Phraseological Units with The Words ‘Street’, ‘Boulevard’, ‘Square’ and Their Derived Adjectives in Mass Media

Abstract

The article deals with traditional and relatively new phraseological units and collocations with the words ‘street’, ‘boulevard’, ‘square’ and the adjectives derived from them. These lexical units are chosen as the material for the study due to the fact that one of the most important fragments of the Russian linguistic picture of the world is the thematic fi eld “city”, and the “street”, “boulevard” and “square” are the main elements of urban space, closely related to the process of urbanization. Such expressions are of particular interest for students of Russian as a foreign language, since they require special background knowledge and mastery of the rules of their use in diff erent styles of speech. The purpose of the article is to identify the semantics of these phraseological units on the basis of diff erent lexicographic sources and to analyze their use in modern mass media and advertising texts. It is signifi cant that most of these phraseological units and collocations have negative meanings. Th is is due to the preservation in them of the traditional idea of street’s, boulevard’s and square’s “informality”, in contrast to the temple. The use of these phraseological units is oft en accompanied by a language game.

Keywords:

phraseology, urbanization, semantics of phraseological units