General characteristic of phraseological units

Phraseology is a comparatively young field of linguistics which has only relatively recently become established as a self-contained linguistic discipline. Phraseology is pervasive in all language fields. Phraseology is studying phraseological units (set expressions, praseologisms, or idioms (in foreign linguistics). Phraseological units differ from free word-groups semantically and structurally: 1) they convey a single concept and their meaning is idiomatic, i.e. it is not a mere total of the meanings of their components 2) they are characterized by structural invariability (no word can be substituted for any component of a phraseological unit without destroying its sense (to have a bee in one’s bonnet (not cap or hat). 3) they are not created in speech but used as ready-made units. Unlike a word, a phraseological unit can be divided into separately structured elements and transformed syntactically (On the instant he was thinking how natural and unaffected her manner was now that the ice between them had been broken. (Th. Dreiser, ‘An American Tragedy’). I... found this man in a kind of seizure, and went for help. This broke the ice between us, and we grew quite chatty, without either of us knowing the other's name. (H. Pollitt, ‘Serving My Time’).

However the subject of phraseology has been a matter of growing interest since the 1930’s in applied linguistics amongst different fields as in lexicography with the first collocational dictionaries like the Palmer and Hornby studies for a Dictionary of English as a foreign language, the question about phraseology as special linguistic discipline had not been arisen before the mid-1960s. It is due to the expansive research of soviet school of linguists that phraseology has been established as a discipline in its own right. As one of the most outstanding modern lexicographers, the author of the famous and most reliable Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English Anthony P. Cowie, pointing out to the indisputable progress of the soviet school of phraseological analysis and its influence on the world linguistics, underlines: "Recognition of phraseology as an academic discipline within linguistics – the term itself, like the adjective 'phraseological', reflects Eastern European usage – is evident not only from vigorous and widespread research activity, but also from the publication of several specialized dictionaries reflecting one theoretical perspective or another… 'Classical' Russian theory, with its later extensions and modifications, is probably the most pervasive influence at work in current phraseological studies and is unrivalled in its application to the design and c ompilation of dictionaries." (Cowie 1998).

Nowadays phraseology plays a central role in a wide range of linguistic disciplines such as lexicography, contrastive linguistics, psycholinguistics, foreign language learning and teaching and natural language processing.

As phraseology has strong links with several other fields of linguistics however, notably morphology, syntax, semantics and discourse, linguists vary in their opinions as to which range of subtypes in accordance with their degree of semantic non-compositionality, syntactic fixedness, lexical restrictions and institutionalization of word combinations or multi-word units should be included in the field of phraseology. Compounds and grammatical collocations are cases in point. This difficulty in establishing what exactly falls under field of phraseology is compounded by the fact that phraseology is a dynamic phenomenon, and displays both synchronic and diachronic variations (Moon 1998; Giegerich 2004).

Although there is still some considerable discrepancy between linguists as regards the terminology and typology of word combinations and the limits of phraseology itself, there is general agreement that phraseology constitutes a continuum along which word combinations are situated, with the most opaque and fixed ones at one end and the most transparent and variable ones at the other (Cowie 1998: 4-7; Howarth 1998: 168-171; Gross 1996: 78). One of the main preoccupations of linguists working within this tradition has been to find linguistic criteria to distinguish one type of phraseological unit from another (e.g. collocations vs. idioms or full idioms vs. semi-idioms) and especially to distinguish the most variable and transparent multi-word units from free combinations, which only have syntactic and semantic restrictions and are therefore considered as falling outside the realm of phraseology (Cowie 1998: 6).

From the introduction, of Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs, we quote the following lines to show the close relation between our research topic and this reference: 'Idioms are one of the most interesting and difficult parts of the English vocabulary. They are interesting because they are colourful and lively and because they are linguistic curiosities. At the same time, they are difficult because they have unpredictable meanings or collocations and grammar, and often have special connotations. Idioms are frequently neglected in general dictionaries and in classroom teaching, because they are considered marginal items which are quaint but not significant. Yet research into idioms shows that they have important roles in spoken language and in writing, in particular in conveying evaluations and in developing or maintaining interactions. (Sinclair et al. 1995:iv)