WEB-ресурс научно-практических конференций

Lvova N.L., PhD, Kutsa A.J.

Ukraine

QUANTITATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF IDIOMS OF BIBLICAL ORIGIN FUNCTIONING IN ENGLISH

Phraseological units ( PhUs ) play a significant role in the vocabulary of the language. The vocabulary is complemented by the PhUs that are characterized by aptness, laconic brevity and emotive colouring . These factors presuppose the existence of PhUs in the language.

PhUs are susceptible to changes and modifications of both meaning and form that makes it easier to create a neater expression of the emotional state or attitude towards people, objects, nature etc. by using them. The problem of the phraseological changeability was discussed by a number of linguists( J.Sinclair , N.Nesselhauf , M.Bakhtin , I.Arnold etc.).

The idioms of Biblical origin function in the language along with the other PhUs and present an inseparable constituent part of the system of idiomatic expressions.

Thus, the objectives of this article are:

· to present a complex and diverse nature of the Biblical idioms;

· to qualify the Biblicisms according to the existing classifications that are most prominent for them;

· to deduce the regularities that affirm the complexity of the Bibliucisms ’ nature.

In order to present the character of idioms of Biblical origin the nature of idiom itself should be revealed. The phenomenon of idiom has become the subject of study of some linguistic schools, including structural, generative or stratificational approaches, complemented recently by psycholinguistic and cognitive ones, yet very little communication across their borders has ever happened.The inability of linguists to even agree on a common term for the central unit of the field should be taken into account. It is idiom and phraseme which seem now to be becoming more and more acceptable but they are still far from replacing hundreds of alternative and mostly traditional native terms used, for the same thing, in various European languages.Thus it is evident that the domain of phraseology still needs thorough study to be accomplished.

The evolution of idioms of Biblical origin that have been functioning in English for a long time is quite obvious. In 1925 Logan P. Smith, one of the forerunners of idiomatology [5], published his collection of essays and Biblicisms were included there among other PhUs (as well as, for example, Shakespearean idioms). This state of affairs has proved the ability of the idioms in question to function in the language. Another scholar of the former half of the past century should at least be mentioned: Murat H. Roberts , the author of “ The Science of Idiom ” (1944). According to this scientist all idioms are believed to originate as innovations of individuals and, using Roberts’ words, each idiom is, as a matter of fact, “a mental monument of history”[4, p.297]. Therefore there is one challenging issue worth following that can be drawn: idioms can, or should, be studied as a source of language change. Many linguists, among them such celebrities as L. Bloomfield, N. Chomsky, and many others, did not care very much about idioms. Nonetheless, there appeared hundreds of valuable contributions that dealt with idioms and similar expressions. O. Jespersen (1966) called them formulas to show that those tricky, exceptional expressions demanded a mental activity that was different from that required in free expressions [4] . Hence, it is necessary to comprehend the idea of idiom through the evolutionary process of its development: idioms are susceptible to changes and that is what facilitates their existence. The other point to be considered is the characteristics of PhUs which may be of the following structure:

· The degree of non-compositionality

· Syntactic fixedness

· Lexical restrictions

· Institutionalisation [4]

In order to detect the degree of correlation between the abovementioned characteristics and the idioms in question a well-grounded analysis is to take place.

The idioms of Biblical origin are known to be used without proper comprehension of their actual original meaning. Due to several British polls less than a half of British population is still interested in Sunday sermons and this tendency seems to be gradually growing [6]. The secularization of the people leads to an almost complete ignorance of the Christian religion and consequently of the Bible. Thus, it may be stated that the use of Biblicisms does not necessarily mean knowledge of the facts that caused their emergence in the language.

Lack of this knowledge stipulated the necessity to jot down the peculiarities that the English Biblicisms possess which reveal the frequency of their usage i.e. quantitative characteristics of the abovementioned idioms.

To achieve the objectives of the analysis we accomplished a research, a result of which is presented by the quantitative characteristics of the Biblical idioms. In the process of research it came to light (besides, ‘to come to light’ is a Biblicism) that the idioms of Biblical origin are marked by a high degree of semantic non-compositionality and their functional character is exposed as well.

These two classifications – semantic and structural relatively – were in use in order to detect the characteristics of Biblicisms under analysis.

101 Biblicisms retrieved from the phraseological dictionary of Kunin A.V. formed unequal groups based on the classification by V.V.Vinogradov [2]. These groups included:

· Phraseological fusions: a lion in the path; as the sparks fly upward; at the eleventh hour; a stiff neck; behind the veil; be in sackcloth and ashes; be into deep water; bore smb’s ears; cast one’s bread upon one’s waters; cast one’s lot with smb ; chastise with scorpions (though the primary meaning was literal); eat one’s own flesh; eat the fat of the land; fowls of the air etc.

· Phraseological unities: a great gulf fixed; a Juda’s kiss; a labour of love; a word out of season; bear one’s cross etc.

· Phraseological combinations: bring to pass; by the sweat of one’s brow; come to light; depart this life; dust and ashes; eye for eye; have itching ears etc .

· Phraseological expressions: a living dog is better than a dead lion; answer a fool according to his folly; can the leopard change his spots etc.

The results of the calculations are presented in the table:

Table 1. Quantitative characteristics of the English Biblicisms according to the classification by V.V.Vinogradov

Thus, it may be stated that the dominant part of Biblicisms is represented by the fusions and high degree of the Biblicisms’ non-influenced semantic non-compositionality [4] may be proved. And just on the contrary, the number of phraseological expressions turned to be the smallest one, thus the number of ‘proverbial idioms’ presents only 15% of the total quantity.

According to the classification by I.V.Arnold [1] the idioms of Biblical origin retrieved from the dictionary by A.V.Kunin [3] were also divided into several structural groups:

· Verbal phrases: to rule with a heavy hand, to smite hip and thigh etc.

· Nominal phrases: death in the pot, the Fall etc.

· Adverbial phrases: at the eleventh hour, behind the veil etc.

No adjectival, prepositional or any other phrases were found. The results are tabulated:

Table 2

Quantitative characteristics of the English Biblicisms according to the classification by I.V.Arnold

It may be concluded that the English Biblicisms are mostly of verbal nature, hence, they are used to denote some action. The edification of the Biblical idioms is revealed in a number of full sentences which represent idiomatic proverbs of Biblical origin (e.g. Answer a fool according to his folly ). Although there is no such constituent element as a ‘complete sentence’ in the classification of I.V.Arnold this name should be taken into consideration while regarding the group which does not belong to any of the mentioned subsystems represented only by phrases (e.g. nominal phrases, verbal phrases etc.). It is characteristic of Biblicisms to lack the phrases the dominant element of which is a representative of syntactic words (though there are no adjectival phrases as well). This tendency proves the edifying character of the idioms and their proverbial nature (e.g. reap as one has sown ).

Having analyzed the classifications and structure of idioms of Biblical origin we may conclude that the peculiarities of Biblicisms consist in the high degree of their semantic non-compositionality, indivisibility; the meaning of the whole unit is in almost all cases never influenced by the meaning of its components; the structural classification shows that verbal phrases predominate that affirms a high potential of the idioms in question to have a functional character. Though it should be taken into account that the usage of the idioms mentioned above bears its connection with the original source no more, i.e. the Biblicisms are used with no regard of their actual being.

Bibliography:

1. Арнольд И.В. Лексикология современного англ. языка. – 3-е изд., перераб . и доп. – М.: Высш . шк ., 1986. – С. 295.

2. Виноградов В. Об основн ы х типах фразеологических единиц в русском языке . – М., 1977. – С. 1 7 -25 .

3. Кунин А.В. Основные понятия английской фразеологии // Англо-русский фразеологический словарь : В 2 т. - 3-е изд ., испр . – М., 1970. – Т 1,2. – С. 1-1172.

4. Roberts M . H . The science of idiom : a method of inquiry into the cognitive design of language . Publication of the Modern Language Association, 1944. – P. 291-306.

5. Smith L.P. The English Language. - Oxford , UK : Oxford University Press, 1966. – P. 35-38.

6. www.ofsted.gov.uk .