Abstract:
It is well known that every language abounds in phraseological
units with somatic components. These are untranslatable expressions
containing the names of various parts of the human body as
well as the elements of the respiratory, neural and gastro-intestinal
systems.
The paper aims to study the phraseological units with somatic
components in English and Georgian languages. Numerous linguists
have dealt with the study of such units in both languages
under analysis. However, the novelty of the given paper is that it
approaches the above-mentioned units with regard to their psychological
impact, which, in the long run, either affects or benefits the
human health system. Therefore, based on the works of neuroscientists
and psychologists, the paper outlines the positive and negative
impacts of phraseological units with somatic components on human
health. Numerous research works and experiments have proved that
some of the phraseological units under analysis (the ones with the
negative semantic content) are harmful to our health, whereas others
(the ones with positive semantic content) are safe, and, what is
more, have a certain healing power. The paper discusses both types
of phraseological units and their impact on human health. All the
English empirical material is taken from numerous printed and electronic
dictionaries of idioms. As for the Georgian material, it is taken
from printed and online dictionaries as well as live colloquial
speech.
The English and Georgian idioms related to parts of the human
body and analyzed in the given paper are as follows: head, eyes,
ears, heart, throat, foot, hand. Based on the analysis of ample empirical
data, the paper proves that in our everyday speech we should try to avoid using phraseological units with negative meaning and try
to replace them with positive ones.
