Russian and Italian Idioms in the Semantic Field of Weather and Natural Phenomena: a Cognitive Perspective for Thesaurus Building

Idioms in the semantic field of weather and natural phenomena are extensively represented in both Russian and Italian phraseological systems. Their analysis within a cognitive linguistic framework focuses on examining their meanings as instances of language use that often encode culturally grounded perspectives on the world (Dobrovol’skij, Piirainen 2022). This presentation forms part of a broader Ph.D. research project aimed at developing a categorisation of this type of idiomatic units with the ultimate goal of creating a contrastive conceptual thesaurus of idioms in the two languages. In particular, the presentation discusses a preliminary analysis of a specific conceptual cluster, illustrating one of the steps involved in the study. Furthermore, particular attention is devoted to the discussion of the research project, taking into consideration its theoretical foundations and methodological structure. Ultimately, the presentation also addresses several challenges encountered during the initial development of the project.