The hobby-horse as a national and cultural component of the concept “horse” in the English linguoculture

Abstract

The article dealt with a certain fragment of the linguistic world view, which is significant to be studied to provide a number of ways of describing of the national and cultural component of the concept “horse” in the English linguoculture. The article provides the description of a number of costume calendar customs prevalent in different parts of Great Britain after XIII century, with a central element the hobby-horse, which according to a number of authors (Lamb, Pikli), subsequently became a symbol of mass culture. The article considers the functioning of the studied fragment of the linguistic world view in the English phraseology and literary texts. The presented ethnographic material indicates to different functions, features and associative links of the hobby-horse, which is a central element of the described customs. The phraseological representation reflects the studied fragment of the linguistic world view in a partial way and indicates apparently to its later development. In its turn, the analysis of literary texts supported by ethnographic material, allowed to track the dynamics of new meanings emergence of the lexeme hobby-horse and its old meanings disappearance that were widespread in certain historic periods. The article concludes that the considered examples of the hobby-horse in literary texts though convey different meanings with either positive or negative connotation, however come from the common source (‘prancing hobby-horse of the morris dance’).