Zoonims as separate lexical units

Статья посвящена изучению фразеологических единиц, которые выражают зооморфный код в разных языках, является наиболее интересным и важным при передаче информации с одного языка на другой с учетом их культурных оттенок (менталитет, культура, традиции, история).

Ключевые слова: культура, менталитет, традиции, лексических единиц, лексика, различия, антропологические данные, религиозной мысли, мифологии, источник.

This article focuses on the study of phraseological units, which express zoomorphic code in different languages, is the most interesting and important in the transmission of information from one language to another, taking into account their cultural hue (the mentality, culture, traditions, history).

Key words: culture, mentality, traditions, lexical units, lexicon, distinctions, anthropological data, religious thoughts, mythology, source.

Zoonims as separate lexical units and as components of steady expressions are widely presented in all languages of the world and concern one of most the most ancient and extended. Features of judgment of an extra language reality is reflected brighter in zoonymic lexicon, than in any other area of language. It is characteristic that the name of animals in different languages contains different qualities. It testifies to individuality of figurative thinking of the concrete people that shows difficult associative-psychological process, and about distinctions in a valuable picture of the world of various ethnos. The Zoonymic lexicon as object of research deserves special attention also because, submitting to norms of language, it forms a specific subsystem in which there are the laws demanding special studying. The names of animals (or zoonyms) provide us with all kinds of clues about our ancestors, especially if we study them in connection with anthropological data. And it also works the other way round: etymological studies benefit from anthropology. An excellent example of this type of research is Xaverio Ballester's Zoуnimos Ancestrales. In his book, Ballester analyses a series of zoonim sand reaches interesting conclusions. In many cases, the animals have names related to kinship: they were called «mothers» or «grandparents». An example of this is the Spanish word comadreja (English weasel), from the word for mother (madre in Spanish). There are many more examples, but normally they are not so easy to recognize. In other cases, we see the effect of a taboo applied to a given animal, and the substitution of the original name for another (The name of the bear). In general, all these terms, coined in a given culture and conditioned by its ideology (religious thoughts, mythology, etc.), are an important indication of the possible chronology of a dialect's vocabulary. The modern linguistics demonstrates a great interest in - a naïve world picture. In recent times, the theory of national stereotypes develops and the knowledge reflecting the image of the world is especially claimed. Namely by this is explicated the study of national mentality through language and linguistic means that evidently define indefatigable interest of linguists to a metaphor, especially to a zoometaphor. Among all living-beings only animals have particular habits, individual mode of life and type of behavior as human beings do. That is why the words, which name the animals, are widely used by people to represent picturesque description of the inner world of the man and peculiarities of his behavior. In addition, it is interesting for the linguists that the names of the same animals can often imply different qualities in different languages, giving people completely opposite characteristics. For instance, in the Russian language ―elephant symbolize a big, awkward man while for the Indian people it has entirely opposite meaning: the elephant is the symbol of gracefulness, grace of movements. The word ―tortoise in Russian is the symbol of slow movements, but Chinese people use this word to denote an unfaithful wife. Some names of animals have stable picturesque content in one language and do not in another one. Thus, Arabian people compare a beautiful woman with female camel, and for Frenchmen the camel is the symbol of stubbornness or maliciousness. Zoomorphic cultural code allows revealing symbolic systems of national culture, constitutes a considerable part of national linguistic sense and embodies original features of nation‘s culture revealing its specific character of perception of the world. Zoomorphisms are associated with the cultural-national standards, stereotypes that represent the mentality characteristic of a particular culture. Animalisms compose the significant component of the word-stock of any language and they are widely used almost in all existing languages in the character of picturesque description of a man. Phraseological units with names of animals serve as a source of metaphorical word combinations and have the connotative potential. Animalistic phraseologisms reflect the centuries-old observations of a man over animals‘ appearance and behavior, they convey the human‘s attitude towards animals and, thus, they serve as a cultural-informational stock in each language. Phraseologisms with names of animals reflect: – physical qualities, possibilities: сильный( выносливый) каклошадь; слабыйкакцыпленок; зоркийкакрысь; ловкийкакобезьяна; нюхкакусобаки and others; – appearance: черныйкакворон; осинаяталия; толстыйкакборов; – psychical qualities (character features):упрямыйкакосел; уперсякакбаран; задиристкакпетух; назойливкакмуха and others; Comparative study of zoonyms of different lingual and cultural communities can enrich the system of lexis revealing interrelation between tendencies of development of national culture and national language; solution of adjacent problems attached to them advances the theory of linguistic conceptualization, which raises explanatory force of philological knowledge.

A. V. Kunin classifies the following ways of translation of phraseological units: 1.Complete equivalent; 2.Partial equivalent (partial lexical translation; partial grammatical translation); 3.Contextual replacement; 4.Descriptive translation; 5.Literal translation;

I. Complete equivalents: 109 as free as a bird – «свободный как птица»; as cunning as a fox – «хитрый как лиса»;

II. Partial equivalents: – partial lexical equivalent. – as flies to sugar – «как мухи на мед» – kill the goose that lays the golden eggs – «убить курицу, несущую золотые яйца» and some proverbs: – one swallow does not make a summer – «одна ласточка весны не делает», – partial grammatical equivalent. Divergence in number: – fish in troubled waters – «ловить рыбу в мутной воде»; Divergence in word order: – a hungry fox dreams about chicken – «голодной лисе все куры снятся».

IV. Contextual  substitution: That cat won‘t fight is translated as ― этот номер не пройдет, не в этом дело, but this translation should be substituted with «contextual» translation in the following passage: ― First, I thought I‘d leave France. But the governor would say, ― Hello, here didn‘t see anything in France?! That cat won‘t fight, you know (M.Twain, The Innocent Abroad) – Сперва я думал уехать из Франции, но отец мне говорил – послушай, ты так ничего и не увидел во Франции, это, знаешь, никуда не годится.

V. Descriptive translation – the translation of the phraseological unit with the help of free word combination. 1) She didn‘t give you a lot of horse manure about what a great guy her father was. (J.Salinger ― The Catcher In The Rye).

In conclusion, we can say that a comparative study of zoomorphisms and lexical units derived from them are important today with increasing intercultural and inter lingual communication.

References:

1. Кунин А.В. Англо-русский фразеологический словарь. М.1967.
2. Кунин А.В. О переводе английских фразеологизмов в англо-русском фразеологическом словаре. Тетради  переводчика. М.,1964№2.
3. Кунин А.В. Английская фразеология. М.,1970.
4. M.Twain, “The Innocent Abroad”. М.,1869/
5. J.Salinger “The Catcher In The Rye”М., July 16, 1951.