Axiologically marked models reflecting the concept “lion” in English idioms

The given article deals with English phraseological units, which are also called idiomatic expres-sions. The object under study is the concept “lion” as reflected in the analyzed linguistic units. The zoonymic concept “lion” is a relevant element of English linguistic culture, which explains its presence in English idi-omatic expressions. Linguo-culturological approach is one of the leading trends of modern linguistics.The described phraseological units of the English language are characterized by the occurrence of the evaluative component of meaning, which is also called axiological. Evaluation is the attitude of the speaker towards reality expressed in the explicit or implicit way. In the evaluation, the anthropocentric character of human thinking manifests itself. Linguistic evaluation may have a positive (meliorative) or negative (pejorative) character. The purpose of this article is to study the axiological potential of the zoonymic concept “lion”, which is a relevant element of the meaning of the concept under consideration. Cognitive modeling is used as the main method of the paper. English phraseological units embody a number of really existing in the lan-guage mental models reflecting the evaluative character of the studied concept. The studied mental models serve as the basis for objectification of different evaluative features, both positive (meliorative) and negative (pejorative). Evaluative features are considered to be minimal, “atomic” elements of sense contributing to the systematization of our knowledge about concepts embodied in linguistic units, among which are English phraseological units.