OLD FOSSILS OR SILVER SURFERS: PHRASEOLOGICAL CONCEPTUALIZATION OF OLD AGE IN ENGLISH

INTRODUCTION The development of phraseology as a branch of linguistics is characterized by different stages, namely classical, postclassical and modern, each of them with their own priorities, such as structural (or formal), functional-semantic or anthropocentric respectively. Contemporary linguistics is marked with the dominance of the anthropocentric approach which lays emphasis on the study of phraseological units as verbal means used to conceptualize the language world view, e.g. Benczes (2002), Selivanova (2004), etc. According to Selivanova, modern phraseology as a discipline aims, among other goals, at the study of the interaction between phraseological units, on the one hand, and the conceptual structures, the mechanisms of cognition, stereotypical views on the people and their inner reflective experience expressed by these units, on the other hand. This predetermines the topicality of this paper which aims to investigate the conceptualization of OLD AGE by means of English phraseological units selected from contemporary lexicographical sources. Phraseological units can serve as an important source of information about the people, their culture and mentality. Being concise in their form, they include knowledge about the world order and person’s inner world, encoding the system of ethical and moral norms. Moreover, they constitute an important part of the philosophy of life, regulating the norms of behavior in society. In linguistics, it has been stated that there seems to be a correlation between phraseological units and native speakers’ background knowledge, their historical and cultural traditions. Maslova believes that phraseological units describe those features which are commonly associated with certain world view and reflect speakers’ attitude to objects and phenomena, as well as evaluate them. A large number of cognitive