USING THE CORPUS TO STUDY TRANSFORMATIONS OF AVANT-GARDE IDIOMS IN MODERN DISCOURSE: THE CASE STUDY OF THE BLACK SQUARE

The formation of avant-garde idiomatics refers to the beginning of the 20th century. Its source are the literary and pictorial works of representatives of the early avant-garde (in particular, Cubo-Futurists). However, the use of avant-garde idioms is not limited to the period of their birth. The complex methodology of using the corpus presented in the article aims at establishing the structural and semantic changes that avant-garde idioms have acquired over a period of more than a century, i. e. from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. The specificity and eff ectiveness of the methodology is demonstrated by the results of studying the avant-garde non-verbal idiom “black square”, the source of which is Malevich’s famous painting, and its verbal derivative black square. The conducted research has established the basic senses of the avant-garde nonverbal idiom “black square”, its reproduction in the works of artists of the “post-avantgarde” period, and cases of its intersemiotic translation. When reproduced and translated into another semiotic system, “black square” is modifi ed and acquires new shades of meaning. Its verbal derivative black square has a variant form, i. e. suprematist square, and is used in modern discourse as an onym and appellative. According to the research findings, black square functions in the spheres and genres of texts that are not related to art and literature. The types of texts, in which black square is used and their themes are characterized by significant diversity, which causes its multiple semantic transformations. The character and degree of transformations are indicative of the verbal derivative idiomatization and the formation of the avant-garde verbal idiom black square. The undertaken corpus-based research helps to conceive the deep-lying links between non-verbal and verbal idioms and reveals the avant-gardists’ role in constructing the idiomatic subsystem of the language of Russian fine art and enriching the Russian phraseology with new units.