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Каскатаева Ж.А.1, Омарова Г.Н.2 ©
1 2
, Старший преподаватель кафедры иностранных языков Карагандинского государственного
университета имени Е. А.Букетова
ENGLISH IDIOMS WITH PROPER NAME IN SEMIOTIC ASPECT
Summary
The article deals with the semiotic status of proper name in English idioms. The main directions of contextualization in terms of discourse are determined. Idiomatic contexts with proper names are considered as mythological discourse components. Idioms with proper name are originated in its mythological function in pan-chronic discourses. Due to the fact, any idiom is the possessor of concise illocution. In the given article the terms phraseologism and idiom are considered as fully interchangeable.
Keywords: English idiom, phraseologies, mythological discourse, proper name, anthroponym, semiotic status, cognitive center, categorization, taxis relationships, symbolic meaning, sign, symbol.
The aim of the given article is to determine the semiotic status of a proper name, anthroponym in particular, in English idioms. This goal involves the following objectives: to determine the main direction of proper name contextualization (PN) in discourse, stating proper name as cognitive center of English idioms, to formulate the principles of interaction between the idiom and its context in cognitive and semiotic perspectives. The theme topicality is deter-mined by a new approach in the interpretation of idiomatic context with proper name, which is considered to be a symbol of mythological discourse.
Research methods: phraseological identification, comparison, analysis.
The anthropological linguistics initial thesis is a claim that language is a constitutive property of a human being. Hence, it is impossible to learn a language in itself, not go-ing beyond its limits, without contacting its creator — a person. However, a person without a name does not exist in the world. The name is as old as a person himself. Modern scholars are unanimous in view that proper name content, anthroponym, in particular, is determined not by formal but its content characteristics, due to the fact that senseless and meaningless names don't exist in their genesis.
The peculiarity of proper name in free use dictates the urgent need to study its functioning characteristics in idioms, such as: the patience of Job, Augean stables, a Judas kiss, as old as Methuselah, Bacchus has drowned more men than Neptune, a Roland for an Oliver, the sword of Damocles, and gives a basis for the idiom with proper name segregation into a special group.
As a rule, the Bible, historical events, literature are the sources of idioms with proper name formation. Hence, it is possible to assume that proper name, being a repository of knowledge, contains an action, a small history fragment. To prove it, one example, taken from an article by B. Shaw, which contains the idiom Jack the Ripper is illustrated. In the extract, the author has a discussion about the work of Zola and Victor Hugo.
As an example of how to cater for such readers, we may take Zola's Bete Humaine. It is in all its essentials a simple and touching story, like Prevost's Manon Lescaut. But into it Zola has violently thrust the greatest police sensation of the XIX cen-tury: the episode of Jack the Ripper. Jack's hideous neurosis is no more a part of human nature that Caesar's epilepsy or Glad-stone's missing finger. One is tempted to accuse Zola of having borrowed it from the newspapers to please his customers just as Shakespear used to borrow stories of murder and jealousy from the tales and chronicles of his time [1,128].
The idiom Jack the Ripper is based on the definite historical information about a personality, Jack by name, who lived in London and killed many women. The events, happened in the 1888,
© Каскатаева Ж. А., Омарова Г.Н., 2016 г.
were officially recorded. Since that time, Jack the Ripper is a nickname assigned to a serial killer who brutally murdered an incredible number of girls in the slums of London.
For further analysis, it is necessary to agree on the meaning of the terms "discourse", "text", and "context". In this article, the point of view of T. van Diyk and B. Kintch in the field of discourse and text is taken as the basis [2,64]. According to their approach, discourse is a broad and universal linguistic object, covering not only the linguistic structure of the speech product, but also the typical parameters of the communicative situation, a strategy of creating communication. In contrast to the discourse, text, by T. van Dijk, is more specific and narrow phenomenon, which doesn't go beyond the actual structural and semantic parameters of speech fragment. In speech activity, communicants, depending on their role at a certain point, can move in both directions: from the discourse to the text, and vice versa. The first way is search for linguistic means to express the information that speaker/writer is going to tell the listener/reader, i. e. from the discourse to the text. The second way is listener /reader's action. To penetrate deeper into the meaning of a particular text, the interpreter derives the information from "o'ertext" discourse. Discourse gives an idea about things or people, their properties and relations, about events or actions i. e. a fragment of the world, which is named "situation".
A detailed excursus into the mentioned above theory has been done to state that one of the results of text understanding is its meaning representation in episodic memory in the form of text base. Retracing to the given above example with the English idiom Jack the Ripper, we can conclude that in people's memory, the name Jack together with the word the ripper in the given word-combination will always be referred to a definite person, Jack, in connection with fixed negative information which describes cruelty of a woman hater, once lived in London. The anthroponym Jack in the word-combination is that element of the idiom that implies a set of unchanged attributes like cruelty, callousness, ruthlessness. Without a doubt, the proper name Jack in the idiom Jack the Ripper has its prototype.
In the extract from the "History of England" by Trevelyan G. M., the reader's attention is focused on the idiom Augean stables in the context of a historical reference. Outwardly, the use of the idiom is inappropriate. However, under more careful analysis, one can observe the author's intention aimed to show the importance and complexity of Burke's economic reform, firstly, and secondly, the state of affairs during the time of Walpole and George III. The use of the idiom Augean stables, which is a symbol of neglect, contaminated place, helps readers to understand a true situation in the government of Britain in 1782, specifically: excessive welfare of some leaders of the sinecures, bribes received by members of the Parliament to lobby personal interests of minority. In the idiom Augean stables the "move" from denotative meaning to the predicative one is implemented. In other words, the meaning is fixed at the level of axiology (Eternal World) [3,367], a characteristic feature of which is a complete lack of taxis relations, which, in turn, is the main feature of a mythological semiotics, obtaining by proper name. The symbol in the given example (dirty place) is not just a sign of some events, but it contains the generalized principle of further disclosure of implied semantic content, the deplorable state of affairs in the parliament, exactly. A symbol is a common generating unit, i. e. autonomous semantic system "programmed" for some new origin of multiplicity of personal meanings, subordinated to the symbol integrity.
To confirm the affirmation of symbolic nature of anthroponym, incorporated in idiom, a number of examples with English idiom Every Tom, Dick and Harry are considered.
Every Tom, Dick and Harry — any person:
a) I'm not going out with any Tom, Dick or Harry. If Ronald doesn't invite me, I won't go out at all [4, 153].
b) If we were to listen to the half -baked ideas of every Tom, Dick and Harry you know what we'd have? I'll tell you. Anarchy .
c) As for qualified guides here, there is no legislation for giving them a licence, so that any Tom, Dick or Harry can work as a guide and give not only wrong information, but cause further chaos by not knowing his way about [5, 621].
Conclusion
1. Proper name in idioms, anthroponym in particular, is a symbol.
2. In English idioms with proper names the symbolic nature of anthroponym is expressed by inner predication.
3. Proper name in idioms is a single, unique predicate because of its semiotic status. The essence of the latter is that the idiom is endowed with the properties of symbolism on the one hand, and the predication, on the other.
4. From the perspective of semiotic relations that is an unusual combination, as normally, symbol is a name with "undeveloped" syntax but with great pragmatic significance. The predicate, on the contrary, has high mobility, "cosmopolitan-ism" in relation to nominal semantic units.
5. The semiotic status can be fixed by special context, which helps to reproduce the main features of the prototypical situation. Thus, an idiom with anthroponym can be interpreted adequately only in the context of discourse.
References
1. Shaw G. B. Selection from Shaw: A Fearless Champion of the Truth. - М.: Progress, 1977. - 420 p.
2. Dijk T. A. van. Discourse as Structure and Process.//Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. - Vol.1. - Lon-don: Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2000. - 308 p.
3. Trevelyan G. M. History of England. - London: Longmans, Green and CO. LTD, 1926. - 723 p.
4. Gulland M., Hinds-Howell G. Dictionary of English idioms. - London: Penguin Books, 1994. - 420 p.
5. Oxford English Dictionary. - Oxford: Univ. Press, 1984. - 769 p.
