러시아 민속문학에서 신체어 ‘코’의 언어문화적 함의 연구: 관용구와 속담을 중심으로

Abstract

Somatism, which refers to human body parts, forms the basis of universal basic vocabulary in any language along with human history, and at the same time contains the linguistic and cultural specificity of a language. Humans understands the world through the sensory functions of body organs, and conceptualize objects of the external world by projecting them onto body lexicon. The human body was the most accessible means of self-observation, the basic measure for understanding the surrounding objects, and the most primitive form of expression of opinion. The human body was able to overcome limitations of the body by constructing a cognitive system based on accumulated experiences and fully transferring the linguistic function of memory and knowledge. Somatism is a basic vocabulary that exists in all languages. Folk literature texts are meaningful materials that show the historical and customary usage of somatism, various aspects of derivation, and the unique linguistic image of a nation. Somatism reflects the universal psychological characteristics of the language subject, the way of recognizing the world, the way of acting or thinking, and the way of expressing emotions. Therefore, idiomatic expressions including somatism are worthy linguistic phenomena that can examine the universality and specificity of a language. Somatism refers to human external body organs (faces, head, hands, nose, ears, etc.) as well as internal organs (heart, blood vessels, nerves, liver, etc.). This paper examines aspects of meaning expansion focusing on somatism used as a component of proverbs and idioms in folk literature texts that consider the communicative aspect of the language subject. We will analyze in depth the semantic structure of idioms and proverbs and examine the specificity of metaphorical and metonymic mechanisms and cultural variants of somatic idioms that reflect the unique Russian linguistic world view.