Structural and grammatical types of phraseological units in the English media text (based on The Economist)

Abstract

This article presents a structural and grammatical analysis of phraseological units (PU) used in contemporary English-language media texts, based on material from The Economist magazine. The aim of the study is to determine the specific functional load of key structural and grammatical types of phraseological units that are relevant for journalistic discourse in the implementation of two main functions of a media text – informative and influencing. The empirical basis of the study consisted of a representative sample of 160 phraseological units, extracted using a continuous sampling method from 50 articles in various sections. The authors conducted a multifaceted classification of PU based on the leading component, established the statistical frequency of their use, and thoroughly analyzed their pragmatic potential in context. The scientific novelty of the work consists in obtaining new empirical knowledge about the structural preferences and functional load of phraseology in modern English-language high-quality media texts, which contributes to the development of corpus phraseology and media linguistics. The results of the study convincingly demonstrate a pronounced predominance of substantive, verbal (non-comparative), and adverbial PU, which is directly due to the genre and stylistic specificity of high-quality analytical press, which harmoniously combines objective information with elements of expressive evaluation and authorial argumentation.

Research materials

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About this article

Publication history

• Received: January 26, 2022.
• Published: March 31, 2026.

Keywords

• англоязычный медиатекст
• журнал The Economist
• фразеологизация англоязычного текста
• субстантивная фразеологическая единица
• глагольная фразеологическая единица
• English-language media text
• The Economist
• phraseologization of the English text
• substantive phraseological unit
• verbal phraseological unit

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