An Exploratory Analysis of Hyphenated Phrasal Expressions in English vs. Italian Fashion Writing

Abstract

 Hyphenated phrasal expressions have been analysed by linguists as complex phraseological features found in languages such as English and German. In the specific context of English fashion discourse, studies have highlighted their distinctive use by fashion writers to formulate richly articulated descriptions and evaluations, while expressing their own unique discursive identities. Yet it is not known whether such usage has spilled over into Italian fashion discourse, representing a language that generally lacks such phrase-like compounds. This contribution explores the use of hyphenated phrasal expressions in Italian fashion journalism, which may reflect cross-influence from its English counterparts. Extending previous corpus-assisted research on these expressions in English fashion journalism, the analysis is replicated in a corpus of Italian fashion journalism compiled from the digital fashion magazine MF Fashion. Results indicate that hyphenated phrasal expressions are comparatively infrequent in the Italian fashion journalism corpus and tend to be conventionalized within the fashion world (e.g., prêt-à-porter) or appear in English within code-switching episodes. However, there were some cases of highly creative usage, for example, il designer-dj-pr argentino, which highlights the multiple identities and talents of a person of interest within the fashion world. The findings of the study offer a foray into the phenomenon of linguistic cross-fertilization within the global fashion discourse community in relation to hyphenated phrasal expressions.