Periodic growth of phrasemes from a cross-linguistic perspective: Polish phraseology after the political transformation of 1989

Abstract The paper discusses the phenomenon of a culture-related periodic growth of phrasemes, i.e. an intensive increase of their number, occurring within a definite period of time, and caused by some extralinguistic factors. It differs from the absolute growth of the number of phrasemes, connected with the realization of natural nomination needs, constant and not so intensive. A periodic growth is triggered by an important event in the history of a particular culture and it may be assumed that the culture-bound character of the units in question influences their cross-linguistic equivalence. The paper discusses the case of the periodic growth of Polish phrasemes coined after the political transformation of 1989. The periodic increase following this event was chosen for the analysis, since the change of the system influenced greatly all spheres of life in Poland, such as politics, economy, culture. The study aims to present the most important areas of their occurrence, to describe their linguistic properties, to discuss culture-related aspects of their coinage and use as well as to propose the English equivalents of the phrasemes from two fields: politics and economy, which allows for determining the periodic growth influence on cross-linguistic correspondence of this group of units.