Phraseology: word-groups with transferred meaning

(1) Phraseological units, or idioms = the most picturesque, colourful and expressive part of the language's vocabulary; it is a kind of “picture gallery” in which are collected vivid and amusing sketches of the nation's customs, traditions and prejudices, recollections of its past history, scraps of folk songs and fairy-tales. It draws its resources mostly from the very depths of popular speech => is the most democratic area of vocabulary = quotations from great poets + the dubious pearls of philistine wisdom + crude slang witticisms.

 

(2) Phraseology ← a variety of odd and grotesque images, figures and personalities: dark horses, white elephants, bulls in china shops and green-eyed monsters, cats escaping from bags or looking at kings, dogs barking up the wrong tree and men either wearing their hearts on their sleeves or having them in their mouths or even in their boots.

 

(3) Main linguistic problem is whether the leading component of the idiom is expressed by a verb or a noun.

 

(4) Word-groups known as phraseological units or idioms are characterised by a double sense: the current meanings of constituent words build up a certain picture, but the actual meaning of the whole unit has little or nothing to do with that picture, in itself creating an entirely new image:

a dark horse ≠ a horse, = a person about whom no one knows anything definite, and so one is not sure what can be expected from him

a bull in a china shop = a clumsy person (cf. with the R. слон в посудной лавке)

a white elephant ≠ a person, = a valuable object which involves great expense or trouble for its owner, out of all proportion to its usefulness or value, and which is also difficult to dispose of.

the green-eyed monster = jealousy (from Othello)

To let the cat out of the bag = to let some secret become known

To bark up the wrong tree (Amer.), ≠ a foolish dog sitting under a tree and barking at it while the cat or the squirrel has long since escaped, = to follow a false scent; to look for somebody or something in a wrong place; to expect from somebody what he is unlikely to do. (e.g.: often in detective stories: The police are barking up the wrong tree as usual = they suspect somebody who has nothing to do with the crime).

 

(5) The ambiguousness of Ph.U. → an amusing misunderstanding, especially for children:

Little Johnnie (crying): Mummy, mummy, my auntie Jane is dead.

Mother: Nonsense, child! She phoned me exactly five minutes ago.

Johnnie: But I heard Mrs. Brown say that her neighbours cut her dead.

(To cut somebody dead means "to rudely ignore somebody; to pretend not to know or recognise him".)

in puns:

"Isn't our Kate a marvel! I wish you could have seen her at the Harrisons' party yesterday. If I'd collected the bricks she dropped all over the place, I could build a villa."

(To drop a brick means "to say unintentionally a quite indiscreet or tactless thing that shocks and offends people".)

 

(6) "In standard spoken and written English today idiom is an established and essential element that, used with care, ornaments and enriches the language." (V. H. Collins, Book of English Idioms)

 

(7) Idioms = ready-made speech units, if often repeated → lose their colours = clichés → can’t "ornament" or "enrich the language";

oral or written speech lacking idioms → loses much in expressiveness, colour and emotional force.

 

(8) There is considerable confusion about the terminology:

- most Russian scholars - " phraseological unit " ("фразеологическая единица ") first introduced by Academician V.V.Vinogradov.

- western scholars – " idiom " – in Russian phraseology is applied mostly to only a certain type of phraseological unit.

- some other terms - set-expressions, set-phrases, phrases, fixed word-groups, collocations.

 

(9) confusion in the terminology <= no wholly reliable criteria to distinguish phraseological units from "free" word-groups.

↑

"freedom" is relative and arbitrary <= its linear relationships are governed, restricted & regulated: 1) by logic & common sense; 2) by the rules of grammar & combinability:

a black-eyed girl but not black-eyed table

the child was glad but not glad child <= glad is attributively used only with a very limited number of nouns (e. g. glad news), and names of persons are not among them

=> Free word-groups are so called not because of any absolute freedom in using them but simply because they are each time built up anew in the speech process whereas idioms are used as ready-made units with fixed and constant structures.