Issina G. I., Bekker Y. N.

Karaganda State University, Kazakhstan

LINGUOCULTURAL ASPECT OF PHRASEOLOGISMS’ SEMANTICS WITH ANIMALISTIC COMPONENT

Language does not develop in a vacuum. We are all members of a social group and members of society as a whole. People interact in many ways and communication is the most common and important activity in this process. Whatever is meaningful to ethnic groups, from their everyday life to their traditions comprises their own culture and is generally respected by their representatives. Language is only one of its constituent. And even for ethnic minority groups their language is a cornerstone in their culture.

Through centuries the problem of language and culture correlation has taken many famous scholars’ minds, however this issue is still disputable nowadays: some believe that language applies to culture as the part and the whole, others suppose that language is only a form of culture’s expression, the third think that language is neither culture’s form nor culture’s element.

The approach to the issue of culture depends on the changing attitude to the language: by the beginning of the XXth century the linguistics has passed the way from the absolute defiance of the extralinguistic influence – “the language is in itself and for itself” - to the recognition of the urgent careful analysis of social and cultural, communicative, psychological, contextual conditions of the language discourse, and finally to the paradigm of anthropocentrism.

Linguoculturology is one of the modern leading branches of linguistic studies. It originates from the language spirit and all those phenomena connected with the linguistic mentality, it investigates specific cultural rules of the conversation's organization, demonstrates the nation’s spirituality reflected in the language. Cultural linguistic study corresponds to the common tendency of the contemporary linguistics – it is the shift from internal, structural linguistics to the external, anthropological linguistics considering language in close connection with the man, the thought and spiritual activity [1].

The linguistic level of phraseologisms is quite interesting language material clearly illustrating the correlation “language-culture-ethnos”. Phraseologisms’ complicated semantics and form, their content of the national psychology and philosophy are considered as the national spirit, “spiritual identity”. Keeping in mind that these units imply “the code of the nation’s experienced wisdom” [2; 9], it is worth to analyze this code according to its content or, at least, reveal its components and consider the main reflected concepts.

One of the human thought’s characteristics since ancient times is the transfer of some qualities of the living beings to an inanimate being. These typical associations connected with the nature and given in reproducible speech patterns reflect linguistic preferences of the native speakers. The phraseologisms that have the image of an animal are defined as animalistic. The animalistic language units reproduce men’s centuries-long observations over animals’ appearance and behavior, convey people’s attitude to the dumb animals. Animalisms include encyclopedic information about animals’ typical characteristics and less obvious features not mentioned in the dictionary definitions. Moreover, when analyzing animalistic phraseologisms it is possible to learn more about nation’s life and its culture.

Having conducted the analysis of English and Russian phraseologisms with animalistic component we could notice their identical, universal usage in many cases. Semantics of the phraseologisms with animalistic component mostly has correspondence of the domestic animals’ names. Compare: a dog (a dog in the manger – «собака на сене»; barking dogs seldom bite – «лающая собака редко кусает»), a cat (a cat has nine lives – «у кошки девять жизней»; to live cat-and-dog life – «жить как кошка с собакой»; all cats are grey in the night – «ночью все кошки серые»), a horse (don’t swap horses when crossing a stream – «коней на переправе не меняют»), a cow/a bull (the bull must be taken by the horns – «бери быка за рога»). There are some universals with the names of wild animals. For example: a hare (if you run after two hares, you will catch neither – «за двумя зайцами погонишься, ни одного не поймаешь»), a fox (when the fox preaches, then beware your geese – «начнёт лиса зубы заговаривать – с гусей глаз не спускай»), a wolf (a wolf in sheep's clothing – «волк в овечьей шкуре»). The universality of such kind can be explained by similarities of domestic life in English and Russian cultures, particularly in house holding, and by gaining equal experience. Compare: to live cat-and-dog life has the same sense for an Englishman and a Russian person – a cat and a dog cannot live in peace; a wolf in sheep's clothing – a wolf for Russian people is also a great danger forever and in any appearance [3].

However in spite of the universal character of the most phraseologisms in Russian and English we have revealed some differences connected with some conditions of the environment, diverse composition of fauna of the given place. Only Russian animalisms are characterized by the frequent use of component ‘goat’ («пустить козла в огород», «нужен как козе баян»), and the animal inhabiting areas of ancient Slavs 'a bear’ («медведь на ухо наступил», «неуклюжий как медведь», «медвежья услуга»). English phraseologisms include names of animals that are not typical for Russian people, so they cannot be met in Russian popular wisdom, for example: a leopard (the leopard cannot change his spots) and a lion (beard the lion in his den).

There are some phraseologisms characterized by the identical sense and origin in both languages, in spite of the fact that the nations used different animalistic components to convey the information. Compare: to buy a pig in a poke – купить кота в мешке. This saying goes back to the Middle Ages when people bought pigs in the markets. As a rule, the piglets were kept in sacks to make it easier for a customer to bring them home. Some dishonest traders could replace the piglet by a big cat the size of that corresponds to the size of a sucking-piglet. It is interesting that neither Russian people nor Englishmen are the author of this saying. This phraseologism was the result of the French wit and it penetrated successfully in both languages due to close links with Russian and English people [3].

Different aminalisms also express the similar idea in the following phraseologisms: with foxes we must play the fox – «с волками жить – по-волчьи выть», first catch your hare then cook him – «не делите шкуру неубитого медведя.» These examples are explained by diverse geophysical conditions of the peoples’ life. Wolf and bear hunting were more typical for Russian people. A bear having been the symbol of Russian culture since the ancient times was the prize for peasants. So when Russian culture got the fable “A bear and two hunters” by La Fontaine the saying from this fable easily became a proverb [3]. Unlike Russian people Englishmen did not hunt bears so they talk about another uneasy prey – a fleet-footed hare.

As we can say according to the above mentioned examples, the nations living in distinct environmental conditions and having diverse history see the world in different ways that is reflected in the semantics of linguistics units. Sometimes ordinary phenomena connote different associations. That is the difficulties of proverbs’ animalistic metaphor translation, these metaphors are not usual by their content to the representatives of another linguoculture and they need additional explanation.

So phraseologisms perform a cumulative function. Basically it comes down to the selection, accumulation and conservation of various linguocultural information: fauna and geographical location, historical events, images of belles-letters and folklore – all these can find direct reflection in both Russian and English phraseology. A language’s national identity has the brightest and immediate expression in phraseologisms as they correlate with extralinguistic reality. Each language has its own way of the world’s apprehension and reflection and it creates its own linguistic world-image. While comparing some systems of apprehension the realization of this individuality becomes more obvious. Revealing the cultural linguistic peculiarities of semantics of different languages’ phraseologisms allows not only to enrich vocabulary but also to be absorbed in other countries’ culture.

Reference list:

1. Воробьев В.В. Лингвокультурология (теории и методы): Монография. – Изд-во РУДН, 1997 – 340с.

2. Даль В.И. Пословицы русского народа. Художественная литература. М., 1984 – 784с.

3. Cambridge Dictionary of Idioms: http://translatorbg.com/content /view/ 62/56/lang.ru/.