Phraseological paradox from the cognitive linguistics approach

In this article the paradox is seen as a language game. The use of a phraseological paradox is usually accompanied by a comic effect. The desire to laugh is connected with a certain speech strategic purpose of communicators. Optionality of this goal appears to be the game essence of the paradox. The paradox as a part of speech influence is used in various communicative situations that require ascertaining the intentions of the communication partner without posing direct questions on the subject. Interrupting a discourse the paradox grasps thought and displays the absurdity into sharp focus, thus changing the topic of a conversation and replacing the moral contradiction by the paradoxical one. The paradox is able to defuse and destroy the barriers between people, reduce the distance between the communicators, thus facilitating the process of communication and giving it a casual informal character. This enables us to use the paradox as a means of conquering a communication partner, attracting and keeping one's attention. This article discusses phraseological paradoxes that are primarily demonstrations of game contexts of culture and language. Cognitive mechanisms of the formation of phraseological paradoxes in the English language are inextricably linked with value orientations and, in a broader sense, peculiarities of the linguistic picture of the world typical of the English and the Americans. The cognitive perspective of paradox perception habitually goes to the game, and through it to the outer effect. As a result, the interpreter is being misled. It is like being invited to the language game, to the non-serious perception of what was said. However, the introduction of deep meanings, contrasting and co-operating with game surface meanings, allows the speaker to use illocution which is aimed at the significant perlocutive effect under the impression of the game, play behavior. In such cases it is not quite correct to identify them as indirect speech acts (according to J. Searle). The impact of occasional phraseological paradoxes in such contexts is beyond a simple combination of two illocutions or other similar views on ways that regulate speech etiquette. The paradox appeals to "serious" themes and intentions, if the speaker puts units with the opposite meaning to the original extension into the context. The speaker, using the occasional paradox, increases the reliability of the chosen speech strategy. Demanding from the listener game interpretation pertaining to sociolinguistic norms, nevertheless it (the paradox) expresses strategic thoughts and thus deprives the listener of capabilities of adequate effective response, as the extension of the theme has already exhausted as a result of the use by the speaker of words or phrases with opposite meanings within the same statement.

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