engleski

Motivation of Idioms in English and Russian Folk Tales

This master’s thesis studies the motivation of idioms found in English and Russian folk tales. The main aim of the thesis is to examine the semantic characteristics of idioms and their relation to motivational mechanisms, such as conceptual metaphor, conceptual metonymy, conventional knowledge, symbol-based motivation, gestures and textual dependence. Above all, the study relies on the cognitive linguistic claim that our mind is inherently embodied and that meaning arises from our more general knowledge of the world embodied in our conceptual system. The analysis of idioms found in folk tales tries to show how embodiment affects and shapes people’s understanding of the meaning of linguistic expressions, furthermore it helps us see if real etymology is important when it comes to idiom motivation. The analysis also points out special cases of idiom motivation (gestures and textual dependence).

idioms ; cognitive linguistics ; idiom motivation ; conceptual metaphor ; conceptual metonymy ; etymology

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