VI Международная студенческая научная конференция Студенческий научный форум - 2014

On stability of Phraseological units. there is a rare unanimity of the vast majority of researchers who consider that stability of phraseological units is shown in their reproducibility in finished form.

The traditional understanding of stability is based on Ferdinand de Saussure's statement though he himself did not use the term 'stability'.

"The most characteristic property of the speech is freedom of a combination; it is necessary to raise, therefore, a question, whether all the syntagmas are equally free. First of all we meet a huge number of the expressions relating certainly to language; these are those quite ready set phrases in which the custom prohibits something to change even in case it is possible, having thought, to distinguish in them significant parts. Approximately the same though to a lesser extent, treats such expressions how 'to booze', 'take aim', 'carelessly' or as thanks to that…', 'in spite of the fact that...', 'as for... ', etc. Their usual (fixed by language custom) character appears from features of their value or their syntax. Such set expressions cannot be improvised; they are transferred ready by tradition" [Saussure 1993: 122].

Otto Espersen who in the works [Jespersen, 1933: 18] emphasized adheres to the same point of view underlines also that free expressions (variable expressions) each time are created in the speech on a certain sample (pattern), and steady verbal groups at a certain stage of language are not created again, and used in a ready-made form.

The treatment of phraseological units suggested by Ferdinand de Saussure and Otto Espersen, was a big step forward for the time and was the new word in the theory of steady combinations of words.

However it should be noted that the understanding of stability as 'reproducibility in a ready-made form' refers not only to phraseological units, but also to all other units of the language. In the majority of works on phraseology the traditional understanding of stability is considered axiomatic. The similar understanding of stability is incomplete as it fixes only that fact that this verbal group is a language unit whereas for more exact understanding of stability it is not less important to establish as the similar combination of words functions in the speech that quite often brings an essential amendment in understanding of its stability. It is essential, for example, at separation of phraseological units from individual expressions and author's quotes.

The traditional understanding of stability does not reflect specifics of phraseological units of this or that language either in structural, or in the semantic plan and does not give the chance to establish various degrees of stability of verbal groups and to allocate categories, intermediate between phraseological units and variable combinations of words or compound words that, in its turn, complicates the establishment of borders of phraseology in this or that language.

As A.I. Smirnitsky correctly specifies, it is necessary to allocate various cases of reproducibility: reproducibility of verses, formulas, etc., having nature of citing, deliberate repetition, and reproducibility of units of the language, not having nature of citing; these units are applied and reproduced as essentially not having the author, as the general property of the people which is inseparably linked with it [Smirnitsky, 1956: 229]. In view of various nature of reproducibility verses, mathematical formulas, physical laws, etc., not being elements of dictionary structure of language, no matter how often they are repeated, they cannot become phraseological units. It is fully fair and concerning habitual phrases which can be reproduced in a ready-made form.

Phraseological units are steady not because they are reproduced in a ready-made form, and, on the contrary, they are reproduced in a ready-made form because are steady word combinations.

It is true as far as words are concerned. Thus, specifics of stability of phraseological units and words define nature of their reproducibility in a ready-made form. Stability of phraseological units is created in speech, then it is fixed in the language, and then again it is realized in speech.

At reproducibility in a ready-made form both the grammatical model and its lexical filling belong to the language as A.V. Kunin puts it.

References

Kunin A.V. Angliyskaya frazeologia: Teoreticheskiy kurs. M., 1970.

Kunin A.V. Kurs frazeologii sovremennogo angliyskogo yazyka. M., 1996.

Fedulenkova T. A new approach to the clipping of communicative phraseological units // Ranam: European Society for the Study of English: ESSE 6 Strasbourg 2002 / Ed. P. Frath & M. Rissanen. Strasbourg: Université Marc Bloch, 2003. Vol. 36. P. 11-22.

Fedulenkova T. Idioms in Business English: Ways to Cross-cultural Awareness // Domain-specific English: textual practices across communities and classrooms / Giuseppina Cortese & Philip Riley (ed.). Bern; Berlin; Bruxelles; Frankfurt am Mein; New York; Oxford; Wien: Lang, 2002. P. 247-269.

Fedulenkova T. Isomorphism and Allomorphism of English, German and Swedish Phraseological Units Based on Metaphor // Phraseology 2005: The many faces of Phraseology: Proceedings of an interdisciplinary conference. Louvain-la-Neuve, 2005. P. 125-128.

Fedulenkova T. Odnomernye i dvumernye modeli v angliyskoi, nemetskoi i shvedskoi frazeologii: monografia. Arkhangelsk, 2006.

Fedulenkova T. Phraseological Units in Discourse: Towards Applied Stylistics by Anita Naciscione, 2001. Riga: Latvian Academy of Culture, pp. xi + 283, ISBN 9984 95 19 01 // Language and Literature. London, 2003, № 12 (1), p. 86-89.

Jespersen O. Essentials of English Grammar. London, 1933.

Saussure F. A Course of General Linguistics. M., 1993.

Smirnitsky A.I. Leksikologiya angliyskogo yazyka. M., 1956.

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