Idioms and stable phrases in the context of politics (based on the material of the Serbian language)

Abstract

The article examines the functions of phraseological units in political discourse using the contrastive method and methods of observation, semantic and distributional analysis. The aim is to identify the linguistic and extralinguistic reasons for the use of phraseology in different genres of political discourse. Based on a broad understanding of phraseology, idioms and low idiomaticity collocations are studied, which are particularly difficult to translate, since when choosing an equivalent, it is necessary to correctly assess the internal form of a phraseological unit, its semantic and expressive potential, distributive characteristics, and stylistic labeling in order to avoid distortions of meaning or inaccuracies. In texts of analytical and journalistic genres, idioms are used as a tool of political struggle, in particular, phraseological units with negative connotations serve to form a toxic image of Russia. In modern Serbian society, outright Russophobia can cause rejection, while the associative and expressive potential of idioms allows you to achieve the desired effect unnoticed by the consumer of information. Low idiomaticity collocations are characteristic of the official business style, which is one of the components of diplomatic discourse. The conclusion is made about the high degree of interlanguage idiomaticity of the considered phrases, which confirms the effectiveness of the contrastive approach to the object of this study.

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