The article focuses on the discoursal properties of the instantial stylistic use of phraesological units (PU's) and the relevance of a discourse-based approach to PU's in the teaching and learning of translation skills and translation practice. By 'instantial use' the author understands a single instance of a unique stylistic application. Traditionally PU's and their features have been mostly examined and illustrated at sentence level, the same refers to the theory of the translation of PU's. However, a sentence or even a paragraph level account of the functioning of PU's frequently proves to be inadequate as isolated contexts in which PU's appear are insufficient to achieve an understanding of the discoursal properties of phraesology. It is necessary to gain a broader view of its stylistic capacity and the techniques used. A discourse-based view of language means looking not just at isolated, decontextualised bits of language.