Trasformation of phraseological units in English and Russian advertising texts

This article is dedicated to the study of transformed phraseological units in English and Russian advertising texts. Researchers pay particular attention to the role of phraseological units as language units capable of influencing consumers and their desire to purchase products. In this work the author discusses such notions as phraseological unit and advertising text. Special attention is paid to the term of transformed phraseological unit which refers to the intentional modification of a phraseological unit to enhance the expressiveness and vividness of advertising texts. During the analysis the following types of transformation of phraseological units in advertising texts are identified: substitution, embedding, expansion, and truncation. The material for the study include 100 phraseological units selected from advertisements of hygiene products, cosmetics, sweets and tourist services. The research methodology is based on the works of the following scholars: 1) L. V. Voronina, L. G. Feschenko, and T. V. Akimova concerning the features and functions of advertising texts; 2) A. V. Kunin, T. V. Akimova, N. P. Soboleva and E. V. Kulikova regarding the definition of phraseological units and their structural and semantic changes. The scientific novelty of this work lies in the analysis of various methods of transforming phraseological units used in advertising texts in English and Russian. In English and Russian advertising texts phraseological units with various transformations are frequently used; they add emotionality, effectiveness and brightness to the advertisements. Transformed phraseological units help producers attract customers' attention, as the phraseological units themselves are recognizable and understandable. With certain changes they emphasize the uniqueness of a specific product or service. During the analysis of English and Russian advertising texts containing phraseological units we identified the following common transformations of phraseological units: substitution, embedding, expansion, and truncation. Transformed phraseological units in advertising texts can exert emotional influence on people due to their recognizability and closeness to the culture of a particular nation.