Ethnolinguocultural and Ethnolinguocognitive Specificity as Characteristics of the Semantically Unique Idiomatic Expressions in Phraseology

The article analyzes the role of phraseology, as a most specific and nationally distinctive linguistic area, in the formation of linguistic worldview. Assuming that the figurative content of the phraseological structure of a language embodies its cultural and national worldview, the author examines the national and cultural specificity of phraseological units. Different approaches to the understanding of the scope of national phraseology are described: according to the broad approach to the scope of culturally marked phraseological units, a wide range of phraseological phenomena, all the idiomatic phraseological units in particular, are considered to be nationally specific; other phraseology researchers take the opposite position - they attribute to the nationally marked idioms only those which comprise the names of culture-specific concepts; another approach includes the specific national idioms which embody the inter-language differences. In the semantic aspect, a phraseological system (like any other subsystem of language) is a special unity of characteristics, both common (universal) and exceptional, i. e. semantically unique, typical only for a certain linguistic culture. If the universals are common characteristics of all languages, then the uniqueness represents specific, unique characteristics of a particular language. Besides, there is reviewed the ethnolinguocultural and ethnolinguocognitive specificity as characteristics of the semantically unique idioms in Slavic, Germanic and Turkic language groups. There are given some examples of the semantically exceptional idiomatic expressions in the above-mentioned language groups.

national and cultural specificity, ethnically marked idiom, semantic universal, semantic uniqueness, semantically unique idiom, culture of language, ethnolinguocultural specificity, ethnolinguocognitive specificity

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