The Specifics of Color Designation in Legal Discourse (Based on the Material of English and Russian Phraseological Units)

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to clarify the specifics of the phraseological representation of legal concepts that have colour elements in their composition in the English and Russian legal discourse. The subject of the study is phraseological units with colour designation in English and Russian, used in legal texts. By studying the phraseological fund of the language, the general and specific features of the worldview of representatives of the compared linguistic cultures are clarified. The application of the means of colour designation in the phraseological component of the legal discourse contributes to the establishment of the peculiarities of the national-cultural mentality. The following methods were used in the course of the study: classification method, semantic method, modeling, quantitative method of processing the results obtained. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the study of legal phraseological units with a colour component that have not previously been considered when comparing English and Russian. As a result of the work carried out, we received information for the first time that the system of colour designation in the transmission of English legal concepts by metaphorical or metonymic transfer is much more developed than similar phraseological units in the Russian language. This phenomenon is explained by the development and stability of the common law system based on the principle of historicism and continuity, as well as the possibility of fixing the figurative perception of legal concepts in formal legal discourse. A significant part of the examples selected for the study demonstrates psycholinguistic patterns in their formation and functioning in language, and more specifically, in legal texts.