In political discourse metaphors are frequently employed for persuading and manipulating the public. The aim of our research is to show whether there are differences in the use of source domains of conceptual metaphors among Croatian politicians in comparison with American and Italian politicians. The corpus of our research consists of political newspaper articles and interviews from Croatian, American and Italian daily newspapers (Jutarnji list, Večernji list, Corriere della Sera, Repubblica, ABC, USA Today and The New York Times), downloaded from newspaper archives. We can conclude that metaphorical expressions vary from language to language, but often the same metaphorical expressions appear in all languages. Expressions that frequently recur are victory, attack, battle, race, defense, splay, stage and role. Except for two ontological metaphors in Croatian examples, we can say that there is no major difference in the source domains between Croatian, American and Italian political discourse.

This study is focused on lexical cross-linguistic influences in Spanish third language (L3) acquisition. Participants are learners with Croatian first language (L1) and English second language (L2). The study investigates the relationship between L3 proficiency and types of lexical errors. Our hypotheses are focused on two main points: type of language transfer can be related to formal similarity of certain features or language components and to L2 proficiency as well and therefore English L2 will be the main source in both - transfer of form and transfer of meaning and the type of lexical errors is changed with the higher level of proficiency. Calques are more frequent, and code-switching is reduced (Celaya, 2006, 2008). There were 50 participants in this research and all of them are second and third year students of the American College of Management and Technology. Our hypotheses were confirmed on the basis of the error analysis in the compositions of the second and third year students. Key words:  Calques; formal similarity; transfer of form; transfer of meaning    Međujezični utjecaji između španjolskog J3, engleskog J2 i hrvatskog J1 te veze između jezičnog umijeća i vrste leksičkih pogrešaka Sažetak U središtu pozornosti ovog istraživanja su leksički međujezični utjecaji prilikom usvajanja španjolskog jezika kao trećeg stranog jezika kod učenika kojima je hrvatski jezik prvi/ materinski jezik, a engleski drugi jezik.  U ovom radu smo također proučavali veze između jezičnog umijeća u trećem jeziku i vrste leksičkih pogrešaka. Cilj našeg istraživanja je istražiti hrvatske i engleske međujezične utjecaje, a naše pretpostavke su usmjerene na dvije glavne točke: vrsta promatranog jezičnog prijenosa može biti povezana s formalnom sličnosti između određenih značajki ili komponenti jezika te će tako engleski jezik kao J2 biti preferirani izvor leksičkoga prijenosa te da se proizvodnja kalkova povećava kako učenici postaju kompetentniji u trećem jeziku. Istraživanje je provedeno na uzorku od 50 ispitanika. Svi ispitanici su studenti druge i treće godine na Američkoj visokoj školi za menadžment i tehnologiju. Metodom analize pogrešaka analizirani su završni pismeni radovi te potvrđene naše pretpostavke. Ključne riječi:  formalna sličnost;  kalkovi; prijenos forme; prijenos značenja

The passive voice is a very challenging part of English grammar. The aim of this paper is to examine the function, frequency and structure of the passive voice in written language production.