Biblical Phraseological Units with an Anthroponym in Modern Media Texts

Abstract

The features of the use of biblical phraseological units with an anthroponym component in modern media texts presented in the newspaper corpus of the National Corpus of the Russian language are considered. The relevance of the study is due to the fact that it can contribute to the accumulation of knowledge about the specifics of functioning in the modern media discourse of linguistic units that accumulate cultural meanings. The frequency of use and features of the structural-semantic derivation of phraseological units of biblical origin in newspaper texts of recent times are analyzed. The performed analysis replenishes linguistic data on the mechanisms of operating with phraseological material. The most frequent biblical phraseological units with an anthroponymic component in newspaper texts are revealed. It is shown that the most characteristic semantic transformation of the studied units is the development of phraseological meaning due to the highlighting of the seme, which is not included in the meaning of the expression. Among other semantic changes, literalization and simplification of the phrase values were also noted. It was found that the leading method of structural transformation of biblical phraseological units is the expansion of the component composition. It is concluded that the transformation of phraseological units in media texts is associated with the need to strengthen the impact on the reader, increase the intensity of the expression transmitted in the utterance, update the figurativeness of the phraseological unit and overcome its tendency to cliché.

Keywords

• media text
• biblical phraseologism
• phraseological unit
• anthroponym