriage, and also there are partial differences ïðè
designation of old age and the end of life. National cultural peculiarity of
these phraseological units in English and Russian linguistic world pictures
appears in the issue of different bases of dividing of temporal fragment of
reality. Also different semantic filling of phraseosemantic groups and
subgroups with the meaning «life stages in the development of human being» is
observed.
The comparative analysis of given units revealed that for English
consciousness social legal determined model of perception of lived time is
predominant and for Russian consciousness the natural age gradation of life
stages is prevailing.
The comparison of English phraseological units
that don’t have adequate analogs in Russian language enables to choose bases
for formation of lacunes, occurring on the basis of dominant conceptual
spheres, representative for traditional British culture (sport, society, legal
regulation of family and marriage relations). The reasons of this lacunarity is
in different cultural constituents, mismatch of mental net, determined by
differences in visual environment, legal conceptions, social sphere.