Phraseological Units as a Mirror of National Mentality

The relevance of the study is caused by the continuing interest of linguists to the problem of phraseology as a special – national – sign in the language system, reflecting the national-cultural features of the perception of the world, national mentality, ideological and mental attitudes of native speakers. The analysis of scientific literature showed that the phraseological layer reflecting the national character of a person is rather understudied. In this regard, the purpose of this study is to identify the features of the national mentality of the British based on the analysis of the internal form of phraseological units (PUs), reflecting the nature of a person. In the given study there were analyzed the theoretical works of Russian and foreign linguists on the problems of definition of the term “phraseological unit”; there were analyzed semantic features, sources of origin and figurative bases of the selected PUs; were identified the specific characteristics inherent in the British, based on the frequency parameter of the components of phraseological units. The analysis of figurative sources of PUs, reflecting the national character of a person, revealed a large number of PUs with the following components: zoonyms, somatism, phytonyms and colors (46%); this indicates the national-cultural specificity of PUs, which is expressed in the figurative content of these units and is associated with the cultural and national features of the British. The practical significance of this study is that the results can be used in the lectures and courses of intercultural communication, linguoculturology and lexicology.