CLASSIFICATION OF PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS

Taking into account mainly the degree of idiomaticity phraseological units may be classified into three big groups: phraseological fusions, phraseological unities and phraseological collocations.

Phraseological fusions are completely non-motivated word-groups, such as red tape — ‘bureaucratic methods’; heavy father — ’serious or solemn part in a theatrical play’; kick the bucket — ‘die’; and the like. The meaning of the components has no connections whatsoever, at least synchronically, with the meaning of the whole group. Idiomaticity is, as a rule, combined with complete stability of the lexical components and the grammatical structure of the fusion.

Phraseological unities are partially non-motivated as their meaning can usually be perceived through the metaphoric meaning of the whole phraseological unit. For example, to show one’s teeth, to wash one’s dirty linen in public if interpreted as semantically motivated through the combined lexical meaning of the component words would naturally lead one to understand these in their literal meaning. The metaphoric meaning of the whole unit, however, readily suggests ‘take a threatening tone’ or ’show an intention to injure’ for show one’s teeth and ‘discuss or make public one’s quarrels’ for wash one’s dirty linen in public. Phraseological unities are as a rule marked by a comparatively high degree of stability of the lexical components.

Phraseological collocations are motivated but they are made up of words possessing specific lexical valency which accounts for a certain degree of stability in such word-groups. In phraseological collocations variability of member-words is strictly limited. For instance, bear a grudge may be changed into bear malice, but not into bear a fancy or liking. We can say take a liking (fancy) but not take hatred (disgust). These habitual collocations tend to become kind of clichés1 where the meaning of member-words is to some extent dominated by the meaning of the whole group. Due to this phraseological collocations are felt as possessing a certain degree of semantic inseparability.

39. Social and Regional Varieties of the English Language. This work focuses on social varieties of the English language which occur at the level of the lexicon (vocabulary), phonology (pronunciation), grammar (morphology and syntax) and usage. Together with textual or stylistic (i.e. interaction of genre and theme of the text; its linguistic expressions including the situation of discourse and ways of delivering the information), regional (i.e. differences and similarities of regional language varieties including language contrast) and individual, social variation plays a significant role in the language. If we unscramble the meaning of the term then we’ll see that our attention is drawn not towards the language itself, not towards its inner structure but towards how people of this or that society use it.So, the aims of this work consist in reporting

· The varieties of the language of people belonging to different social groups;

· The reasons all people speak differently;

· Which factors influencing the quality of the language are the most important;

· The standard British English, the variant which English speakers and English language learners should strive for;

· The differences in the speech of Truman Capote’s personages in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (practical part).

No one speaks the same, language varies. For an English language learner it is important to observe everything concerning the language, the way it’s changing with time, reasons for its change as well as varieties already existing in the language like different grammatical structures, different words standing for one and the same meaning, peculiarities of expressing the same idea in different ways, varieties of the language both in real life and in books. This topic has been chosen for the reason that it is vital for a linguist, for each person learning and speaking English. Besides, it has been a concern of many English writers such as Truman Capote or Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion). From the practical point of view, it is important to study social variation because to get a highly-paid job nowadays, for example, one has to speak good English and you certainly can’t do it without obtaining proper education. So here we speak about the factor of being educated or illiterate. Through an accurate study and analysis of the social variation, it is possible to improve one’s language and is easier to teach it (knowing that men speak slower than women or taking into account the student’s background). This work has been written by using different sources such as books, multimedia material, statistics, maps and information collected from other people. Thanks to this material, it has been possible to write the work, thoroughly analyzing the topic. This work is the result of an accurate practical research; moreover it can be useful for teachers who can use this knowledge while teaching students of various backgrounds, age, level of culture, type of profession (students obtaining a second higher education), sex or gender, ethnicity or race, etc. This might be of interest to senior students wishing to widen their knowledge about the theme.

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