Using idioms in the argumentative structure the editorial

The paper presents an analysis of an editorial in the daily, Mahrisches Tagblatt. of July 1880 as an example for the functions of idioms in this opinion based, persuasive text type. Following a short characteristics of the particular newspaper, the national political situation in the Habsburg Monarchy in 1880 the editorial deals with and the text type editorial, the idioms used in the text are presented, with comments on their types and the way of their use (normal or modified). Then the summary of the text content is provided and at the same time the argumentative structure of the text is described. This makes apparent the speech act functions of the idioms. Those functions which are important for the argumentation are finally summed up.