One of the most debatable problems in modern phraseology is the problem of functioning of phraseological units (PU). The results of studying the basic pragmatic functions of phraseological units in modern English are provided in this paper. The pertinence of the study stems from the imminent need to differentiate regular pragmatic functions in the English phraseology. The aim of the paper is to analyze the PU functions on the basis of the British National Corpus (BNC) and estimate their quantitative co-relation. The theoretical background of the research is based on the phraseological concept introduced by. A. V. Kunin. The research is carried out on the language material extracted from modern lexicographic sources. The main method of extraction of phraseological units out of a language continuum and their semantic analysis is the method of phraseological identification that was introduced by professor A.V. Kunin, the founder of the English phraseology as a branch of linguistic science and as a self-contained linguistic discipline. A set of non-paradigmal methods and techniques of linguistics is employed as additional methods of the research, including a descriptive method with its procedures, and methods of the phraseological, definitional and contextual analysis. The importance of the research consists in its evident result, id est: it has been shown that all the functions of phraseological units considered in the article – stylistic, cumulative, directive, evaluative, summarizing, text-building functions – are basic, or normative, functions, but not occasional ones. The research leads to the conclusion that phraseological units are most actively utilized in the evaluative and in stylistic functions, and both of these functions are often combined in discourse. As to the cumulative and directive functions, their quantitative share in discourse is relatively small.