The article deals with lexical and phraseological means as representatives of expressiveness. The importance of the study is due to the fact that the analysis of expressive lexical and phraseological means allows to interpret in detail the intentions of the author and understand the principles of thinking of the writer. The study of the communicative-pragmatic meaning of utterances is extremely important within sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics. The aim of the work is to trace the peculiarities of the realization of expressiveness at the lexical-phraseological level and to determine the dominant functions of expressive units in the book “Samovchytel hrafomana»” [“Graphoman’s self-study»] by A. Sanchenko. Expressiveness is a complex category that actively functions in linguistics and manifests its power in a large number of linguistic tools, techniques, signs. Expressiveness has the ability to activate cognitive process, show various plans of relationships, motivate to action. The text is written in a language that, of course, focuses on literary norms, but the author avoids excessive use of vocabulary that performs only a cognitive-informative function. It was found that in the analyzed text colloquial, abusive and slang vocabulary performs expressive-emotional, evaluative, character-creating functions and explicitly or implicitly reproduces the ironic-humorous effect. The choice of the expressive vocabulary depends on the micro-topic, within which specific images and situations are presented. The phraseological units in an unchanged and transformed form reproduce the leading intentions of the author: irony, informing, mostly disapproving attitude to human behavior. Phraseological units are divided into two groups according to the level of expressiveness: 1) phraseological units that function with an unchanged structure and reproduce traditional ideas about the world of things and people in the work; 2) transformed phraseological units, the semantic field of which is loaded with the subjective assessment of the writer. It is established that lexical and phraseological expressions appeal to the emotional and sensory sphere of recipients, release a powerful suggestive influence. The analyzed expressive means can be investigated in more detail on the basis of known claims about implicit and explicit expressiveness, strong and weak stance of expressiveness.