English phraseological units in V. Nabokov's individual style

The article deals with English phraseological units in V.V. Nabokov’s works. The focus is made on the role of phraseological units in representing emotions. The study of the phraseological representation of emotions in literary texts by Nabokov seems relevant due to the specific idiostyle of the writer’s prose. The article addresses emotive phraseology as a linguistic and artistic peculiarity of the writer. The sources of the empirical material are such literary works by Nabokov as “Lolita” (1955), “The Real Life of Sebastian Knight” (1941), and “Pnin” (1957). The application of phraseological, componential, stylistic, and linguocultural analysis enabled to identify and describe phraseological means of emotions’ representation in the texts under study, as well as to consider the peculiarities of the individual author’s worldview. The conclusion is made about a wide range of emotions. In the material collected, the idioms expressing joy, anger and sadness prevail, while the idioms expressing fear and surprise are least frequent. It should be pointed out that emotive idioms are extensively used by Nabokov to express a variety of emotions. Moreover, occasional idioms, rendering the writer’s unique artistic style are based on the author’s transference and are characterized by a particular expressivity.