A Contrastive Study of Phraseological Units in English, French and Italian Political Discourse

Political discourse is pervasive in the media and plays a crucial role in shaping public perceptions  of political processes and phenomena. Although media texts dealing with political issues are expected to inform citizens in a clear and unbiased manner, this type of discourse is often characterised by a high degree of expressiveness and the frequent use of attention-seeking devices. For the sake of comparability, this study focuses on domain-specific political phraseological units (PUs), namely those referring explicitly to political issues and phenomena. The aim of the paper is to examine political PUs in English, French and Italian from a contrastive perspective, with particular attention to language contact, in order to identify patterns of borrowing, and to identify the tendencies in language borrowing. It also proposes a classification of phraseological equivalents across the three languages based on idiomaticity, compositionality, origin, and the degree of equivalence of individual components. The analysis shows that French phraseological influence was more prominent in the past, whereas English currently exerts a particularly strong influence. Italian influence on English and French political phraseology is also attested; however, such borrowings vary in their degree of entrenchment and are typically restricted to Italy-specific political contexts.