BIBLICAL SYMBOLISM OF STONE IN FIGURATIVE MEANS OF RUSSIAN LANGUAGE
Introduction. This article presents the results of a study on the functioning of the biblical symbolism of a stone in Russian linguistic culture expressed through figurative means of the Russian language. The relevance of the work is due to scientific interest in the study of the functioning of the figurative symbolism of a stone in biblical texts. The purpose of this work is to describe the specifics of the symbolization of the image of a stone in biblical texts expressed in the semantics of language units and figures of speech; to consider various aspects of the metaphorical interpretation of the image of a stone, based on the symbolism of the spiritual and religious traditions of the Christian culture. Material and methods. The research is carried out within the framework of cognitive and linguistic cultural approaches to the study of figurative means of language that metaphorically, symbolically, and allegorically express various phenomena of reality. The methods used are structural-semantic, conceptual and contextual analysis presented in the works on the cognitive theory of metaphor by G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, A. Baranov, Y. Karaulov, A. Chudinov, etc.), lexical and phraseological imagery (N. Alefirenko, N. Ilyukhina, G. Sklyarevskaya, E. Yurina, etc.), linguoculturology (M. Kovshova, V. Krasnykh, V. Telia, etc.). The source of the linguistic material is the text base of the National corpus of the Russian language. Results and discussion. This study analyzes the symbolic representation of a stone in biblical texts; describes the semantics of the allegorical character relevant in modern fiction and non-fiction, as well as the semantics and textual functioning of phraseological units that translate the symbolism of a stone. The original source of the described stable figurative expressions was the book of Holy Scripture of the old and New Testaments - the Bible. Conclusion. The results obtained demonstrate a cognitively and axiologically significant fragment of the Russian linguistic picture of the world. The data of the corpus research indicate the active functioning of the biblical symbolism of a stone in the modern Russian language.