Contrastive Analysis of English, Russian, and Hebrew “Black” Idioms

Abstract

The work aims to collect and analyze English, Russian, and Hebrew idioms with the lexeme black/черный/שחור (hereinafter – BLIS). It is the first study implementing the collection of Hebrew idioms and the comparison of these three languages as the subject of scientific research. The article proposes a systematization of BLIS based on microsystems consisting of meaning associative chains with logically and semantically related meanings. The material under study comprises about 440 idioms (including about 180 English, 160 Russian, and 100 Hebrew idioms) collected from trilingual electronic lexical, phraseological sources, and Internet searches. The study used qualitative and quantitative contextual-functional, semantic, and cultural-linguistic analyses within the lingua culturological approach. After compiling lists of idioms, identifying their meanings, and comparing them, the author created a table with groups of equivalent and unique BLIS. The microsystem of equivalent BLIS consists of three groups of associative chains: 1. The optical color of the object. 1.1. Nature. Natural phenomena, physical objects – Resources; Flora – Fauna; Body – Skin color. 1.2. Human activity. Etalon color – Black and white image; Clothing: Official – Mourning – Military; Food, beverages; Medicine – Drugs; Board games – Competition – Sports; Hybrid war: Disinformation – Secret operations; Economy – Profit – Employment; Vote; Computers, devices; Typography; Art: Literature – Music – Morbid Humor. 1.3. Intellectual, mental, and moral problems. Clarity – intellectual activity; Unpredictable event – Exception; Prohibition versus permission; Unsuccessful, Difficult – Depression, Pessimism; Ruinous – Illegal; Magic. The proposed classification covers physical, mental characteristics, and a large number of human activity areas, and allows the inclusion of new BLIS in the future. These results can be effectively used in L2 teaching, in human and especially in automatic translation. The described equivalent metaphors prove the common features in the linguocultural picture of the world, and unique BLIS complement this picture, which is important for intercultural communication and automatic translation of idioms.