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As you already know Phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units. And what is Phraseological Unit? Do you know the difference between an idiom and phraseological unit? What is phraseme? Listen to the definitions and try to grasp that difference.
Phraseological Units - a stable word-group characterized by completely or partially transferred meaning (Prof. A. V. Koonin).
The term “idioms” generally implies that the essential feature of the linguistic units under consideration is idiomaticity or lack of motivation. Uriel Weinreich expresses his view that an idiom is a complex phrase, the meaning of which cannot be derived from the meanings of its elements. He developed a more truthful supposition, claiming that an idiom is a subset of a phraseological unit. Ray Jackendoff and Charles Fillmore offered a fairly broad definition of the idiom, which, in Fillmore’s words, reads as follows: “…an idiomatic expression or construction is something a language user could fail to know while knowing everything else in the language”.
(Студенти слухають визначення термінів і за допомогою дедукціїзнаходять відповідь на питання.)
In Russian linguistic tradition the preference is given to the term “PHU” (phraseologism, phraseme), whereas Western scholars usually use the term “idiom” (set expression).
The term phraseme is used as a hyperonym for all kinds of fixed word groups. Here we will adopt a division into five more or less commonly accepted types and for each of them try to outline at what semantic level culturally significant features can present themselves.
Last time you were talking mainly about theories that came from the territory of the former Soviet Union. Today we will discuss Anglophone theories. They made somehow different classification of phrasemes comparing with that one by Vinogradov. And here we have such types of phrasemes:
§ idiom
§ simile
§ collocation
§ proverbs
§ routine formulae.
(1)Idioms are regarded as the most central and irregular category of phrasemes.What makes idioms stand out from other phrasemes is their high degree of idiomaticity. For example: American Idiom
| To pull smb’s leg | To pull someone’s leg had much more sinister overtones when it first came in use. It was originally a method used by thieves to entrap their pedestrians and subsequently rob them. One thief would be assigned ‘tripper up’ duty, and would use different instruments to knock the person to the ground. Luckily, these days the saying is much more friendlier, though being on the end of a joke might not always be fun. |
| Joking or fooling with someone. | |
The literal reading of the idiom refers to cultural concepts of mythology or folkbelief, passed on throughout the centuries. Let us discuss following example: The Ukrainian phraseme
| Витягти з болота | From the very early times Slavs were considering the swampland to be very dangerous place, a place where the devil is present. People thought that place where the devil spitted turns into swamp. That’s why we have so many phrasemes with the word “болото” «Було б болото, а чорти будуть», «У тихому болоті чорти водяться», «І чорт багато грошей має, а в болоті сидить». Usually people were throwing out a dirty things into the swamp, things like old broom, clothes of deceased people. |
(Спочатку студентам самим пропонується пояснити значення ідіом та їх походження, студенти скоріше всього походження не знають, проте значення повинні розтлумачити.)
(2) Similes should be mentioned here first of all because many phraseological studies, especially cross-linguistic ones, point to their cultural implications. Similes stand out by their specific structure of comparison, consisting of the tertium comparationis and the comparatum (the vehicle of comparison), which are connected via particle (as, like). Similes are estimating, they are giving as assessment of an object, at the same time it creates an artistic imagery. Each nation has its own conception, idea of the world. That why we have different components in similes of different nations while the meaning is the same. For example we have following English similes:
As blind as a bat – сліпий як кріт
Laugh like a hyena – horse
As ugly as sin – страшний як дідько.
Do you know their Ukrainian equivalents?
(Студенти повинні самі знайти український відповідник для англійського порівняння.)
And one more simile: As clear a bell. It means 'clearly understood'
('You don't have to repeat yourself. Your message is clear as a bell.')
Origin: Bells such as the type used in churches are large and loud. Their sound can be heard from a great distance. Bells sound a single, clear note so their sound is distinctive and not easily confused. Before electric sirens and amplification systems, bells were a valuable means of signaling people and alerting of important events - like an impending attack. The bell and the message intended could be heard clearly over a large area.
Back in the 1910's, many companies were trying to get into the manufacturing and selling one the hottest items around, the phonograph. One of those companies was the Sonora Chime Company. This company started the Sonora Phonograph Company and used 'Clear as a Bell' as their slogan, touting the fidelity of their machine's sound reproduction.
Melcher’s study of similes in English dialects denoting stupidity gives many examples like as daft as a besom, a grindstone, a scuttle, a shovel a wagon-horse etc. all of these vehicle words denote specific to the particular rural material culture and tend to reflect salient concepts of a given community, including idioethnic realia that may stand out for their cultural connotations. Do you know some Ukrainian similes that are denoting stupidity? (Студенти пропонують власні варіанти.)
(Ukrainian – дурний як макітра, дурний як теля, дурний, як Омелькo, дурний, як турецький кінь, дурний, як баран, дурний, як пень, як сосновий пень, дурний, як довбня, дурний, як сало, дурний, як чобіт.)
In addition, similes can convey culture symbols; cf. to eat like a wolf. The image of the wolf eating voraciously is not supported by actually observing the animal but strongly supported by cultural symbolism, cf. various narrative traditions that establish the conventional wisdom about the wolf as a gluttonous animal. Or what Ukrainian symbols of beauty. ((Студенти пропонують власні варіанти.)
(Гарна як калина, струнка як тополя, гарна дівка, як маківка гарна, мов цариця, гарна, наче рожа, гарна, як весна, гарна, як зіронька на небі, гарна, як квітка гаївка, гарна, як квітка навесні, гарна, як квітка у лузі, гарна, як квітка у полі, гарна, як лялька.)
(3)The term collocation has no unified meaning or definition in linguistic studies. It is either understood as the co-occurrence of words in general, irrespective of their fixedness or convention of use, or as a word combination that co-occurs habitually and therefore belongs to phraseology. Here, the term restricted collocation is used for the latter and thus for phrasemes such as French to clean one’s teeth, consisting of a base, used in its literal sense (teeth in this example), and a collocate, which is to a certain extent arbitrary (to clean is the only appropriate verb here). Most restricted collocations of this type are not figurative and hardly affected by aspects of culture. But still if we discuss following examples: брати участь, досада бере,розквасити ніс; рос. закадычный друг, уклончивый ответ, щекотливый вопрос, потупить глаза, одержать победу, нанести поражение; англ. to break silence, to make friends. Each word in collocation has its own meaning, but one word is realizing its particular meaning only in this or that collocation.
(Так, скажімо, слово розквасити реалізує значення "розбити до крові" лише зі словами ніс, обличчя та їх синонімами. Слово брати має значення "проймати" тільки у сполученнях зі словами досада, злість (не можна сказати радість бере, щастя бере тощо). Російське слово одержать актуалізує значення "здобути" тільки в поєднанні зі словами победа і верх (не можна сказати одержать образование, одержать деньги тощо), а закадычный "щирий" загалом поєднується лише зі словом друг.)
However, there is another structural type of collocations which has to be regarded as partly figurative, cf. a busy bee. While the collocate busy is used in its literal meaning, the base bee has been semantically reinterpreted to denote a person rather than an animal. It is this characterization that reveals cultural implications. Since antiquity and up to the present day bees have been used as a basis of comparison for prototypical diligence and business.
(4) From the viewpoint of folklore studies, proverbs are elements of a code of folk culture; they are the object of investigation of paremiology. From the viewpoint of linguistics, proverbs are a central type of phrasemes. Despite the extensive 1-re on proverbs, a generally acknowledged definition has not been arrived at. Many proverbs are figurative and have far-reaching cultural significance. There are not only aspects of material culture (e.g. by means of constituents denoting cultural-specific realia), but many proverbs are also directly interrelated with other culturally relevant texts. However, proverbs are most significantly connected with aspects of culture-based social interaction - a fact that is due to their semiotic, semantic and pragmatic characteristic. One outstanding property of proverbs is the existence of a universal quantifiers (or all-operator) in the content plane. Proverbs are general statements that are believed to express universal truth, i.e. they refer to allegedly shared knowledge about rules governing social behavior. Of course they do not allow the drawing of conclusion about attitudes and values of entire language community but only of special groups at special time. Besides, proverbs can have illocutionary of ‘recommendation\recommending. They can provide moral support for an argument or action by referring to a generalized proposition and thus give advice on how to behave in certain situations. Proverbs quote socially proved ideas that can be used instead of argumentation; they can reveal traces of social concepts (of special groups and \or former times) and hand them down to future generations. An example of such a model is a proverb type Woman have long hair and short brains, which is widespread over many European and Oriental languages.
And you know, Ukrainians are known as a nation of farmers, people who are dealing with agriculture. Can you imagine how many proverbs we have about work and land? Here are some of them:
· Не питає добрий жнець, чи широкий загонець.
· Коли зореш мілко, посієш рідко, то й уродить дідько.
· Як мілко орати, краще випрягати.
· Де оре сошка, там хліба трошки.
· Глибше орати — більше хліба жувати.
· Там ся добре діє, де два оре, а третій сіє.
· Сій не пусто, то збереш густо.
· Чистим зерном сійте поле, то вродить хліб, як море, а нечистим посієте — собі шкоди надієте!
· Хто хоче збирати — мусить добре засівати.
· Що посіяв, те і вродить.
· Яке посієш, таке і пожнеш.
(5) Terms like routine formulae, communicative phrasemes or pragmatic idiomscover a large continuum of phrasemes.
A distinction should be drawn between so-called "routine" formulae (how do you do, see you later, nice to meet you) and "speech" formulae (are you with me? Do you know?). The former, as their name suggests, are used recurrently in various kinds of social encounter (introductions, greetings and farewells) and may be performed without much, or any, supporting verbal context. Speech formulae, by contrast, typically occur as part of a complex verbal interaction, and often, too, function as a comment on a preceding statement made by the speaker or the listener.
While greetings, expressions of thanks, excuses, congratulations, etc belong to the core of elements, the boundaries of this type are not always clear, especially in demarcating formula of comments (e.g. that’s where the shoe pinches) from idioms proper.
Only a few routine formulae are figurative in the sense that elements of the culture can be found in their source domain. The German Hals- and Breinbruch! (Broken neck and leg!) is a jocular formula used in order to wish someone good luck. Its origin is explained by the accident concept of superstition or folk belief that an unconcealed wish of good luck brings misfortune and one can outwit fate by wishing something bad. In contrast to the phraseme types discussed above, the cultural link of routine formulae is almost exclusively restricted to the pragmatic level. Routine formulae are forms of communication; their most important function is the constitution of speech acts. They are therefore parts of a larger complex of stereotyped action patterns and social interaction (comparable to specific gestures like bow and handshake). From this perspective, all communicative formulae reveal aspects of culture based social interaction. The cultural boundness becomes particularly visible when languages spoken by members of distant cultures are taken into account, for example in the inconsistent use of English and Chinese formulae in Singapore. There are also a number of communicative formulae in Japanese that have no equivalents in European languages, e. g. formulae used when leaving the house or coming home together with appropriate replies.