LEXICO-PHRASEOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE RIRE (LAUGHTER) CONCEPT IN THE FRENCH LANGUAGE PICTURE OF THE WORLD

Abstract

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the concept rire laughter in the French language picture of the world. The study was conducted on the material of modern lexicography of the French language. The rire concept is verbalized in the French language picture of the world through a cognitive image, reflecting the semantic connections of its name in free and related phrases. The cognitive image of laughter, which is created with the help of adjective definitions to its nomination, reflects the ideas accepted in the society about laughter as a subject that has volume and size; as substance; as sickness; as a spontaneous and sounding phenomenon; as a living being; as a subject expressing the intentions of a person; as a magical phenomenon. Adjectives with negative evaluation are more often combined with the name of the concept than adiectives with positive evaluation. The effect of laughter on the human body is various: laughter causes (triggers) certain physiological processes, causes some pain, has an effect on a person, for example, knocks him down; laughter can even lead to the death of a laughing person. Phraseological representation of laughter reflects its connection with various somatisms – le nez (nose), les lèvres (lips), les dents (teeth), la gueule (mouth, throat), la mậchoir (jaw), la barbe (beard), la gorge (throat), le coeur (heart), le ventre (stomach), la rate (spleen), le boyau (guts), les côtes (ribs), les cuisses (thighs), le cul (ass). Some poses, gestures and feelings of a laughing person are characterized by the set expressions. The reconstruction of the rire concept based on French linguistic dictionaries made it possible to distinguish such ideas about laughter as: un bossu (hunchback) is the benchmark of loud laughter among people in French phraseology; une balaine (whale) – among animals; une poulie (insufficiently oiled mechanism) is a model of unpleasant laughter among artifacts; un peigne (crest) symbolizes bad laughter.

Reconstruction of the concept rire makes it possible to suppose that the French linguistic personality is characterized by an opposite assessment of laughter: its positive perception is presented along with negative one.