The verbalization of notion absence in the english language and culture

Abstract

The article identifies the relevance of studying the notion of absence in English vocabulary from the linguocultural. The focus on phraseology enables to analyze vocabulary units as the reflection of cultural code, ethnic traditions and history. The mental concept of absence, recorded in English lexical and phraseological units, represents their national and cultural identity that was formed for centuries and has been manifested in the naïve linguistic worldview of English native speakers. The analysis involved phraseologisms, verbalizing absence in different ways: using set expressions with not; nominative units absence, absent, where absence is reflected directly in the root morpheme, and also in idioms, which implicitly express this notion. It was found that phraseologisms with the semantic component of absence determine typical features of thinking, mentality, and behavior of the English native speakers. Ready-made phrases with lexemes absence, absent, and not were characterized and described axiologically. It was found that the semantic component of absence emerged at the early stages of the English ethnicity evolution, and from the very beginning it has been based axiologically marked as it identifies the absence of important life elements for an English native speaker.