Manifestation of the Phraseological Units with Colors in English and Albanian

Abstract

Phraseology can be defined as "the study of the structure, meaning and use of word combinations" (Cowie 1994). It embraces the view of language that lexis and grammar are inseparable”. The basic units of analysis in phraseology are often referred to as phrasemes or phraseological units. Phraseological units are (according to Prof. Kunin A.V.) stable word-groups with partially or fully transferred meanings ("to kick the bucket", “Greek gift”, “drink till all's blue”, “drunk as a fiddler (drunk as a lord, as a boiled owl)”, “as mad as a hatter (as a March hare)”). While according to Rosemarie Gläser, a phraseological unit is a lexicalized, reproducible bilexemic or polylexemic words. We can find the meaning of a phraseological unit by one of its components (when it is motivated). In cognitive linguistics tradition, idioms are claimed to have conceptual motivation (cf.Lakof 1987), on the other hand there are many phraseological units, the meaning of which cannot be found by knowing the meaning of one of its components (when it is not motivated). Its meaning should be traced by using the compositional analysis method. This method helps in need to discover the semantic meaning in the semantic field. In English as well as in Albanian language we have many phraseological units which have one of their components a word with colors. Learning with colors was a leitmotif of Learning English recently.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2013.v2n2p217