Contrastive Imagery Gradation in Forming Opposite Phraseological Semantics

The article focuses on the research conducted in the frames of a cognitive approach to studying linguistic phenomena. The main aim of the research is to devise and apply a method of cognitive analysis of mechanisms underlying opposite phraseological meaning creation in order to investigate the peculiarities of contrastive imagery. Phraseological units possess quite an extensive meaning and represent both language and cognition. The traditional division of contrastive phraseological imagery into incomparable and comparable does not reflect the complexity of meaning structuring. The investigation into semantic formation mechanisms of antonymic phraseological units can reveal the characteristics of contrastive perception of English language speakers and the features of the transposition of the opposition phenomenon into the language. The analysis was based on the opposition of concepts 'success-failure' and phraseological units representing them. The phraseological units were selected through a continuous sampling method from idiomatic dictionaries. During the systematisation of the selected material through the semantic field approach, the phraseological units were distributed into oppositional thematic groups that stand for oppositional conceptual features of concepts under analysis. The author develops a method of cognitive analysis of opposite phraseological semantics formation basis. Through the schematic division, contrastive phraseological imagery is considered as a multilayer formation including: (1) oppositional conceptual schemes that represent conceptual models of source and target domain transitions producing metaphorical meanings; (2) images borrowed from particular conceptual domains; (3) verbal means representing these images. Special attention is paid to the layer intercorrelation process in forming contrastive imagery underlying opposite meanings. The peculiarities of contrastive imagery are illustrated by examples of binary oppositions which include only two opposing elements and synonymic-antonymic groups which consist of two opposing synonymic groupings the members of which form one or more antonymic pairs. The main criterion of determining the an-tonymic relationship between the phraseological units was the presence of common and opposing elements in their meanings. Phraseological antonyms were identified in two ways: on the basis of oppositional conceptual schemes and on the basis of thematic groups without considering the conceptual schemes of phraseological units. The results of the research reveal that opposite meaning formation incorporates multiple abstract layers that structure and shape the mental processing of contrastive image before it finds its verbal embodiment. Besides, the analysis shows the presence of contrastive image gradation, namely its level of vividness that depends on the complexity and the number of elements involved in opposite meaning formation.

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