Functioning of Idioms with the Component Air in Different Types of Discourse

The article represents the research of phraseological units of the Russian language which include the name of the element air in different types of discourse (literary, journalistic, educational and scientific). The aim of the article is to investigate the ways of revealing various images of the element air (being part of idioms) in different types of discourse. The text of the article includes an introduction, a main part and a conclusion. In the introduction, a brief review of linguistic studies devoted to investigations of the element air in different aspects is given, the specificity of the present article is defined, the aim and goals of the research are stated. The main part of the article includes the data of definition and ethnolinguistic dictionaries describing the element air; the list of all the selected idioms with the component air; the author's classification of these idioms depicting some characteristics of the element revealed in Russian language culture as idioms motivating images. This part of the article also includes the notion of the term discourse accepted in the article; stylistic features of literary, journalistic, educational and scientific texts representing the three analyzed types of discourse followed by the investigation results representing the particularities of functioning of three Russian idioms (word for word translation of them is: to shake the air, gently fly in the air, needed as air) in literary, journalistic, educational and scientific types of discourse. In the conclusion, the author summarizes the obtained results and provides the findings: 1. Idioms of the Russian language with the component air are divided into three main groups depicting some characteristics of the element in Russian language culture as idioms motivating images, such as environment covering the Earth; substance with no colour, shape, smell; substance which is vital for the life of people. 2. The biggest number of contexts with idioms was found in journalistic discourse, the smallest in educational and scientific discourse which is obvious taking into consideration the stylistic features of texts representing the analyzed discourse types. 3. The particularities of functioning of the three Russian idioms in the analyzed types of discourse are: variations of the form of idioms in use; variations of the initial meaning of idioms; versatility of reference spheres of idioms in use. 4. Even though the differences in functioning of idioms in the three types of discourse are not very prominent, they represent the dependence on the characteristics of the regarded types of discourse. In literary discourse, the use of idioms is determined by image structure and composition of the text. In journalistic discourse, idioms are mostly used individually to strengthen the effect of certain parts of the text on readers, to attract readers' attention to some author's ideas, thoughts, to some events, facts or information. In educational and scientific discourse, the use of idioms is highly limited.

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