The peculiarities of functioning of the lexical semantic field “Metal” in English proverbs

Abstract

The article dwells on the analysis of the functioning of the lexical-semantic field “Metal” in the naïve picture of the world, namely on the material of English proverbs. The notion of “the naïve picture of the world” has been determined and the constituents of the given field and the peculiarities of their direct and transferred usage and connotation have been analyzed. In the given paper, analyzing the functioning of the constituents of the lexicalsemantic field “Metal”, we have made an attempt to research such side of language as folk art. The choice of the material of the investigation is conditioned by the fact that proverbs typify different phenomena of life, being anthropocentric, they establish the experience piled up by the centuries, reflect culture, the way of life and the values of ethnos. Having analyzed eleven English proverbs, first of all it is necessary to note their anthropocentric directivity. Most of them are employed to depict the peculiarities of humans’ characters. Four of the analyzed proverbs express advice; three of them signify encouragement; two proverbs convey admonition and two voice condemnation. The investigation of the constituents of the lexicalsemantic field “Metal” has pointed out that most of them are employed in transferred meaning, having metaphor in their composition. Due to the exploration of all metal nominations on the given material, we managed to define the following paradigms of the humans’ attitude to the metal: 1. The paradigm of the positive attitude, where all the names of the metal are employed with positive connotation and are associated with nobility and preciousness. 2. The paradigm of negative attitude, associated with pejoratively connotated nominations of metal, manifesting craftiness and cowardice.

Keywords

• наївна картина світу
• конституент
• парадигма
• прислів’я