SEMANTIC GROUP “ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION” IN THE ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN PHRASEOLOGICAL PICTURE OF THE WORLD

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of a certain fragment of the phraseological picture of the world of English-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking ethnic groups. Phraseological units (PhU) nominating such a feature of the speakers’ behavior as alcohol consumption were chosen as the object of study. The sample consists of 47 English and 45 Ukrainian PhUs. The publication highlights the common and distinctive features of the corresponding fragments of the ethnocultural picture of the world of two unrelated ethnic groups. The linguocognitive aspect of the performed analysis made it possible to distinguish the subject-logical schemes of phraseological units of the corresponding semantics. The first scheme, among those verbalized in our sample, is the following: AGENT CONSUMES SOMETHING IN SOME WAY. It is most widely presented in the material. It verbalizes the component CONSUMES SOMETHING as drinks alcoholic beverages, verbalization is accompanied by a negative evaluative coloring (explicit, in the PhU itself or implicit, in the dictionary definition). The component SOMEHOW is clarified mainly in the interpretation of the relevant PhU (most often it is an accentuation of excessive alcohol consumption). The AGENT component is very sparingly nominated in the PhU; in the case of its explication, somatisms and units of the vestile vocabulary are mentioned. The subject-logical scheme AGENT ENCOURAGES PATIENT TO TAKE SOMETHING is verbalized in a very narrow range of PhUs that denote the act of making someone drink. The subject-logical scheme THE AGENT IS IN SOME PSYCHO-PHYSICAL STATE (as a result of consuming SOMETHING) is widely used in the researched material. By means of phraseological expressions it conveys the state of intoxication. The sample demonstrated the actualization of the container metaphor OUT OF your head, scull to verbalize the reduction of the intellectual potential of the agent in a state of intoxication. Phraseologisms also explain the agent’s inadequate physical behavior. The linguocultural aspect of the research revealed similar and different features of the practice of consuming alcoholic beverages by representatives of two unrelated ethnic groups: English and Ukrainian. This enabled a retrospective chronological dimension of the study of a certain fragment of two pictures of the world: the English and the Ukrainian ones.