An exploratory analysis of hyphenated phrasal expressions in English vs. Italian fashion writing

Hyphenated phrasal expressions have been analysed by linguists as complex phraseological features found in languages such as English and German. In the particular 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 counterpart. Extending previous corpus-assisted research on these expressions in English fashion journalism, the analysis is replicated a corpus of Italian fashion journalism. 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 argentine that highlights the multiple identities and talents of persons of interest within the fashion world. The findings offer a foray into the phenomenon of linguistic cross-fertilization within the global fashion discourse community in relation to hyphenated phrasal expressions.