Yana A. Olefir
Far Eastern Federal University, Russia
The Integration of American neologisms into recipient
languages
The
status of American English still raises much controversy. Nevertheless, its
specific features allow linguists to subsume it to one of the variants of the
English language.
The
period between the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st
centuries faces the appearance of big number of new words mostly due to changes
in politics, science, culture, etc. From the linguistic point of view this time
period can be characterized as a clash of two tendencies. The native speakers
tend to create new words (that could be explained by aspiration of native
speakers to express their identity) but creation of neologisms usually meets
certain criticism from the native speakers-proponents of standard language [10].
American
English is developing on the basis of polycentric model that distinguishes it
from other Englishes [6, p. 43]. Today its development reflects a wide range of
social and cultural factors such as full-scale migration (especially from Latin
America and Asia) and urbanization [6, p. 42) along with socialization of
numerous dialects [6, pp. 47-48]. During the last decades researchers focused
on the so called “blended languages”- the products of English blended with
other languages. The Internet has been enriched with websites of Japlish,
Spanglish, Chinglish, Hinglish, etc. Thus, Ilan Stavans, the author of Spanglish: the Making of a New American
Language, emphasizes the impact of American English on “blended languages”
in the USA, Spain and Latin American countries. The American slang is
steadily growing by borrowing from other languages whereas the percentage of
completely assimilated borrowings is very low [7, p. 21].
The
growing influence of American English on world Englishes and other languages
seems to be evident. It comes from a range of political, cultural and social
factors – such as the position of the USA on the international arena, in
sciences and technologies, in the sphere of entertainment. The French linguist
Ch. Bertrand takes this impact to be the leading factor in creation of “the
language of new age” [15].
According
to the recent studies of Russian and foreign linguists, certain fields of
activities tend to absorb linguistic borrowings from American English more
quickly than the others. For instance, the high percentage of new words emerges
in the domain of science (new terms). This tendency can be traced in many
languages. As G. Ivanova notes, more than 90 percent of new words in the
language are terms coined or borrowed for specific purposes [8]. Regarding
plentitude of new terms, special institutes and observatories are organized all
over the world to detect and restrict their usage. The French CGTN (Commission
Generale de Terminologie et de Neologie) can be considered one of the most
successful examples of tracking down borrowed terms and controlling their
further usage by French speakers. One of the key roles of CGTN is creation of
new terms on the basis of the French language in order to limit borrowings from
American English. As opposed to French Russian can be regarded as a “welcoming”
language for new borrowings. High percentage of new terms with further
adaptation to Russian context is notable in works of such linguists as
E. Nechaeva, A. Guerfanova and other.
American
English continues to play an important role as a major source for borrowing
slangisms though some linguists claim that modern languages seem to be less
open for new borrowings [9, p. 116]. Nevertheless, American English remains the
key source of borrowing for Russian [9, p. 112].
The
tendency for borrowing from American English can be accounted for by youths’
aspiration to create “an international code” [14]. The American lexicographer
T. Dalzell posits that good command of American slang allows non-native
speakers to feel part of American pop culture [16]. This tendency is reflected
in works of Russian scholars who stress the desire of Russian youths to “make a
part of American culture”, which is considered to be “prestigious” [2, p. 146].
Taken together the above mentioned factors lead to high frequency of American
slangisms in the Russian language.
Last
decades witnessed the growing role of Internet in the process of lexical
borrowing. According to data of 2009, more than 70% of the Internet users
(non-native speakers) have good command of spoken and written English [11, p.
147]. The development of Internet requires a certain compression of language to
create a new social dialect by Internet users [2, p. 147]. Moreover, the
American English has engendered a variety of abbreviations and acronyms which
are now typical not only for Internet but are frequently used in everyday
speech (such as FYI- for your information, or AFK – away from keyboard).
The
role of Internet is not limited to creation and spread of newly coined words
within a language. Today Internet contributes to the process of assimilation of
new linguistic units in other languages. For instance, J. Androutsopoulos notes
that a big number of americanisms come to young German’s language by means of
Internet [14]. Such tendency can be witnessed in other languages.
The
American TV also has a great impact on American slang and the assimilation of
slangisms beyond American variant. The huge number of slangisms of American
origin was created and then “promoted” to everyday speech by American TV-shows
and movies. M. Adams, the author of the book Slayer Slang, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon illustrates the
influence of American TV-shows on the process of coining new words by an
example of American show Buffy the
Vampire Slayer. According to M. Adams this particular TV-show introduced
hundreds of slangisms to Americans – the slangisms that became an integral part
of American youths’ speech [13]. American linguists emphasize the growing speed
of renovation in slang (esp. among young people for this age group is the most
prone to unconventional usage of language) in the recent years along with the
growing social and creative impact of the Internet, popularity of TV
productions and an almost total access to online communication [16]. American
TV-shows high rates in the USA and in other countries cause americanisms to
“migrate” to Spanish, French, German, Russian and other languages.
The
Russian language along with other languages is facing the enormous influence of
American English. As several Russian linguists state, today it seems possible
to speak about “the English language imperialism” [3, p. 81].
Such
impact of American English on Russian and other languages could probably stem
from democratization and liberalization that take place all over the world [10].
In terms of globalization in many countries the role of English in the process
of “neologization” in general and the American English in particular has
increased. In the recent years the research has been conducted in the domain of
neology with a view to exploring the processes of neologization and
assimilation of new units in a linguistic community. K. Maxwell describes the
ways of integration of Americanisms in other languages in the world as the
process of borrowing the new word with changing its morphological structure to
fit in the norms of the recipient language [17, p.209]. He argues that several
languages such as Russian, Danish, Italian, Serbian and Polish are the
languages with the highest percentage of direct borrowing from American English
whereas the speakers of other languages tend to translate the borrowed
neologisms [17, p.211].
The
process of assimilation in the recipient language passes several stages.
T. Strekaleva distinguishes five stages of assimilation of the borrowings
in the Russian language. On the first stage the word is used “as it is”, with
its phonetic and orthographic form remaining intact as in the source language. The next stage involves the assimilation of
the word by the recipient language through transcription or transliteration.
The newly borrowed word develops the characteristics of a certain part of
speech in the recipient language. On the third stage this word comes in general
use by speakers and loses its novelty. The fourth stage involves the final
development of the word’s semantic with further loss of genre and stylistic
peculiarities it had in a donor language. On the final stage the word is
registered in dictionaries of the recipient language [12, p.150]. This process
can be complex and time-consuming. Nevertheless, as the information society
develops, influencing the process of assimilation, today even the recent
borrowings can easily integrate into a recipient language with further
assimilation in it [11, p. 98].
Although
assimilation processes have long been in the focus of Russian linguistics, this
aspect tends to remain controversial. This controversy stems from difficulty in
defining such concepts as borrowing
and calque ( as well as loan blend and partial calque) and in creating schemes of cognitive adaptation of
new borrowings [3, p. 82]. Moreover, scholars have not developed a
comprehensive classification of new units by far. Nevertheless, in neology, certain
types of neologisms can be identified regarding the level of assimilation.
Thus, it is possible to speak about non-assimilated borrowings (in works of V. Eliseeva
termed as barbarisms) (without
changing orthographic structure), partly assimilated (with partial assimilation
of orthographic structure) and completely assimilated (with complete
transformation of the borrowing according to orthographic system of recipient
language) [1, p.145]. L. Son recommends distinguishing between borrowed words
and borrowed meanings. Thus, L. Son’s classification of unassimilated
“neologisms-meanings” (not accepted by literature standards) and assimilated
“neologisms-meanings” (registered in dictionaries and used in the terms of
norms of literature) [11, p. 99]. A.
Doubenets suggests a classification based on frequency of the new
borrowings and the way they were borrowed (written or oral form). Thus, the
linguist subdivides the partly assimilated borrowings into a) borrowings non-assimilated semantically, b) borrowings
non-assimilated grammatically, c) borrowings non-assimilated phonetically, d)
borrowings partly assimilated graphically [4, p. 102].
Integration
and assimilation of borrowed neologisms is a complex process. With the global
influence of American English in the world, the research conducted in the field
of neology can help gain insights into the nature of this process and
anticipate future trends in the development of various languages.
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