Perception of Verbal Communication Reflected in Russian and English Phraseology: Towards a New Theory of Phraseologism-formation

The study aims to analyze a particular group of Russian and English phraseologisms that describe different aspects of verbal communication and detect what kind of perceptual sensations underlie the creation of their images. Hence, this paper describes the empirical findings that may validate the role of perceptual experience in the process of phraseologism-formation and give an insight into differences in the choice of perceptual cues in phraseologism-formation and, thus, into the peculiarities of perceptual cues processing in different cultures. The results obtained contribute to the development of a new theoretical perspective for explaining the process of idiom-formation.