Description of the Phraseological Units in the Señas Dictionary

Abstract

This article aims to describe the phraseological units (UF) in the Señas Dictionary. The justification for this study is that phraseology is a very present topic in Spanish as a foreign language classes, generating several debates about its composition and use; and Señas is a dictionary that already existed and was adapted specifically for the Brazilian public. This research uses the theoretical-methodological framework of phraseological and lexicographic studies (Corpas Pastor, 1996, 2003; Monteiro-Plantin, 2014; Pontes, 2008) and establishes six analysis criteria, which are: diatopy, linguistic attitude, presence or absence of taboo, degree of formality, rubric and presence or absence of example. Data collection used as a parameter the 10 most frequent lexemes in the Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA), which served as a basis for identifying the entries and selecting the UF. The analysis shows that Señas does not present proverbs, items directly linked to popular culture, which can be justified by the profile of the work, which highly values the cultured norm; and prefers UF that are more syntactically articulated, which on a decreasing scale of occurrences is in the following projection: placement > idiomatic expression > pragmatema > Ø (proverb) – the further to the left, the less understanding depends on cultural, encyclopedic knowledge, life experiences, and vice versa.