The specificity of axiological component in the English somatic phraseological units

Abstract

The subject of this research is the specificity of expression of axiological component by means of somatic phraseological units in the modern English language. The somatic phraseological units are grouped in accordance with V. V. Vinogradov’s classification on a semantic basis. The names of the body parts are most common in the formation of phraseological units. The criterion for classification is the division into positive and negative evaluations. In phraseology, positive and negative evaluations manifested through the person’s “Self” based on the classification of Y. D. Apresyan (physical Self – capabilities and states of a person), intellectual Self – intellectual abilities and states), emotional Self – positive and negative emotional actions, social Self – business and professional qualities, social status, publicity), verbal and cogitative Self – verbal communication. The scientific novelty consists in classification of somatic phraseological units by guises of a person, as well as positive and negative evaluations. The article provides the statistical data of the groups of phraseological units. The following conclusions were made: most commonly used somatic phraseological units in the English language is ‘hand’; next come ‘head’, ‘eye’, ‘foot’, ‘nose’, ‘finger’, ‘heart’; the rest are less used. Negative evaluation prevails over positive in somatic phraseological units. At the same time, different body parts have different evaluative attraction: positive evaluation prevails or is not inferior to negative evaluation in phrases with the somatic component denoting the crucial body parts such as ‘arm’, ‘leg’, ‘head’, ‘eye’, ‘ear’) and has most phrasal effectiveness; while negative evaluation occurs in the units with rather insignificant component for the linguistic consciousness such as ‘nose’, ‘neck’, ‘elbow’, ‘finger’, and therefore has lesser phrasal productivity.