Symbolic motivation as one way of displaying culture in language (showcased by French neophraseologisms)
Abstract
This article elucidates the role of symbolic motivation in the creation of the neo-phraseological stock of the French language, which reflects the connection of language units with the culture, history and mentality of its speakers. The author refines the concept of a symbol, which she defines as a sign conveying important information about the specificity of perceiving the world in a certain linguoculture. Among the linguistic symbols that serve as a product and source of culture for the ethno-linguistic community, phraseologisms occupy an important place. After all, they contain a set of features of the cultural stock of a certain ethnic group, verbally represent the universal and national-cultural conceptual image of linguistic consciousness. Analyzing the images and symbols contained in the meaning of the French adjective vert, which is a common component of phraseological units, the author proves that in the course of the development of the French-speaking society, together with its language, the symbol can take on new meanings and serve as the basis for emergence of new collocations. A detailed study of the neophraseologisms of modern French that are underpinned by symbolic motivation has shown that they reflect different associative links with the objects, phenomena and concepts of the surrounding reality of the French socium. In particular, we bear in mind chromatomorphic, substancemorphic, anthropomorphic, floromorphic, naturomorphic, chronomorphic associations. As a result, the author states that the symbol exists in the collective consciousness of the French ethnic group, reveals its content due to the action of many linguistic and non-linguistic factors that determine its understanding by all members of a particular society. Awareness of the nature of the close interconnection and interdependence of the linguistic and cultural spheres, makes it possible to bring to light manifestations of culture in language and the motivation of its senses in linguistic units, as well as specific spheres of language use in which it captures the achievements of culture.
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