Spanish phraseology in formal and informal spontaneous oral language production

Abstract The study presented in this paper aims to perform a comprehensive analysis of the use of phraseological units (PUs) in contemporary Spanish according to two different levels of oral language production: (a) spontaneous informal (on the basis of conversations uttered among the contestants of the Spanish version of the reality show Big Brother), (b) spontaneous formal (on the basis of interviews performed on Spanish radio and TV programmes). The configuration of Spanish phraseology as it is used in formal and informal spontaneous oral language production will be investigated according to four variables: frequency distribution, typological distribution, stylistic distribution, and individual distribution. It will be shown that a) the more informal the discourse context, the higher the frequency of use of PUs, b) that idioms (and not routine formulae or proverbs) are clearly dominant in both formal and informal oral contexts, c) that there are speakers in formal discourse contexts who often utter informal PUs, d) that vulgar vs. non-vulgar PUs – and not so much informal vs. non-informal PUs – is the main disagreement between formal and informal spontaneous oral contexts, and e) that using vulgar PUs more or less frequently would be a highly individual issue.