THE SEMANTICS OF ‘WHITE/BLACK’ IN PHRASEOLOGY: ENGLISH, GERMAN, FRENCH, SPANISH AND RUSSIAN LANGUAGES

S. Yakovleva ¹, T. Soldatkina², M. Pershina³, E. Fliginskikh⁴, K. Badyina^5
1 Assoc. Prof., Candidate of Pedagogy, Mari State University, Russia, zavkaf1@gmail.com
² Assoc. Prof., Candidate of Philology, Mari State University, Russia, stata@rambler.ru
³ Assoc. Prof., Candidate of Philology, Mari State University, Russia, marja8362@mail.ru
⁴ Senior Lecturer, Mari State University, Russia, katenasmile@mail.ru
⁵ Assoc. Prof., Candidate of Philology, Mari State University, Russia, vuk_2004@mail.ru

Abstract
The objective of the article is to present a comparative analysis of English, German, French, Spanish and Russian idiomatic expressions containing the component of colour in their structure. Colour meaning important for focal colours and their synonyms is converted to a figurative meaning that goes beyond colour by means of metaphoric or metonymic transfer. Colour and its shades expressed by different models and constructions are used in comparisons and metaphors. Colourless vocabulary used in figurative meaning in the context obtains the colour meaning. Colour symbolism is expressed in the context, in different ways of colour denoting, in the colour term itself. Colour oppositions (for example, black-and-white opposition) that contain their figurative meaning are based on the colour differences. There are several ways to convey colour tones. Thus, unsaturated tones can be expressed by joining the colour name of the element general to focal adjectives to the stem. It has been revealed that black dominates in the English linguistic idiomatic view of the world. The core centre of the focal colours in the German culture is also schwarz / black. Semantic content of colour units, their national and cultural peculiarities, derivational models and colour-naming patterns, as well as expression of focal colours saturation are covered in the article. Colour names are widely used to define colours of clothing, fabrics, housewares, food, to describe the environment, human appearance, emotional and physical state, colours of animal hair, etc. Colour adjectives denote animal’s colour type in French. In Spanish the majority of phraseological units with white and black colour component depict a person, his features and actions. The meaning of some idioms can change due to national and cultural differences of the Spanish-speaking countries.

Keywords: idiom, focal colours, linguistic idiomatic view of the world, contrastive pair ‘white/black’, negative connotation, positive connotation, semantics.