Phraseological units with colourative components in different varieties of the English language and specificity of their distribution across various lexico-semantic fields
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.33910/2686-830X-2025-7-2-67-74Mots-clés :
English language, phraseology, varieties of World Englishes, colouratives, Australia, Singapore, ChinaRésumé
This article examines phraseological units with colourative components in different varieties of the English language. Our research is based on the Three Circle model of English proposed by Braj Kachru. According to his theory, all countries can be divided into three groups depending on the functional status of English: countries where English is the official and primary language, countries where it has the status of one of the official languages, and countries where English is learnt as a foreign language. Three representative countries were selected for comparative analysis, each representing a separate circle in Braj Kachru’s model. Phraseological units collected in these variants of English served as the material for the study. We classified phraseological units by semantic fields, then identified the dominant directions inherent in each variety and compared the results. The obtained results were compared with each other. Based on the analysis, we can conclude that in countries where English is the first and main language (Australia — Inner Circle country) or one of the official languages (Singapore — Outer Circle country), phraseological units often serve as a marker of public sentiment and manifest the most urgent problems at a given period of time. In an Expanding Circle country where English is studied as a foreign language (China), phraseological units with colourative components primarily serve as a tool for transmitting their culture and history to the outside world, rather than as markers of social attitudes (this function remains the prerogative of the national language).
Références
ЛИТЕРАТУРА
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Smith, L. E., Nelson, C. L. (1985) International intelligibility of English: Directions and resources. World Englishes, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 333–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1985.tb00423.x
SOURCES
NOW Corpus (News on the Web). (2025) [Online]. Available at: https://www.english-corpora.org/now/ (accessed 21.05.2025). (In English)
DICTIONARIES
Macquarie Dictionary. (2025) [Online]. Available at: https://www.macquariedictionary.com.au (accessed 21.05.2025). (In English)
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Firth, J. R. (1968) Selected papers of J. R. Firth, 1952–59. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 209 p. (In English)
Kachru, B. B. (1985) Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism. The English language in the outer circle. In: R. Quirk, H. G. Widdowson (eds.). English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–30. (In English)
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Smith, L. E., Nelson, C. L. (1985) International intelligibility of English: Directions and resources. World Englishes, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 333–342. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1985.tb00423.x (In English)
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