МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЕ КОНЦЕПТУАЛИЗАЦИИ НА ОСНОВЕ КОРПУСНОГО ПОДХОДА (на материале английских идиом с компонентом  “pig”)

Corpus approach is widely used at the moment in many fields of linguistics, allowing researchers to obtain valuable data on the functioning of words and various collocations in speech. Phraseology has not been neglected in this respect, for corpus data provide indispensable information for introducing corrections into the actual meaning of phraseological units

Corpus analysis in the article is based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

At the first stage of corpus analysis basically the first 30 entries are taken into consideration, while the first 5, which reflect the most frequent cases, are considered to be prototypical. At the second stage all the entries are examined.

The study provides the following results:

1. The comparison of the idiom component composition with the frequency of the words corresponding to those components shows that not all frequent combinations of the noun “pig” are reflected in the idioms. This means that the prototypical features of the conceptualized animal are not necessarily directly employed in the formation of the idioms involving the name of this animal.

2. The frequency of the idioms with the component “pig” reveals the focus and periphery of the phraseological segment of the conceptualization, adding the dynamic aspect to the conceptualization model.

3. Corpus data allows researchers to model not only conceptualization represented by lexical and phraseological units, but also conceptualization connected with the titles and characters of literature and cinematography, forming a special segment of conceptualization model, thus making the model more complete.

The name of the domestic animal “pig” does not belong to the most frequent names of domestic animals encountered in the COCA concordances. As we can see from the list given below, the first position is taken by the noun “dog”, followed by the nouns “horse” and “cat”:

- dog — 98847;

- horse — 44525;

- cat — 41763;

- bull — 16969;

- pig — 13823;

- cow — 13181.

These figures should be taken with a grain of salt, as it were. As the analysis of the first 30 entries shows, the noun “dog” is predominantly used in its first literal meaning of a domestic animal:

As over-the-top as it may sound, my dog makes me want to be a better person.

The noun “cat” is used both as a name of the animal and in the figurative, secondary meaning:

Rory's two best friends are a cat and a pit bull.

"I don't like to get political -- but I would vote for that cat," she said.

It is also encountered as a component of an idiom:

… long time friend and admirer author and investor Douglass Kass has now let the cat out of the bag.

The data on the noun “bull” happen to be quite misleading though, because this noun is widely used as the second component of the name of the dog breed (14 out of 30 entries):

The pit bull was lying in a kennel with raw, red tissue on his back…

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner’s dictionary

1. An animal with pink, black or brown skin, short legs, a broad nose and a short curly tail. Pigs are kept on farms for their meat or live in the wild.

2. (Informal, disapproving) an unpleasant or offensive person; a person who is dirty or greedy.

The functioning of the noun “pig” in the concordances also varies. In the first 30 entries it is used as the name of the domestic animal:

Or, is it more like a farmer can have many pigs but a pig can be owned by only one farmer.

In the figurative meaning:

I would have to admit that having a pig as the leading man was quite interesting.

As a component of an idiom:

I am as happy as a pig in mud to know that I am going back to that world

As a component in the name of a totally different animal:

… we even spot an outrageously cute dassie (a myrax that resembles a guinea pig) scuttering across grey rocks.

Hence, it is necessary to conclude that manual processing of the collected data is unavoidable, when analysing the key lexical component in the model of a domestic animal conceptualization.

Now let us look at the combining features of the key word “pig”.

The combination “Verb + (a) pig” displays the following results:

- buy — 19;

- kill — 16;

- make a pig — 12;

- killed a pig — 11;

- roast a pig — 10.

In the first combination 12 out of 19 cases include an idiom:

… what the prosecutors will tell you is they don't want to buy a pig in a poke. They want to know exactly what they're going to get

The noun is also used as a direct name of an animal:

So we have to say, give me money to buy a pig," said Berta Arnst, 43, who works as a milkmaid for Matantsev.

In 3 cases out of 12 “make a pig” is part of the idiom “make a pig of oneself”:

Though Edith fussed at him not to make a pig of himself, he gobbled up three cookies with cheerful relish.

In all other cases the combination is part of a bigger syntactic structure:

I want you to (bleep) that mud pit' till I make a pig noise.

… and pulled her chin down to make a pig's snout.

With the verbs “to kill”, “killed” and “roast” the noun is used in its direct meaning:

When I ask how often they kill a pig, John says every week.

Tonight we're having a feast. We've killed a pig and we've got meat.

…today is my comeback meal, and I decided to keep it simple and roast a pig.

The combination “Verb + the pig” is represented by the following verbs:

- kill — 15;

- put — 11;

- get — 10;

- thank — 10;

- got — 8.

The verbs “kill”, “put” and “get/got” denote a physical actions directed at the domestic animal.

You didn't touch it, did you? - I did not kill the pig, Patty. You got a bad record. You got to admit it.

So I make a hole in a box and put the pig inside with its snout sticking out through the hole.

There's still time to get food. I'll go get the pig and you can call everybody.

The combination “thank the pig” comes from the film “The Pig in the City” in 9 cases out of 10. As for the combination “got + the pig” in 7 entries out of 8 a physical action directed at the animal is described, in one entry the noun is used in a figurative meaning, referring to a person.

"His little sister got the pig! " " Is that right. " "And she cried about it too".

Now let us turn to the combination “Adj + pig”, or rather “attribute + pig”, because not only frequent adjectives in the true sense of the term come up in the search. This combination is by far more widely represented in the corpus than the combination with the verb:

- little — 208;

- fat — 131;

- stuck — 73;       

- f***ing — 70;

- porky — 69.

The adjective “little” is used with the noun “pig” to name a young pig, a piglet, to refer to the character of the fairy-tale and to express a derogative attitude to a person.

…a slaughter house, of all places, and they wanted to bring a little pig into their classroom. So he got this little pig from the slaughter house and…

The third little pig was smart and decided that she would take her time and build a strong house.

You are an animal! A disgusting little pig! Hey! Look what he did!

The second most frequently used adjective “fat” combines with the noun to refer both to an animal and person.

I was looking in the local paper, and her father had a fat pig for sale

I mean, look, if you're a fat pig, you can imagine what I am. Listen. You are all gorgeous.

As the Oxford Dictionary of Idioms explains, “a stuck pig is one that is being butchered by having its throat cut”

The attribute “porky” describes the physical feature of the animal, while the intensifier “f***ing” is used to enhance the derogative attitude to a person in question.

To sum up, it is possible to conclude that in the concordances of COCA the pig is seen basically as an animal with certain physical features (little, fat, stuck, porky), at which some physical actions can be directed (to kill, to put, to roast, to get, to buy). There also exists a metaphorical side to this conceptualization, revealing the association of the pig with a person and reflecting a derogative attitude both to the person in question and the animal. The usage of the idioms encountered in the first 5 entries provides a phraseological segment in the linguistic interpretation of this domestic animal. Another segment is connected with the association with literary and film characters, whose names are based on this noun. We can also see that by far not all features, characterizing the pig according to the analysis of the first 5 entries, are encountered in the idioms represcnted in the two dictionaries, which means that the prototypical vision of the animal is not directly involved into the formation of the idioms with its name,

Now let us have a closer look at the phraseological segment, without restricting its representation by 30 entries, but taking into account the whole list of concordances with the selected idioms with the component “pig”. Their frequency in the corpus is not high, which is, on the one hand, in accordance with the statements of a number of scholars, who mention the low frequency of idioms in speech in general

The 8 idioms selected for the analysis display the following frequencies:

- sweat like a pig (sweat profusely) — 71;

- a pig in a poke (something that is bought or accepted without knowing its value or seeing it first) — 45;

- bleed like a (stuck) pig (bleed copiously) — 36;

- squeal (scream, howl) like a stuck pig  (squeal or yell loudly and shrilly) — 21;

- make a pig of yourself (overeat) — 12;

- pig in the middle (a person who is placed in an awkward situation between two others) — 6;

- fat as a pig (exceptionally fat) — 4;

- in a pig's eye (expressing scornful disbelief at a statement) — 1.

The first idiom exhibiting the highest frequency (71 entries) has in fact nothing to do with a pig. Pigs sweat very little, or practically not at all due to the size of their sweat glands. The component “pig” in this idiom goes back to pig iron (a form of iron that is not pure

The next idiom, frequently combined with the verbs “to buy” and “to sell”, reflects the old trick of selling a cat in a sack (a poke) instead of a piglet. The general situation of deceit associated with the particular situation of selling or buying a “false pig” comes up in the concordances of the corpus.

The image of a stuck pig is shared by two idioms: “bleed like a (stuck) pig” and “squeal (scream, howl) like a stuck pig”.  In both idioms comparison with the situation involving the pig serves to intensify the character of the action, designated by the verbs. (It is necessary to mention in passing that the former idiom is used without the component “stuck” only twice).

Consequently, looking at the frequencies of the listed idioms in the process of modelling the phraseological segment of the conceptualization of the pig, we can conclude that the images of a bleeding pig and a squealing pig associated with the similar situations of bleeding and screaming involving a human being, form the focus of this conceptualization if taken together. The situation of having or rather not having a pig in a sack (poke) is very close to this focus. Other features ascribed to the pig and projected onto the human, such as greediness in eating and fatness, are not in great demand on the part of native speakers and form the periphery of the phraseological segment. Thus, the phraseological segment of the conceptualization model acquires its dynamic configuration. 

Corpus data provide researchers with valuable information for the conceptual analysis and construction of conceptualization models, allowing them to add the dynamic perspective to those models. Corpus data also make it possible to trace what frequent features of a mental construct, regarded as prototypical, find their way into the compositional structure of idioms.