Metaphorical Representation of Air Elements in Phraseology of Russian, English, German, Spanish, and Tatar Languages

This study provides a comparative analysis of phraseological units that incorporate air-related terms from five typologically diverse languages — Russian, English, German, Spanish, and Tatar — in a linguocultural perspective. The main focus is on identifying universal as well as unique patterns for representing symbolic meanings associated with air elements within these linguistic systems' phraseological inventories. A total of 188 units were analyzed. Comparative analysis revealed that only five phrasemantic groups exhibit universally shared symbolic representation of air, while over 50% of subcategories reflect language-specific symbolic interpretations. Among the studied languages, Russian and Tatar show the highest degree of similarity, whereas Spanish and English lead in the number of uniquely thematic groups not found elsewhere among the compared languages. Furthermore, it was established that neutral connotative phrases dominate quantitatively across all languages under investigation. These findings highlight significant diversity both semantically and culturally regarding how air symbols are expressed through idiomatic expressions in each language group.

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