PHRASEOLOGISMS AND THEIR FUNCTION IN THE BUILDING OF THE MOTIVE "INNOCENTLY PROSECUTED HEROINES" IN THE GRIMM BROTHERS’ FAIRY TALES

Abstract

The original corpus of the linguistic material for this paper are the Grimm Brothers’ tales, in original in
German and translated into Macedonian, English and Italian. The indicated phraseologisms are widely used today in
both languages, which only proves their fluency in modern language trends. The basic criterion for classification
refers to the phraseologisms that are related to the main character in the fairy tale, i.e., the hero who goes through his
own initiation journey. In this paper the focus shifts to the two heroines in the fairy tales "Snow White" and
"Cinderella" who have the common status of "innocently persecuted heroines". The tales "Snow White" and
"Cinderella" are the two most famous tales by the Brothers Grimm. Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm's interest in German
fairy tales began in 1812 with the publication of Kinder - und Hausmärchen ("Children's and Household Tales").
The fairy tales "Snow White" (Schneewittchen) and "Cinderella" (Achenputtel) were then published. Although there
are many variants of these stories in the world and with different titles, we would still dwell on their integral text.
The aim of this scientific research paper is to present the similarities and differences in the phraseological units that
are used in the same context, but in completely different language systems: German, English, Italian and
Macedonian. The linguistic approach initiates the conclusion that phraseological units function at the morphological,
syntactic and semantic level of the text, which means that they have a wide range of meanings. Phraseologisms are
specific linguistic expressions composed of two or more words that form linguistic units recognizable for the
linguistic environment of the speaker. The linguistic-cultural richness of the indicated languages, Macedonian and
German and English and Italian is recognized by using phraseologisms as a tool for presenting the external and
internal description of the character, but also the description of his/her socio-economic status in the community. The
phraseologisms referring to the heroines in both tales are characterized by imagery, which gives the text a rich
colorful structure. The imagery is achieved through the use of the comparative approach, i.e., through phraseological
units that are built on the basis of comparison; the text is also enriched at reception and each reader creates his/her
own individual image. The phraseological material in the fairy tales is quite rich, especially in the fairy tale "Snow
White". These two most widespread tales of the Brothers Grimm are analyzed in science from various aspects. For
us, the target group were students who, in the process of education, acquired knowledge about the meaning of
phraseological units and are able to recognize them in a given text. The work fuses the knowledge from the field of
folklore and from the field of language, in correlation with the teaching process, through which students acquire
necessary knowledge from both fields of interest. However, this paper aims to detect the comparative
phraseologisms used to describe the characters of the two heroines with a similar character structure. Both fairy tales
are in the subgenre of tales of "innocently persecuted heroines", a fairy tale motif with a long history and deep
antiquity. We will look into comparative phraseologisms through five different prisms:
1. physical attributes of the character: handsome, ugly, thin, fat, short, tall
2. character traits: good, bad, clever, stupid, brave, timid, proud
3. emotional state of the character: love, hate, fear, anger, revenge
4. socio-economic status of the character: poor, rich, learned, simple
5. attitude towards others in the environment: understanding, tolerance, helping, misunderstanding