Vakariuk R. Biblical Idiomatic Expressions in Modern English: Structural, Semantic and Cognitive Aspects.

The thesis is dedicated to the study of semantic, structural and cognitive peculiarities of the dynamics of functioning of biblical idiomatic expressions (BIE) as an integral phraseological system in modern English. It is based on the interaction of lexical-semantic and cognitive-linguistic paradigms. The meanings of the terms „idiomatic phrase”, „biblical expressions” or „biblical idiomatic expressions” and the concept “cognitive matrix” are defined in the thesis. In the research we’ve also reconstructed the lexical-semantic field, the lexical and phraseological field, the phrase-semantic group and, of course, the main domains on the basis of which the cognitive matrix of the Christian moral and ethical system of the English linguistic picture of our world is modelled. We’ve studied biblical idiomatic expressions by means of which objectivization of these domains in biblical texts and modern discursive practices occurs. The main types of transformations in biblical expressions in the process of evolution of social consciousness are revealed and described. For revealing main trends in Modern English we’ve applied one of the tools as Google Books NGram Viewer for doing statistical and quantitative analysis of changes in the frequency of use of biblical idiomatic expressions in the lingual cultures of the UK and the USA and finally we’ve showed a gradual decline in the frequency of use in both British and American versions of English over the past 70 years.