THE IMAGE OF FOOD IN THE MIRROR OF ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN PHRASEOLOGY Article 1.

Abstract

This article begins a series of publications devoted to the phraseological presentation of the image of food in English and Ukrainian. From the phraseological dictionaries of each language, a general sample of idioms that implement certain cognitive models was singled out. The models are: (a) SOMEONE CONSUMES SOMETHING (SOMEHOW) and (b) SOMEONE FEEDS SOMETHING (TO SOMEONE). In this article, the phraseological units (FU) are subjected to comparative analysis of the central component of both models (a, b) SOMETHING, i.e. we consider how the food component is verbalized: (a) what is consumed (eaten or drunk) and (b) what is fed, treated to in the phraseological units of two unrelated languages. Corresponding FUs form a partial sample of 380 English and 538 Ukrainian idioms. Depending on their basic element, all FUs are grouped into clusters. Nominal units (NU), which name this or that consumed product, are the basic elements of idioms. The samples comprise: 110 English and 98 Ukrainian clusters. All clusters are divided into frequency zones depending on the number of FUs for each specific NU. The high-frequency zone contains 10 English-language NUs used in 81 FUs and 13 Ukrainian NUs used in 171 FUs. The medium frequency zone comprises 35 English NUs (89 FUs) and 33 Ukrainian NUs (117 FUs), the largest is the low-frequency zone of 65 English NUs (as many FUs) and 52 Ukrainian NUs (as many FUs). Comparative analysis has shown that the use of equivalent NUs in the two analyzed languages rarely results in equivalent FUs, discrepancies exist in the figurative, evaluative areas as well as in the NU's productivity. The article proposes a new concept of endemic NU, which implies nominative units present in one sample of phraseology to denote food and absent in the sample of the other language. The analysis, comparison and linguo-cultural description of the considered phraseological units are performed mainly on the material of high-frequency zones of both samples.