Pragmatic Borrowing: Phraseological Anglicisms in Italian

Starting from the notion of “pragmatic borrowing” (Andersen 2014: 18), the aim of this article is to assess the ability of “phraseological Anglicisms” (Pulcini, Furiassi & Rodríguez González 2012: 13) to perform “illocutionary acts” (Searle 1975: 355); particular attention is paid to phraseological Anglicisms, such as (and) the winner is …, take it easy and (the) show must go on, encountered in the Italian web-based corpus itTenTen. In addition, both quantitative and qualitative analyses are carried out by means of lexicographic resources, including the GDU and the Zingarelli for Italian and the Merriam-Webster and the OED for English. The frequency of phraseological Anglicisms is measured, the typical contexts in which they occur are presented, Italian translation equivalents are suggested and the illocutionary act performed is indicated. Despite the low quantitative impact of phraseological Anglicisms on Italian in terms of both vocabulary and frequency, their attestation is a further sign of the influence exerted by British and (mostly) American cultural models. Due to its status of global lingua franca, English itself is undoubtedly Italians’ favorite donor language and the preferred choice in both specialized and general contexts, which indeed shows the adaptability of the Italian language to the pervasive presence of English in everyday usage.