SEMANTIC SHIFTS OF TRADITIONAL SOMATIC IDIOMS IN POST-MILLENNIAL GERMAN NOVELS

Аннотация

This article examines how traditional somatic idioms — expressions that encode bodily experience such as einen kühlen Kopf bewahren, Schmetterlinge im Bauch haben, or auf den Magen schlagen — undergo semantic realignment in German novels published since ca. 2000. By combining insights from cognitive metaphor theory, historical semantics, and close literary reading, I trace several recurrent tendencies: semantic bleaching and conventionalization, ironic literalization, medicalization and biopolitical re- signification, and pragmatic redeployment as discourse markers. The analysis argues that these changes are not accidental but systematic responses to shifting cultural contexts (biomedicine, digital embodiment, migration, and the aesthetic strategies of contemporary narrators). Keywords: somatic idioms, german literature, post-millennial novels, semantic shift, idiomatic bleaching, literalization, medicalization, irony and parody, pragmaticization. Introduction. Somatic idioms are among the most persistent and most revealing resources in language. Because they map bodily states onto social, moral, and epistemic domains, idioms such as das Herz brechen (to break the heart) or aus dem Bauch heraus entscheiden (decide from the gut) simultaneously encode cultural models of emotion and attributions of agency. Consequently, when these idioms shift semantically, they disclose changes not only in lexis but also in cultural models of the body and subjectivity [4]. In the novels written by German-language authors since the turn of the millennium, we frequently encounter subtle but systematic transformations in how somatic idioms function. On the one hand, many idioms become lighter, more conventional — that is, semantically bleached — and thereby serve as pragmatic markers rather than vivid embodiments. On the other hand, novelists often stage the body explicitly so that the idiom oscillates between metaphor and literal description, producing irony, estrangement, or intensified pathos. This article develops an integrated account of these shifts through theoretical framing, close reading patterns, and suggestions for empirical follow-up. To make sense of the semantic trajectories of somatic idioms, two intersecting strands of theory are useful. First, cognitive metaphor theory 14 SCIENCE AND INNOVATION IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM International scientific-online conference frames idioms as conventionalized mappings: EMOTIONS ARE CONTAINERS or MIND IS A CONTAINER/HEAD undergird many somatic expressions. Thus, changes in idiom usage can be read as shifts in the salience of particular conceptual metaphors. Second, historical/functional semantic models — including notions of semantic bleaching, grammaticalization, and pragmaticization — explain how figurative expressions lose imagistic force and become discourse devices. In addition, sociolinguistic and cultural-historical perspectives remind us that language change is embedded in shifting institutions: the rise of biomedical discourse, changes in media and digital communication, and the increased circulation of multilingual speakers all provide pressures that alter idiomatic meaning [1]. Bringing these frameworks together allows us to see idioms both as cognitive artifacts and as responsive cultural signs: they can be re-used by narrators for stylistic effects, recalibrated by speakers who draw on biomedical vocabularies, or reshaped by contact with other languages and modalities. One dominant tendency is semantic bleaching: idioms lose their vivid bodily imagery and function increasingly as general evaluative or discourse markers. For example, einen kühlen Kopf bewahren in many recent novels functions less as a prompt to imagine physical cooling and more as a conventional idiom for measured comportment. Consequently, the phrase can be used even in absurd contexts where literal cooling would be impossible, and readers therefore process it almost automatically. Moreover, as idioms become more frequent in rapid dialogue or telegraphic narration, their imagistic load diminishes. Thus, the idiom performs a pragmatic job — marking an attitude, smoothing conversational transitions, or signaling narrator judgment — rather than inviting a sensory simulation. This process mirrors well-known pathways of semantic change whereby metaphors lexicalize and then bleach, but it matters aesthetically because anemic idioms can function ironically when juxtaposed with intense bodily description. The next section shows precisely how writers exploit that contrast. Contrasting with bleaching, novelists often deliberately literalize somatic idioms to produce estrangement or to foreground embodied trauma. That is, a phrase that has become conventional in everyday speech is re-embodied in fiction: Schmetterlinge im Bauch can be staged not as a metonym for nervous love but as a palpable, almost clinical sensation that the narrator scrutinizes. By doing so, authors force readers to re-imagine the idiom’s