Pecularities of translation into Ukrainian of English phraseological units in the texts of literary discourse

d)adverbial multi-top units, e.g. every other day, against the grain ‒ не по душі, to have all one’s eggs in one basket ‒ вийти переможцем.

Phraseological units are neutral, non‒metaphorical when compared to idioms: fall asleep, get up, to take to drinking. Idioms are metaphoric, stylistically coloured: to take the bull by the horns, to beat about the bush, to bark up the wrong, tree to cherish/warm a viper in one’s bosom. 

Prof. Koonin’s classification is based on the function of the phraseological unit in communication. Phraseological units are classified into: nominative, nominative-communicative, interjectional, communicative.

1. Nominative phraseological units are units denoting objects, phenomena, actions, states, qualities. They can be:

a) substantive – a snake in the grass (підколодна змія), a bitter pill to swallow;

b) adjectival – long in the tooth (старий);

c) adverbial – out of a blue sky, as quick as a flash(швидкий як блискавка);

d) prepositional – with an eye to (з наміром), at the head of.

2. Nominative-communicative units contain a verb: to dance on a volcano, to set the Thames on fire (зробити щось незвичайне), to know which side one's bread is buttered(знати, звідки віє вітер, бути собі на умі), to make (someone) turn (over) in his grave, to put the hat on smb’s misery (на додачу до всіх його бід).

3. Interjectional phraseological units express the speaker’s emotions and attitude to things: A pretty kettle of fish! (от тобі й на! оце так справа!), Good God! God damn it! Like hell!

4. Communicative phraseological units are represented by provebs (An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening; Never say “never”) and sayings. Sayings, unlike provebs, are not evaluative and didactic: That’s another pair of shoes! It’s a small world.

 

 

The idea that phraseology has the right to exist as a separate linguistic discipline was first put forward by Kunin. He also introduced the term phraseological stylistics to denote the study of stylistic properties of phraseological units (1969: 71–75). Kunin viewed phraseological stylistics as part of both general stylistics and phraseology. He developed his ideas of stylistic use of PUs in his subsequent works (Kunin 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1983). In Russia, stylistic studies of phraseology have flourished after Kunin (1964) (see, for example, Boldireva 1967; Sviridova 1968; Shadrin 1969; Naciscione 1976; Danchenko 1977; Zhantlesova 1978; Melerovich 1982; Moshiashvili 1982; Dubinsky 1985). This trend also continues today (see, for example, Ryzhkina 2003).

In Western Europe, scholarly interest in phraseology and in stylistic use of phraseological units in particular developed much later (Cowie [1998] 2001). Following Kunin, Gläser (1986) voices a plea for phraseo-stylistics as a subject of stylistic description in its own right to study the communicative effects of phraseological units and their occasional, individual modifications. Further studies are also devoted to the stylistic potential of phraseological units in text (Cowie [1998] 200; Gläser [1998] 2001). Research on stylistic changes of phraseological units in text has recently been on the increase; for instance, Sabban offers a thorough analysis of occasional variations of French and German phraseology in use, (1998), and explores the text-building potential of phraseological units in discourse (2007). Various types and genres of texts have attracted much attention, including media texts and advertisements (for example, Sabban 1998; Gläser [1998] 2001; Burger 1999, 2008). Traditionally, many lexicographers and textbook authors have tended fully or partly to ignore or overlook non-standard forms of phraseological units. A closer look at dictionaries of idioms, as they are commonly called, reveals a widely differing treatment of phraseological units. One is no reflection of the stylistic use of phraseological units of any type, that is, complete absence of any stylistic changes in the recorded examples. The illustrations supplied after the phraseological units are perfectly standard with a one-to-one correspondence to the headphrase of the entry (except for minor grammatical changes necessary to introduce the into context and which are not stylistically relevant), for example, McMordie ([1905]1971), Wykeham (1936), Hackenberg (1964), Longman Dictionary of English Idioms(1979), Chambers English Idioms ([1982] 1995), The Penguin Dictionary of English Idioms ([1986] 1994), Chambers Dictionary of Idioms and Catch Phrases(1995). The dictionary includes PUs, set phrases, and quotations, which are qualified as over-used and tired expressions. Moreover, as the author states in her theoretical introduction, she has tried “to find good, clear usages”, which means – no stylistic use.