IDIOMS WITH THE SEMANTICS OF VIOLENCE IN THE MODERN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract

Purpose. The problem of violence is one of the most acute issues in modern society. Ukrainian and foreign linguists are justbeginning to take interest in how violence is reflected in the world languages. In modern linguistics there are several researchesdevoted to certain lexical and semantic groups of violence vocabulary, verbal violence in the socio-psychological aspect, invectivesin periodicals and professional communication, etc. However, little attention is paid to the violence idioms. The purpose of the paperPROPOSED is to analyse English idioms with the semantics of violence from different aspects. allowed determining their lexical,semantic, structural, and grammatical features.

Methods. The following scientific methods were used for the analysis of about 80 violence idioms: descriptive method, component,semantic, distributive, and transformational analyses.

Results. All selected idioms fall into 2 groups: ones denoting acts of physical and psychological (verbal) violence. From the pointof view of participants of the outrageous act such language units are divided into those that are semantically related to the abuser,and those that are related to the victim of violence. Some of the analyzed idioms can be varied, thus, their several equivalents canbe found in the modern English language. Regarding their structural and grammatical features the studied idioms fall into verbaland nominal ones. There are a few communicative phraseological units among the idioms under the investigation. Somatisms as well as coloronyms and zoonyms are the components of the analyzed linguistic units. The article presents the history of the origin and explainsthe semantics development of some idioms, as well as explains the role of phraseological units of violence in the word-forming systemof the modern English language.

Conclusions. Violence idioms take an important place in the English linguistic world view. There are certain patterns of theirfunctioning in the modern English language. Further scientific researches in this area can be useful for deeper understanding violenceas a social phenomenon and can help reduce its level in the world.