The Image of a Dog in the Galician Ethnophraseology

The article examines dog idioms of the Galician language from a cultural-semiotic perspective. The analysis is based on 150 idioms. The purpose of this paper is to characterize the metaphorical image of a dog in Galician phraseology and to analyze its symbolic meanings in the Galician language worldview. A symbolic meaning of this or that word is based on the social role importance of the object or phenomenon designated by this word in a certain ethnic culture. Idiomatic symbolism represents ethnopsychological characteristics of a native speaker and demonstrates the influence of the language on shaping the people’s mentality. The analyzed zoonym manifests various types of symbolism. The metaphorization of the zoonym “dog” is based both on the behavioral characteristics of the animal and on a person’s attitude to it. In the phraseological corpus of the Galician language, the animal possesses a contradictory dual characteristic, mainly negative. It has been revealed that the image of a dog in the Galician worldview is that of a loyal and devoted friend, having intelligence and experience. However, the image of a dog in proverbs, sayings, and figurative comparisons seems to convey the worst features: it is angry, aggressive, insatiable, lazy; besides, a dog’s life is hard and poor.