Phraseological Units in Russian Sign Language: Looking for the Correlation with Spoken Russian Language

The aim of the research is to compare the divergence in expressing idiomatic units in Russian Sign Language and Russian language while maintaining their conceptual unity. The author hypothesizes that Russian language idioms can be expressed through single visual signs in Russian Sign Language. The main method of comparative analysis of 19 phraseological units revealed a tendency toward structural compression: 68.4% of idioms in Russian Sign Language are represented by integral visual signs. Complete correspondence of figurative concepts was established in both language systems, along with a high degree of lexical equivalence (84.2% of cases). The results confirm the stability of conceptual-semantic connections between the phraseological systems of Russian and Russian Sign Language, despite differences in their structural organization.