REFLECTION OF SENSE PERCEPTION IN ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGY

Abstract

The research is carried out within the framework of cognitive linguistics. It is devoted to the problem of interrelation between the complex process of sense perception and human language. Its aim is to identify how perception features are represented in English phraseological units. The study focuses on English set expressions with verbs of sense perception or nouns denoting sensory organs. As viewed in the English phraseological system, sense perception appears to be an active process with specific features. Analysis shows that set phrases reflect the most essential properties of perception singled out in psychology: objectness, integrity, selectivity and meaningfulness. English phraseological units also contain the information about perception that is more likely to refer to the naïve worldview: ability to perceive, clarity, attention, duration and direction of perception. It demonstrates that language serves all spheres of human life, regardless of whether they are connected with scientific or non-scientific knowledge. The appeal to perception features clarifies the transformation of phraseological prototypes into stable phrases with fully or partially transferred meaning. Before phraseological semantics develops, sensory physical experience should undergo cognitive processing to be applied to abstract situations. Studying the manifestation of sense perception in language units helps to clarify the complex interconnection between language and cognition.

Keywords

• когниция
• чувственное восприятие
• фразеологические единицы
• фразеологическое значение
• английский язык
• cognition
• sense perception
• phraseological units
• phraseological meaning
• the english language