«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

m 172 n Ludmila Torlakova literal reading of the expression remains “perceivably present.” This creates “an extremely complex gradient of images ranging from completely trans- parent via the semitranslucent to the completely obscure” 1 . Recent research also points out the close relation between idiomaticity and figurativeness 2 , since in most idioms the literal reading of the expression presents an image. Such images have been and still are being created for particular purposes and to fulfill distinctive pragmatic functions in communication. Idiomaticity, as described above, does not often hinder understanding the actual or “phraseo- logical” meaning of an idiom because most idioms are motivated both by the possibility of interpreting the mental image and by “underlying structures of knowledge” 3 . Figurative idioms occur with much greater frequency than other categories of phrasemes. A great deal of attention has been given to them because they are readily intelligible on the synchronic level and therefore have added pragmatic power. They have also proven to be of considerable interest to scholars in fields only indirectly dependent on linguistics, such as pedagogical methodology, political rhetoric, and new media. Most such phrasemes have a clear and lively inner form. As V. V. Vinogradov has pointed out, figurative idioms are colloca- tions in which “the meaning of the whole is connected with understanding the inner figurative pivot of the phrase and the potential sense of the component words” 4 . Therefore the metaphoric or metonymic image is often easily under- stood and appreciated. The evaluative and qualifying connotations are also easier to understand, which makes figurative idioms particularly frequent in certain kinds of communication. Arabic idioms are no exception. There are diverse groups of figurative expressions that can be distinguished by the viv- idness of the metaphoric or metonymic images and their expressiveness. The mechanisms of coining idioms in Arabic have not been studied adequately, but as in other languages the ways of creating them and institutionalizing them are diverse, and the result has been that the lexicon possesses a great variety of figurative idioms with differing degrees of idiomatization and expressive nuances. In the present paper I am going to present and analyze a group of figurative idioms in Arabic that form a significant cluster of synonymous expressions with the meaning of “stupid” or “ignorant”. My study is an attempt to investigate, on the one hand, the metonymic and metaphoric “relationship between source and 1 Makkai A. Idiomaticity as a Reaction to L’Arbitaire du Signe . P. 309. 2 Dobrovol’skij D., Piirainen E. Figurative Language: Cross-Cultural and Cross-Lin- guistic Perspectives. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2005 . P. 31. 3 Ibid. 4 Vinogradov V. V. Ob osnovnykh tipakh frazeologicheskikh edinits v russkom iazyke, in Izbrannye trudy: Leksikologiia i leksikografiia. Moscow: Nauka, 1977. P. 191.