SEMANTIC, STRUCTURAL AND FUNCTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS IN BRITISH SONG DISCOURSE (BASED ON THE SONGS BY ADELE)

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine phraseology in the songs by the British singer and songwriter Adele. The phraseological expressions were analysed from the point of view of their structure, semantics, functions, and frequency. The results of the research revealed a high frequency of idioms in Adele’s songs, a wide range of idioms’ functions, including less common ones, such as ironic and ludic, the presence of all structural classes of idioms and the dominance of verbal expressions at the structural level. The study of the modification of idioms in Adele’s songs revealed two types of phraseological modification — reduction and lexical substitution.