Special Phraseology in Business English Vocabulary: Forms and Functions

Abstract

The main focus of the article is a stratum within Business English vocabulary known as special phraseology and noted for the underlying fusion of terminological and metaphorical properties. The use of authentic samples of business discourse and the application of the corpora-based, descriptive, lexicographic, functional and quantitative methods allowed to uncover and present the systemic-structural, cognitive and functional characteristics of the stratum under analysis. The results of the study lead to a better understanding of the nature, scope, variety and functions of special phraseology as a low-frequency but dynamic and open-ended stratum of Business English vocabulary. As based on the material assembled and examined in the article, the list of the functional layers within Business English vocabulary has been expanded and therefore comprises 15 lexical, lexical-phraseological and terminological strata.