Linguistic and socio-cultural distinctness of the dialect phraseology of Swiss German

Abstract

The study aims to identify and typologize the distinctive features of the dialect phraseology of Swiss German in accordance with the factors of their linguistic and socio-cultural conditionality. The main factors considered are: the specificity of the socio-cultural “background” of a dialect; the identifying and connotative properties of a dialect; formation of special “phraseological symbols” in a dialect; concreteness of dialect images and a dialect’s “aversion” to abstraction; the desire to update figurative foundations; special phraseological creativity of dialect speakers. Scientific novelty of the study lies in the following: the paper is the first to show and substantiate that dialectal phraseology in Switzerland is a separate phraseological subsystem that has significant differences from the phraseology of the literary level due to the special nature of the socio-cultural context of Swiss German dialects. As a result of the study, it has been found that the formation and preservation of an original phraseological subsystem is ensured by the fact that dialectal phraseology draws its images and metaphors from a special conceptual sphere the basis of which is formed by the features of life and worldview that are relevant for speakers of the dialects.