“A BIRD IN THE HAND”: DIACHRONIC EVOLUTION OF ORNITHOLOGICAL METAPHORS IN ENGLISH PHRASEOLOGY

Abstract

This article examines the evaluative semantics of ornithological phraseological units in the English language across the Middle English and New English periods. Based on a corpus of historical phraseological units extracted from standard dictionaries of proverbs and phrases (WDP, ODP, EP), the study identifies a shift from a predominantly ameliorative conceptualisation of the bird in Middle English to an ambivalent, valuemarked representation in New English. Positive features such as “caution” and “moderation” persist throughout both periods, while New English introduces new ameliorative traits (“preferability”, “diligence”, “solidarity”, “love of home”) alongside a marked increase in pejorative features (“conditionality/determinism”, “stupidity”, “laziness”, “impossibility”, “selflove”). The analysis employs the notions of basic models (underlying humanoriented propositions) and figurative models (ornithologicallycoded scenarios) to reveal how bird imagery serves as a productive cognitive resource for evaluating human behaviour, social norms, and existential limitations. The findings contribute to cognitive phraseology, historical semantics, and cultural linguistics, demonstrating that the English bird concept evolves from a sacralised, uniformly positive symbol to a versatile evaluative tool reflecting early modern social and economic transformations.