Phraseological units with the zoonym component dog: linguocultural aspect
The article is devoted to linguocultural analysis of phraseological units with zoonym components. An interest in researching such phraseologisms is evoked by the fact that animals’ traits, which people transfer to characterize themselves, are revealed through images created with zoonyms. To describe their behaviour, appearance or lifestyle, people have chosen the animals which are familiar to them. A dog has become such an animal for the Russian people. Phraseological units with the animalistic component dog, that are widely used in the modern Russian language, are the object of the study. The metaphorized zoonym is used to characterize a person: behaviour, emotions, physical condition, or to define typical situations in which people happen to be. The animalistic image is expounded in three stages: mythological, scientific and cultural. The analysis of the image allows eliciting dominant characteristics of a dog, that are used to describe people’s interior and exterior nature, their lifestyle. Phraseologisms with the dog zoonym component differentiate in semantic motivation. Idioms with clear motivation, ones with a vague connection between the image and the phraseological semantics as well as euphemisms are recognized according to the level of image motivation. There is regularity in connection between semantic motivation and orientation on human characteristics. The image of the dog zoomorphism cannot be directly correlated with human description. Thus, the interpretation of a zoomorphism image and the analysis of phraseologisms with an animalistic component allow defining peculiarities of human views on themselves and on the world around.