The parallel phraseological units in a contrastive analysis

Joanna Szerszunowicz

Uniwersytet w Białymstoku

Abstract

The paper presents the phenomenon of the existence of parallel phraseological units in two or more languages, i.e. the units, which are realizations of one semantic model with possible lexical changes. Therefore, parallel units differ from the international ones, whose components are identical in numerous languages. The sources of such units are listed, among which the most important are the Bibie and Creek mythology as well as the ancient culture, common customs and practices, certain superstitions and common misconceptions, literary masterpieces, the world history. The reflection of national and local colour in particular realizations of a given semantic model is presented as relevant to the analyses of the phenomenon of parallel phraseology. The problem of false parallel phraseological units is briefly discussed in the paper. The loan phraseological units are presented as parallel units in a contrastive perspective. The studies on parallel phraseological units are of importance both for theoretical and practical reasons, since apart from contributing to the finding of typological linguistics, the results of such analyses can be exploited in foreign language teaching, phraseography and translation studies.

Keywords:

frazeologizm, językoznawstwo kontrastywne, paralelizm, internacjonalizm