Contrastive analysis of English, Russian, and Hebrew blue idioms

   The article analyzes English, Russian, and Hebrew idioms with the lexeme blue / синий, голубой / כחול (hereinafter – BI, “blue idioms”). The research material is 327 BIs (240 in English, 46 in Russian, and 41 in Hebrew) from trilingual electronic lexical sources. Within the linguoculturological approach, the work uses qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as contextual-functional, semantic, and cultural-linguistic analyses. At the initial stage of the study, various BI values were combined into logical associative chains: A. Natural objects’ optical color: The Sky – something unlimited; Water; Medicine – blood circulation; Territory. B. Artifacts’ optical color: Dress; Computer; Something official; The Opposition: our – alien, military – peacefull; Professionals. C. Mental quality characteristics: Excellence, distinction – Aristocratic features – Efforts; Dreaminess, something romantic – Sadness, unhappiness; Aggression – Something rude, swearsome – Sex – Pornography – Drunkenness – Drugs. The work presents unique BIs related to religion, history, the culture of the speakers of these three languages, and unclassified BIs of varied subjects. The article discusses synonymous idioms with coloratives “blue”, “black”, and “green”, antinomy in BIs and idioms with “red” and “pink’ lexemes, their non-colorative Russian equivalents, positive and negative BIs’ connotations, the change in the emotiveness of English BIs over time, as well as the ethnic-priority for the Israeli linguistic culture: the blue-white color pair. The investigation considers the ambiguity of BIs, which allows including them in various microsystems and using various ways of forming these microsystems. The research results can be used in comparative and culturological linguistics, lexicographic and lexicological works, in teaching L2 and translation. A comparative study of other trilingual idioms and an analysis of the mentality, cultural characteristics, and worldview of the speakers of these three languages is the subject of our further research.

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20. Голубой. Викисловарь https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B9

21. Синий. Викисловарь https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/blue

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23. https://he.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%9B%D7%97%D7%9Cלוחכ

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