К.ф.н., доцент Шингарева М.Ю., магистрант Курмашова Д.Е.

Региональный социально-инновационный университет

THE CHANGES OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS AS THE RESULT OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

This article is devoted to the study of changes in the composition and functions of the English phraseology as a result of shifts in the conceptual representations of women’s status in the modern world. Taken a broad scope in recent years in the West cultural and behavioral communication and language model, known as "political correctness, it has had a great influence on the development of vocabulary, including phraseology, with the gender component.

Women's rights activists have accelerated social processes in society, which could not but affect the state of the vocabulary and phraseology involved in the conceptual field of "woman."

Contemporary Idioms and Paremiological vocabularies provide the researcher a very interesting material because they reflect the state of idiomatic proverbs and sayings not only in terms of their composition, but also their place in the modern parlance, fixing the units that are actually used in the process of communication, both in oral and written modern English.

Phraseological units marked as AA are quite commonplace, that is regularly used in speech and writing of native speakers (though not as often as phraseological units with three icons). Phraseological units labeled with A mark are met one - three times for every ten million words in the framework. Phraseological units registered in the dictionary without any mark are commonly used but less common, approximately once for every ten millions of words in the framework.

Relying on marks, recording the level of dictionary units frequency, the researcher is able to make correct idea of the importance of language unit and, accordingly, the fragment of reality it represents.

Materials of dictionaries show a significant reduction of the frequency and composition of phraseological units, reflecting the gender relations, that is, phraseological units with component woman, man, wife, husband, and phraseological units, which are characteristic of any woman.

Longman Idioms Dictionary (LID) captures only 32 phraseological units of this kind, while Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English (ODCIE) - 75 phraseological units. Nine phraseological units were common to both dictionaries: wear the trousers / breeches; one's mother's etc apron-strings; a woman 's / wife' s place is in the home / kitchen; like father like son / like mother like daughter; a man / woman after your own heart; (be) a man / woman of the world; a man / woman of his / her word; hell has / knows no fury like a woman scorned; mutton dressed as lamb.

As it known, dictionaries play an important role in the process of setting standards of speech behavior, as well as transfer of fixed norms of culture. According to this we used in the research not only an indication of the frequency of phraseological units usage but also semiotic, exemplary and philological phraseology, each of which is designed to uncover the meaning of phraseological units, peculiarities of its usage in real speech.

Let us dwell on the semiotics of phraseology, on those phrases that are included in the dictionary entry by the author of the dictionary for the interpretation of meanings of the words and their equivalents.

Illustrative and philological phraseology includes statements that are created by lexicographer, in accordance with the rules of usage of the unit and illustrations, quotes from various journalistic and literary works. This phraseology is of considerable interest for this study since through the relevant material authors demonstrate the features of a real dictionary existence, stylistic scope units usage in speech, attitude of society, expressed in a specific context and forms of reproduction, such as deformation and word-play. Introduced in entries of phraseological units expressing gender relations, an exemplary and philological phraseology has in many cases an indication of the increasing role of women in contemporary society.

As an example lets study the illustrative and philological phraseology, demonstrating modern speech usage of phraseological unit bring home the bacon:

1. The question "Who brings up the baby and who brings home the bacon?" will, increasingly in coming years, be the most important of all political questions (CCDI).

2. The "ideal family", in which Dad brings home the bacon and Mom takes care of the family, describes only 7% of American families (LID).

As can be seen from the above examples, this phraseological unit doesn’t correlate with the man, earning money for the family. Family relationships where the man is the head of the house and make important decisions, are fading.

Another example of phraseological unit a woman's / wife's place is in the home (= a woman's role in life is to manage a home and bring up children (ODCIE). Though the interpretation of this phraseological unit reflects the stereotypical view on the role of women, limiting its place with the sphere of the household and children upbringing, the illustration driven in this dictionary a woman's place is in the house ... and the Senate, points to new opportunities for women in a modern democratic society. This is supported by comments of lexicographer, according to which, the statement does not reflect the true state of things (This is a maxim now widely contested (ODCIE).

As will be seen from the following examples, as a result of deformation associated with the replacement of a component with gender feature by the component without gender feature phraseological unit becomes neutral and has no correlation with the conceptual relations "man - woman." Phraseological units you keep a good man / woman down (= if people are able and determined, they will recover from any difficulties or setbacks and be successful (CCDI) in modern usage characterize not only people, but also the events that ended successfully, despite of many obstacles and difficulties. The following example, selected by us from the dictionary, illustrates how the replacement of a single component in the idiom extends the possibilities of its usage in speech:

It would seem you cannot keep a good boat down. In the second race, Sunstone, the 27-year-old Sparkman and Stevens design, beat the purpose-built Argentinian boat, Bwana, by more than four and a half minutes.

Thus, the language evolves with the culture and the changes in society are inevitably reflected in the language. Requirements for overcoming "sexism" in the language led to a change in vocabulary and phraseology of modern English language. Concerning phraseology, this has resulted in a change in the composition, structure of phraseological units, the emergence of new variants of idioms with component "woman, wife, girl". Phraseological units which negatively evaluate, insult or degrade women are withdrawn from active usage. Neutral in terms of the gender forms, without the belonging to a particular gender are more widespread.

The dynamics of the phraseology of the conceptual field "woman" has resulted in the formation of new, beyond gender relations, values, developing on the basis of the original meaning.

Bibliography:

1. Longman Dictionary of English Idioms. Longman, 1998

2. Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English. Ed. by A.P. Cowie and R. Mackin. 7^th impression. Oxford University Press, 1983.

3. Collins Cobuild Dictionary of Idioms. Harper Collins Publishers,1999.