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PHRASEOLOGICAL UNITS ARE THE FOUNDATION OF COGNITIVE
LINGUISTICS
Abdurazzokova Mekhriniso Azimjon qizi
Teacher of Gulistan State Pedagogical Institue
abdurazzakovamekhriniso@gmail.com
Abstract. This article explores the central role of phraseological units
within the framework of cognitive linguistics, highlighting how the shift from
system-centric to anthropocentric paradigms has transformed the understanding
of idiomatic expressions. The study investigates the relationship between language
and thought, conceptualization processes, and the cognitive mechanisms
underpinning idioms, proverbs, and sayings. It discusses theoretical contributions
from prominent linguists such as N.F. Alefirenko, A.B. Feokistova, and M.L.
Kovshova, who emphasize the discursive, conceptual, and cultural significance of
phraseological units. The article also engages with ongoing debates concerning
the inclusion of proverbs and sayings in phraseology and evaluates their semantic,
structural, and communicative features. Through a cognitive lens, phraseological
units are presented not merely as linguistic constructs but as carriers of cultural
knowledge, mental models, and collective memory, making them vital tools for
expressing complex human experience and social understanding.
Keywords: Phraseological units, Cognitive linguistics, Idioms, Proverbs
and sayings, Conceptualization, Discursive categories, Linguistic worldview,
Anthropocentrism, Language and thought.
Introduction.
The enormous popularity of cognitive research in modern
linguistic studies contributes to the formation of new cognitive, economic and
social development.
to the study of phraseology. The appearance of works tries to study
phraseological units in this aspect, which indicates shifts in emphasis when
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composing phraseological units and a new look at traditional problems. The main
thing that distinguishes modern research in this area. Phraseology from traditional
ones is a transfer of the emphasis of the system of co-centrism to anthropocentrism
under the influence of interest in the nominative patterns of the formation of idioms,
which is associated with the study of their communicative purpose, and thereby
with the entire palette of information, management idioms as units of a special type
of secondary nomination. The change in the scientific paradigm caused the
justification at the definition of phraseological units. Unlike the “traditional”
phraseology, which considers phraseological factors only as system of effective
language within the framework of cognitive phraseology most often invent
positions of linguistic phenomena, such as “microtexts, in the nominative support
of which, associated with the situational nature denoted, during its
conceptualization, all typical information characteristic of displaying situations in
the text is drawn in, but presented in phraseological units in the form of a
“convolution”, ready for use as text within text”.
1
Much modern research in the field of Linguists is turning to the study of
the relationship between language and thinking. Thus, linguistic units are analyzed
through mental categories or cognitive structures and mechanisms. Increasing
interest in the cognitive side of linguistic units in the second half of the 20th century
served as the basis for further study of the language as means of formation,
organization, storage and expression of knowledge and thoughts. Attitude to
language as a guide to the world of human thinking marked the formation of the
cognitive direction of linguistics. Hence, I.A.Zabrosaeva notes that the scope of
cognitive linguistics includes the mental foundations of understanding and speech
production in which linguistic knowledge is involved in information processing.
Cognitive linguistics, being a new field of theoretical and applied linguistics, it is
associated with the study of the cognitive aspects of lexical units
2
.
1
Телия В.Н. Русская фразеология: семантический, прагматический и лингвокультурологический аспекты. – М.:
Шк. «Языки рус. культуры», 1996. 288 с.
2
Забросаева И. А. Особенности когнитивной лингвистики. Приволжский научный вестник – Приволжский
научный журнал, 2014, №1. 12-1 (40) (на русском языке).
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N.F.Alefirenko
3
suggests considering the conceptual essence of
phraseological meaning based on its discursive nature - the conceptual organization
of phraseological units is based on discursive categories (situation, event,
presupposition, preconstruct and interdiscourse). According to the author,
verbalized discursive categories serve as those linguocreative elements which form
the cognitive basis of phraseological meaning as a special semasiological category.
The method of cognitive modeling of the denotative aspect of the meaning of
idioms is being developed by A.B.Feokistova
4
, who believes that in the process of
communication the denotative aspect of the meaning of a phraseological unit
always implicitly interacts with background knowledge about the signified. Its
main idea is that the concept of an idiom is closely related to the concept of the
object/phenomenon/situation, etc. described by the idiom. This is expressed in the
fact that each phraseological unit is stored in the form of a collapsed frame basic
information, acting as background knowledge of the meaning of a phraseological
unit, from which the person using and perceiving the idiom starts.
The appearance of works owned by try to study phraseological units in this
aspect, which indicates shifts in emphasis when composing phraseological units
and a new look at traditional problems. The main thing that distinguishes modern
research in this area. Phraseology from traditional ones is a transfer of the emphasis
of the system of co-centrism to anthropocentrism under the influence of interest in
the nominative patterns of the formation of idioms, which is associated with the
study of their communicative purpose, and thereby with the entire palette of
information, management idioms as units of a special type of secondary
nomination. The change in the scientific paradigm caused the justification a look
at the definition of phraseological units. Unlike the "traditional" phraseology,
which considers phraseological factors only as system of effective language within
the framework of cognitive phraseology most often invent positions of linguistic
3
Алефиренко Н.Ф. Фразеологическое значение и концепт // Когнитивная семантика: Материалы 2 Междунар.
школы-семинара по когнитивной лингвистике. – Тамбов, 2000. – Ч. 2. С. 33–36.
4
Феоктистова А.Б. Когнитивные аспекты семантики идиом, обозначающих чувства-состояния: Автореф. дис. …
канд. филол. наук. – М., 1996. – 18 с.
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phenomena, such as “microtexts, in the nominative support of which, associated
with the situational nature. The denoted, during its conceptualization, all types of
information are drawn in, characteristic of displaying situations in the text, but
presented in phraseological units in the form of a “convolution”, ready for use as
text within text.
Phraseology, being an integral part language, within the framework of
cognitive linguistics is analyzed from the point of view of its semantics.
Phraseological meaning is considered as the main element of the phraseological
picture content. The phraseological picture of the world is defined by
V.V.Shkatova
5
as part of an integral linguistic pictures of the world, that is, a
picture of the world expressed by phraseological means of language. The
phraseological picture of the world is a set of phraseological ideas about action. At
the same time, phraseological units do not reflect only the understanding and vision
of the world of speakers of a certain language, but also their culture.
Phraseologisms undoubtedly increase, replenish and at the same time complicate
cognitive sphere, since they represent the result figurative rethinking of
accumulated human knowledge about the world.
In this regard, the question of phraseological meaning. It is within the
framework of the cognitive approach that the meaning of a phraseological unit
begins to be perceived not just as a construct, but as a “property” linguistic
consciousness, a real source of information that works as language code unit"; as a
macro-component structure, including various blocks of information; as a
multidimensional information complex
6
.
Based on the study of all types of information carried by a phraseological
unit as a linguistic sign, it is possible to determine the specifics of phraseological
meaning. She proposed a model of the declarative-procedural form of meaning
5
Шкатова В. В. Фразеологическая картина мира как объект лингвистического изучения // Вестник ЛГУ им. А.С.
Пушкина. 2012.
6
Телия В.Н. Русская фразеология: семантический, прагматический и лингвокультурологический аспекты. – М.:
Шк. «Языки рус. культуры», 1996. 288 с.
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phraseological unit capable of emdiving and describing all types of information
included in the phraseological unit and which is a set of cognitive procedures that,
“including the corresponding knowledge belonging to the world “Ideal” indicates
not only the properties of an object from the world “Actual”, but also dispositional
abilities of the denotative aspect of meaning, as well as on the nature of the
subjective relations of the speaker / listener to referent and to the conditions of
speech”. According to M.L.Kovshova
7
, the meaning of an idiom can be presented
as an “informational text”, the various meanings of which pass “through the mental
filter” of the speaker and listener, are interpreted in the space of social and cultural
knowledge, activated by the subject of speech in moment of communication”.
The method of cognitive modeling of the denotative aspect of the meaning
of idioms is being developed by A.B.Feokistova
8
. Cognitive aspect of studying
phraseology, Feokistova who believes that in the process of communication the
denotative aspect of the meaning of a phraseological unit always implicitly
interacts with background knowledge about the signified. Its main idea is that the
concept of an idiom is closely related to the concept of the
object/phenomenon/situation, etc. described by the idiom. This is expressed in the
fact that each phraseological unit is stored in the form of a collapsed frame basic
information, acting as background knowledge of the meaning of a phraseological
unit is based on the use and perceiving by human.
The range of “cognitive” research interests includes the question of
connection between a phraseological unit as a cognitive microstructure and a more
voluminous cognitive structure-concept. This is expressed in an attempt to present
a phraseological unit as a representation of a certain part of the concept. The
solution to this issue is directly related to the cultural orientation of a number of
works in the field of modern phraseology, in which phraseological concept is
studied as a unit containing the experience and worldview of a given people. The
7
Ковшова М.Л. Как с писаной торбой носиться: принципы когнитивно-культурологического исследования
идиом // Фразеология в контексте культуры. – М.: Языки рус. культуры, 1999. С. 164–173.
8
Федуленкова Т. Н. Вариантность английских фразеологизмов моделей – Вестник Поморского университета.
Серия «Гуманитарные и социальные науки», 2019, вып. Т. 3. С. 55–62 (на русском языке).
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focus of researchers is the study of the cultural component of phraseological
meaning, considered as “certain cultural knowledge stored in its “memory” and
included in the conceptual sphere of the national language”
9
. The construction and
description of a phraseological concept is often focused on identifying the national
and cultural uniqueness of phraseological units of a language - a traditional
problem that has received a new interpretation within the framework of the
cognitive approach to the study of phraseology. Telia V.N. emphasizes that the
cultural and national specificity of idioms can be found only in large ideographic
groups, arrays data based on the “affinity” of their conceptual content. The same
idea is expressed by E.E.Chikina
10
, who notes that the cognitive approach to
identifying the national and cultural uniqueness of phraseological units involves
the analysis of individual phrase-semantic fields in order to describe within their
framework phrase-forming models, the totality of which shows both the national
characteristics of the linguistic division of the world and the characteristics of
linguistic creative thinking.
Phraseology is represented by phraseological units such as idioms, proverbs
and sayings. The question of including proverbs and sayings in phraseology is
debatable among scientists, and they have different attitudes to this phenomenon.
Proverbs and sayings are sentences and answer all of them syntactic rules: they
have the same word order, are constructed according to the same rules as regular
offer; the structure is always a simple or complex sentence; The proverbs can be
declarative, imperative or interrogative. Proverbs are an integral part of
phraseology or an independent section language, still remains controversial. One
of the most controversial issues in phraseology before the question still remains
about whether a phraseological unit can have a sentence structure and possess
communicative meaning.
9
Ковалева Л.В. Фразеологизация как когнитивный процесс. – Воронеж: Изд-во Воронеж. гос. ун-та, 2004. 184 с
10
Чикина Е.Е. Выявление национально-культурной специфики фразеологизмов: современные подходы
[Электронный ресурс] // Международный научно-практический (электронный) журнал «INTERCULTUR@L-
NET». – 2004.
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Proverbs are short, stable sayings that have the structure of a simple or
complex sentences, usually of an edifying nature, with rhyme, reproduced in
speech in finished form, and containing a literal or figurative meaning. The proverb
is based on a metaphor, comparison, hyperbole, or idiomatic expression. Unlike a
proverb, a proverb is always monomonic, represents part of a judgment and usually
devoid of general instructive meaning. Many Russian scientists, including
N.N.Amosova, V.P.Felitsina are opponents of the inclusion of proverbs and
sayings in phraseological units. N.N.Amosova believes
11
: “Proverbs and sayings,
which are miniature parables, are not included in the language system, because they
are independent units of communication. They can be recognized as neither lexical
units nor equivalents of lexical units. If consider that a lexical unit is any linguistic
formation that differs stability and metaphorical or at least traditional meaning,
then under this concept we will have to summarize the generally diverse works of
such “small forms” of folklore as jokes, counting rhymes, riddles”. She motivates
her disagreement by the fact that PP, like riddles and fables, belong to the genre
folklore, oral folk art.
G.L.Permyakov
12
defines a proverb as a folk saying expressed in a sentence
(for example, proverbs, sayings, signs) or a short chain of sentences (for example,
fables, “one-shot” jokes, riddles). Thus, the researcher does not include
phraseological units among the paremiological units. He also writes about that
phraseological units are in many ways similar to proverbs and sayings, not only
because both of them belong to linguistic clichés, but also for a number of other
characteristics. These signs include: external syntactic form, the presence of three
plans, the presence of figurative or direct motivation of general meaning, etc.
Despite the fact that proverbs, sayings and phraseological units belong to various
kinds of linguistic clichés (stable verbal combinations), all of them, reflecting in
their semantics a long process of development culture of the people, recorded and
passed on from generation-to-generation cultural attitudes and stereotypes.
11
Amosova,N.N.The basis of English Phraseology/N.N. Amosova.-L.,1963.-203p. - M., 1986
12
Пермяков Г.Л. От поговорки до сказки (Заметки по общей теории клише). М.: Главная редакция восточной
литературы издательства «Наука», 1970.
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Phraseology, like paremiology, is a fragment of the linguistic picture of the
world. Phraseological units which are always directed towards subject arise not so
much in order to describe the world, but in order to interpret, evaluate and express
it subjective attitude
13
. The nature of the meaning of phraseological units is closely
related to the background knowledge of a native speaker, to the practical experience
of the individual, to the cultural and historical traditions of the people, speaker of
a given language. Phraseological units are attributed objects, features that are
associated with the picture of the world, imply a whole descriptive situation (text),
and evaluate it. With their semantics, phraseological units are aimed at
characterizing a person and his activities.
N.Amosova
14
is of the opinion that some sentences are phraseological units,
and some are not. She classifies partially predicative phraseological units as
phraseological units. As for whole predicative units, then N.N.Amosova believes
that to phraseological units include only those that appear in speech with the
function inherent in phraseological units of nomination or, in any case, are not units
of communication. Thus, according to N.N.Amosova phraseological units are those
phraseological units that have a holistic meaning and constitute a constant context,
and being part of a variable sentence, act as a single member. For example:
As crow
flies, as luck would have it
.
N.N.Amosova believes that the attribution of proverbs and sayings,
independent sentences with figurative or additional didactic content, to
phraseology seems unfounded. She opposes the inclusion of proverbs and sayings
in the number of phraseological units. She argues that in order for a proverb to be
considered an idiom, it is necessary to prove that the proverb has a holistic lexical
meaning and appears in speech as a unit of nomination, since units of
communication do not have lexical meaning.
N.N.Amosova believes that proverbs of predicative structure are similar to
phraseological units with many of their features:
13
Маслова В.А. Лингвокультурология. М.: Академия, 2001. 208 с.
14
Амосова Н. Н. Основы английской фразеологии. - Издательское дело. Ленинградский университет. - Л.,
1961. 207 с.
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1. Their lexical composition is constant;
2. Their meaning is traditional and, in most cases, has a figurative nature;
3. Many of them are demotivated and have unclear motivation precisely
because of integrity their content;
4. The lexical meaning of their components is weakened or reinterpreted;
5. They are not created anew in the process of speech, but are reproduced
in finished form.
Based on this, N.N.Amosova does not include stable phraseology with
predicative structure (proverbs and sayings). Also opposed to the inclusion of
proverbs and sayings in phraseological units is V.P.Felitsina
15
. In her opinion,
proverbs, unlike sayings, are devoid of idiomaticity. She believes that a proverb is
not equivalent to a word, but is equivalent to a story and is a complete a phrase with
a direct meaning, and therefore cannot be considered a phraseological unit.
V.P.Felitsina claims that the features of the proverb bring it closer to the fable. Like
a fable, a proverb is an allegory, but expressed in an extremely concise form. When
comparison of proverbs and fables should take into account significant
morphological and structural differences. Proverbs are expressed in sentences,
while a fable is a short story, usually in poetic form. A fable is a literary work.
Proverbs are phraseological units with partially or a completely rethought meaning
of the components, and in structure they do not go beyond framework of a complex
sentence. A common feature of proverbs and fables is their moralizing character.
In comparative terms, proverbs and sayings drew attention of professor M.
Azimova
16
, who believes that they are communicative phraseological units and are
part of phraseology. In terms of structure, proverbs can be not only simple, but also
complex sentences with coordinating and subordinating connections. The inclusion
of proverbs and sayings in phraseological units by these scientists is great
achievement in world studies. The named authors limit themselves to the
15
Фелицина, В.П. О пословицах и поговорках как источниках для фразеологических словарей/ П.Фелицина, -
М.,1964. 122 с.
16
Azimova,M.N.Comparative-typological research of Tajik and English phraseological system /M.N.Azimova.-
Dushanbe, 2006
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recognition of proverbs and sayings by phraseological units. They make no attempt
to explain or give justifications for what characteristics and why proverbs are
included in phraseological units. Proverbs also have a stable system of components,
their composition is constant, they are reproduced in finished form and are not
created again each time, have complete or partial rethinking of the meaning of the
components.
In Russian linguistics G.L.Permyakov
17
includes proverbs and sayings,
proverbs, catchwords, aphorisms. His opinion is shared by N.M.Shansky
18
,
classifies proverbs as part of phraseology and tries to give explanation of the terms
“proverb and saying”. He notes: “According to the nature of the message they
express, phraseological units can be distinguished into two groups. The first group
is formed by phraseological units, which are various colloquial clichés, peculiar
sayings for the occasion”. He also notes that "there is the second group of
phraseological units containing some kind of moral teaching, apt thought,
undoubted truth or everyday observation and representing a linguistic expression,
folk wisdom". He calls them proverbs. Further emphasizes that portable meaning
is a mandatory feature of proverbs. N.M.Shansky believes that it is unlawful
exclude from the composition of phraseological units stable combinations that are
structurally organized as sentences if they have all the constitutive features of
phraseological units.
In English linguistics, A. Taylor studied this problem. Its research results is
reflected in the work “The Proverbs and an Index to the Proverb”
19
. A. Taylor in
this work characterizes the problem of the emergence and development of proverbs
and sayings. He pays attention to such issues as typology, variation, geography of
their distribution, types and types of proverbs, as well as their stylistic and semantic
peculiarities. He reveals the role and place of proverbs in language, especially in
Western European countries. A. Taylor analyzed about 400 English proverbs with
their analogues in German and Latin languages. The author especially noted the
17
Пермаков, Л.П.Избранные пословицы и поговорки народов Востока/Л.П. Пермаков.-М,1968.-380с.
18
Шанский, Н.М. Фразеология современного русского языка/ Н.М. Шанский. – М.,1985. 160р.
19
Taylor,A.The Proverbs and the Index to the Proverb. /A.Taylor. - Copenhagen,1992.-120с.
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positive aspects and disadvantages in the study of proverbs, especially in Western
European countries. The merit of A. Taylor is that he considered proverbs as units
of phraseological order. On the other hand, A. Taylor showed the meaning and
content of proverbs and made an attempt to classify them. He studied proverbs in
semantically, thematically and the use of expressive means in them. He thought,
that these features are the three constituent parts of proverbs, but did not touch upon
such important aspects of the issue, such as linguistic, sociological and
philosophical aspects associated with them
20
.
Within the framework of traditional linguistics, scientists strive to answer
the question of what is the specificity of the meanings of proverbs in contrast to the
meanings of words, what is the structure of the content. The main features of
phraseological units are reinterpretation, value, stability of components,
reproducibility in finished form, completeness, which proverbs also have. Having
analyzed and considered the views of a number of scientists who classify proverbs
as part of phraseology, we can say that these linguistic units are rightfully included
in phraseology.
Today, economic-political, cultural and scientific relations between people,
peoples, countries, international-cultural communication processes in the field of
linguistics, such as the interaction of languages and linguistic culture, as well as the
national identity of the language, and cultural studies itself have led to the
emergence of a new field with a specific direction and subject – linguistic and
cultural studies. As a result, at the beginning of the 21st century, a new branch of
linguistics is rapidly developing - linguistics and cultural studies, which aims to
study the problem of language and culture. The world of proverbs and sayings is a
“fertile field” for research by scientists - linguists, literary critics, paremiologists,
folklorists, ethnographers, who are specialists in various fields. This is natural,
because despite the fact that the proverb is compact and simple in form, it can be
viewed from different research points of view. Proverbs, as semantically and
structurally complete texts, attract the attention of text linguistics, which is a very
20
Collis, H.101 American and English Proverbs/H.Collis. - Chicago, 1975.-106с.
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popular branch of linguistics. Different proverbs in the same language, even in
closely related and completely unrelated languages, can belong to the same logical
type and exhibit the same feature. Therefore, they are directly related to logical
semantics and semiotics. Proverbs are sentences that, from a grammatical point of
view, are considered a special syntactic unit. Therefore, the formal structure of the
proverb as a syntactic unit should be studied in grammar.
REFERENCES:
1.
Amosova, N.N. The basis of English Phraseology/N.N. Amosova.-L.,1963.-
203p. - M., 1986
2.
Azimova,M.N.Comparative-typological research of Tajik and English
phraseological system /M.N.Azimova.- Dushanbe, 2006
3.
Амосова Н. Н. Основы английской фразеологии. - Издательское дело.
Ленинградский университет. - Л., 1961. 207 с.
4.
Collis, H.101 American and English Proverbs/H.Collis. - Chicago, 1975.-
106с.
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Феоктистова А.Б. Когнитивные аспекты семантики идиом,
обозначающих чувства-состояния: Автореф. дис. … канд. филол. наук. – М.,
1996. – 18 с.
6.
Маслова В.А. Лингвокультурология. М.: Академия, 2001. 208 с.
7.
Телия В.Н. Русская фразеология: семантический, прагматический
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288 с.
8.
Taylor,A.The Proverbs and the Index to the Proverb. /A.Taylor. -
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9.
Пермаков, Л.П.Избранные пословицы и поговорки народов
Востока/Л.П. Пермаков.-М,1968.-380с.
10.
Пермяков Г.Л. От поговорки до сказки (Заметки по общей теории
клише). М.: Главная редакция восточной литературы издательства «Наука»,
1970.
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11.
Забросаева
И.
А.
Особенности
когнитивной
лингвистики.
Приволжский научный вестник – Приволжский научный журнал, 2014, №1.
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