Phraseological turnover is the richest expressive and stylistic potential for literary creativity.
According to many linguists, the specificity of a phraseological unit is determined by its reproducibility. This property is understood as the fact that phraseological units are not created in the process of verbal communication, but are reproduced as stable linguistic units.
Examples of phraseological units, which are given in dictionaries of linguistic terms, usually represent those significant units in which the semantics is motivated, constant and carries vivid imagery. These can be proverbs, sayings, stable figurative expressions: “it’s raining like a bucket”, “snow on your head”, “hens don’t peck money”, “a scythe on a stone”, “worth its weight in gold”, “what’s on the forehead, what’s forehead", "knee-deep sea", etc.
Let's consider two types of phraseological units.
Phraseological phrase, consisting of lexical units of fixed use, refers to the so-called splicing, that is, such an expression, where the components are merged into a single image, which is contained in their semantic "solidity".
For example, the expression"to beat the thumbs" only in such a stable combination of words carries a certain semantics, and everyone knows that it means "to mess around", "to indulge in an empty pastime." But this meaning is figurative, and the etymology of the expression is associated with the old game of towns. When playing, small boards were used, which had to be knocked down with a special stick. They were called bucks, and knocking them down was considered fun, an idle pastime.
Phraseological units are often used by authors in a modified form in order to create a poetic image.
B. Akhmadulina's expression "beat the buckets" is the main figurative semantic core in the description of Sunday as a holiday:
"But Sunday is already thumping with children's crying, then with a dish bell."
Phraseological turnover, where the components are words related to each other by semantic meaning, refers to a free phraseological unit.
Let's consider some ways of an individual-author's approach to changing phraseological units in the poetic work of modern poets.
Phraseological phrases and their meanings in the author's interpretation, undergoing a creative process of rethinking, are modified, and along with the direct meaning often acquire the properties of a metaphor, giving rise to a special poetic context.
Let's give examples from the poetic work of our contemporary, the Stavropol poet Andrey Dulepov:
The moon sat down on the roof behind the window./ The thought in a swift flight calls the soul behind it / The soul will break out like a bird / And the bad weather, giggling, cringes …
Considering the use of phraseological units in the poetic speech of modern authors, we can note the use of interstyle colloquial and everyday elements in order to enhance expression:
Here, forced to get into a fight again
I'll get involved, and suddenly I don't have enough strength
And the enemies will slam the poor fellow…(A. Dulepov)
An example from the works of the Stavropol poet A. Mosintsev:
And no matter how swindlers blow the pipe
On the delights of universal citizenship -
The scoundrels are lying! In front of the world
So far, only hatred is for the Slavs.
Many phraseological units are clearly "open" and show the author's attitude towards them: regret, irony, joke, censure, pain, that is, what is called empathy.
Pity the warriors, because of other people's ambitions
The guys had to fall in a foreign land.
Crimson lightning over the graves
And with tears from the sky - warm rain… (A. Dulepov)
Or the famous poem "Return" by Yu. Kuznetsov, where swirling smoke is not a household sketch, but a symbol of the perishability of being, an irretrievable loss.
Father walked, father walked unharmed
Through the minefield.
Turned into swirling smoke
No grave, no pain…
Another example from the work of A. Mosintsev:
Russia's optimism is not lost
Though any coup is stupid, Look, again promises good luck to the village
A pack of we althy gentlemen.
The author's expression "a pack of gentlemen", in which the phraseological unit "a pack of dogs" is guessed, represents the author's transformation, where the implied element "a pack" in an unexpected combination with the expression "we althy gentlemen" creates a detailed metaphor.
Only a few of the above examples clearly illustrate how the phraseological phrase, actively used by modern authors as "poetic phraseology", by introducing various techniques into the text, enhances its imagery, brightness and, in addition to the information function, performs the task of emotional impact on the reader.
