Функционально-прагматический аспект английских фразеологизмов с этнонимами

Верхневолжский филологический вестник. 2022. Т. 30. № 3. С. 121–129.

Павлина С. Ю.

The article examines the way the english phraseological units containing ethnonyms function in modern media discourse. The research tests the hypothesis, according to which idioms with embedded ethnonyms do not fit the modern social paradigm, which entails some usage limitations. The semantic properties of such conventional idioms are investigated and, as a result, the following classes are established: phraseological units that contain ethnic stereotypes and possess negative connotation; idioms that are not connotative and do not express any ethnic stereotypes; phraseological units that do not express ethnic stereotypes but are marked by some negative connotation. The analysis of functioning of idioms with incorporated ethnonyms reveals that the english units expressing negative stereotypical views on ethnic groups are excluded from modern media discourse because they do not fit the reigning paradigm of inclusiveness and tolerance. In media texts, phraseological expressions with ethnonyms are involved in play on words based on their literal and figurative meanings. The activation of each meaning is described as a dual route model: the computation of idiomatic expressions goes faster than that of novel phrases as they are easy to retrieve from the memory. The analysis also reveals that the contextual usage of sample idioms entails some transformations of their meaning and the loss of connection with the primarily denoted ethnic group.

Keywords: толерантность, tolerance, языковая игра, фразеологизм, социокультурный стереотип, медийный дискурс, word play, Ethnonym, media discourse, phraseological unit, cultural stereotypes, этноним