Comparative Constructions with Images of Flowers in Modern Russian Prose

Abstract

The subject of study are comparative constructions (metaphors and similes) which include the names of flowers. The material for the study is the texts of modern Russian prose, as well as contexts extracted from the Russian National Corpus. The purpose of the paper is to analyze these constructions in comparison with the tropes of the previous period. The images of comparison, the objects of comparison and the bases for comparison of comparative tropes have been considered, their semantic classification is presented. In the course of the study, the following conclusions were drawn: images of flowers are not as productive in modern prose as compared to other semantic classes of images of comparison, such as classes of zoonyms and names of artifacts; at the same time, they form a significant fragment of the metaphorical world image in modern prose. New elements appear in the composition of metaphors and similes with images of flowers, the range of objects of comparison is also expanding. In modern prose, traditional metaphorical models are preserved, but they are rethought and their character is partially changed. The use of flower images in modern texts is predominantly anthropocentric with an emphasis on the human bodily plane, which distinguishes them from functioning in the previous period. Modern prose is characterized by a tendency to lower the image when using the considered comparative tropes. Comparative constructions with images of flowers act in modern texts in various functions: a function of figurative characteristics of various objects, an evaluative function, and, more rarely, an intertextual one.