UNITED IN DIVERSITY: CULTURAL AND COGNITIVE GROUNDS FOR WIDESPREAD PHRASEOLOGISMS

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Phraseologisms, most colourful and expressive lexical units, have been thoroughly studied since the introduction of the term phraseology by a prominent Swiss scholar Ch. Bally at the early twentieth century. An excellent exploration of structural, semantic and functional types of set expressions was provided by A. Kunin, Ye. Polivanov, V. Vinogradov, and later extended by I. Mel’chuk. Their works remain a valuable theoretical source for well-established and new scientists. The interest in various aspects of phraseology is still growing and demonstrating a shift to multidisciplinary perspective: anthropological, crosslinguistic, cognitive, and pragmatic-discursive approaches. It seems that there is a consensus among modern scientists about the notion of phraseology as a wide range of multi-component, structurally stable and semantically indivisible figurative expressions that transfer important cultural concepts from generation to generation. That is why a number of