Reflection of the traditions and customs of the Englishmen and Russians in phraseological units

This article is dedicated to the study of phraseological units in the English and Russian languages that reflect the traditions and customs of the peoples. The work discusses the definition of a phraseological unit, approaches to the classification of phraseologisms, and further identifies four thematic subgroups: life, old age and death; romantic relationships, marriage, and weddings; food and drinks; travel. An additional subgroup "Others" is highlighted, which includes interesting phraseological expressions that don't fit into the main subgroups. Almost every phraseological unit contains information about historical events, the spiritual state of society, and the daily life of the people. Knowledge of phraseologisms helps to understand fully the language and culture of a nation. The research material consists of 80 phraseological units selected from phraseological dictionaries of the English and Russian languages. The theoretical basis of the study includes the works of: 1) A.V. Kunin, V.V. Vinogradov, N.N. Amosova, N.A. Samarets in the field of defining the term of phraseologism and the main approaches to their classifications; 2) L.P. Smith, E.G. Kotova, E.V. Godunova in the area of classifying phraseologisms with a national-cultural component in languages. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the phraseological units of the Russian and English languages are analyzed in terms of the presence of a national-cultural component, which allows to determine which phraseological units have the most vivid national-cultural specificity in two languages. The analysis of the selected phraseological units shows that phraseologisms reflect the characteristics and uniqueness of a particular people and nation. Such characteristics can be considered through the origin of a particular phraseological expression. In the research material we found that many expressions originated from the traditions and customs that once existed among people. This specificity allows tracking the uniqueness and individuality of culture as well as identifying the national-cultural component within a phraseological unit.