International
Conference
Anglizismen in Europa
Anglicisms in Europe
Universität Regensburg
26.-28. September 2006
– Abstracts –
Abstracts
How and why do anglicisms in DEA (Dictionary of European Anglicisms)
differ lexically from their English etymons?
Nevena Alexieva, Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics
University of Sofia, Bulgaria
nevena11@yahoo.com
The paper tries to answer the question posed in the title - why, against all expectation, do many anglicisms in the 16
languages covered by DEA deviate lexically from their English source words – either subtly, or markedly? The
traditional treatment of borrowings as foreign words in a receptor language fails to answer this question
convincingly. The paper offers an alternative approach which recognizes the active role of the borrowing language.
This role is interpreted as an ability to create close lexical copies of the respective model words in the source
language. The loanwords created in this way share with the rest of the receptor language lexicon the structural and
semantic potential for dynamic development leading to the creation of further new meanings and words. This
approach is supported with an analysis of the factors underlying the independent lexical development, often along
similar lines, of some Anglicisms in DEA, which are shared by several languages.
English Elements in Company Names: Global and Regional Considerations
Angelika Bergien, Professor of English Linguistics
University of Magdeburg, Germany
angelika.bergien@gse-w.uni-magdeburg.de
The present paper is based on a socio-onomastic study which included companies and consumers in Saxony-Anhalt
(Germany). The aim of the study was twofold: firstly, to find out why companies use a certain name, and secondly,
what consumers think about or associate with that name. Both parts of the study included questionnaires which were
sent to companies and consumers. Special emphasis was placed on linguistic and socio-economic strategies in the
naming process. The results of the study reveal that almost half of the informants on the consumer side consider
effective language choice in company names important. The use of company names or name elements which are
either foreign or at least look and sound foreign (in particular English) is regarded by company owners as a means of
making products more successful by giving them the aura of international renown. In addition, owners argue that for
certain fields (e.g. fashion or beauty culture) the foreign name is simply a must, as it implies a positive connotation
for the special trade. The idea is that sales would benefit if a company or product is given a foreign name. However,
if producers and consumers have different ideas of what ‘effective language choice’ means, then this may lead to a
clash between internal images, which are constructed within the company, and images created outside the company
by those not directly involved. The aim of the paper is to show developments of company names from the viewpoint
of two different contradictory trends: globalisation versus regionalisation.
Anglicisms in the terminology of investment banking
Magdalena Bielenia
University of Gdańsk, Poland
angmb@univ.gda.pl
The issues such as intercultural communication, translation and economics have been of the author’s interest for
some years. Thus, the aim of this research is to show the complexities connected with translating the terms
connected with any business activity. In order to narrow the scope of the investigation, the attention is given
exclusively to the terminology connected with investment banking. The research starts with some basic notions
important for the translation process of the mentioned above terminology. There are many areas of study which are
responsible for the shape of the words connected with investment banking, thus an attempt is made to prove how
certain disciplines influence the current state of investment vocabulary. First, the term investment banking is
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presented and how this concept differs in various countries which are taken into consideration in this study. The
countries which are taken into consideration are Poland, Germany and Spain. The way this concept is understood is
not the same in all the examined. However, the attention is mostly focused on Poland, with Polish being the main
language examined as far as anglicisms are concerned. For example, before 1989 investment banking was unknown
to Poles willing to allocate additional funds. The other important caesura both for the investment banking as such as
well as for its terminology from the Polish perspective was 2004 when Poland became the member of the European
Union. Hence, both the economic as well as the legal aspects are presented with regard to translation problems. The
way investment banking functions in a particular country is responsible for the state of terminology which is proved
in the research as well. Of course, the author also tries to show how translation theories can be helpful in the process
of translating the terms connected with investment banking. The concept of Languages for Special Purposes is also
studied in relation to the mentioned above research. An attempt is made to show the place of investment banking
terminology in the studies of LSP as such. As far as the division of researched material is concerned, the taxonomy
used in international finances is used which enables for clear presentation of the terms. Hence, we study the
investment banking terminology according to the division popular in professional economic literature. We should
also try to examine whether the level of anglicisms is the same within the researched domain, whether words of
English origin can be found in M&A as well as in the vocabulary of bonds and stocks. The last part of the research is
devoted to the future situation of investment banking terminology with regard to anglicisms.
Tchechische Sprachpolitik und Anglizismen in der tschechischen Sprache
PhDr. Hannelore Bobáková, Assistant Professor in German Linguistics
Slezská univerzita, Tschechische Republik
bobakova@opf.slu.cz
Der Artikel befasst sich in der Einleitung mit der Sprachpolitik in der Tschechischen Republik, wobei einige
Phänomene aufgezeigt werden, die die tschechische Sprache beeinflussen. Weiter wird die Untersuchung zur
Amerikanisierung der tschechischen Sprache vorgestellt und die Ergebnisse dieser Forschung werden weiter
diskutiert. Im letzten Teil des Beitrages werden dann formelle Merkmale zum Sprachgebrauch von Anglizismen
besprochen.
Anglicisms in contemporary Czech medical terminology and in specialized medical texts
Ivana Bozdĕchová, Assistant Professor in Czech Language
Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
bozdech@ff.cuni.cz
This brief survey examines the phenomena of an increased influence of English on the Czech specialized vocabulary
and on professional communication in the (lexically) traditional field of medicine. On the basis of excerpts from
monolingual and multilingual medical dictionaries and of published scholarly texts in the field of medicine the author
attempts to judge the position and the share of anglicisms in contemporary Czech medical terminology and in
(written) medical communication in which authors are now compelled to read translated and original English texts
and also to write their own professional texts in English. Attention is focused on the degree of adaptation of English
terms in Czech, on accepted international terminological synonyms, on anglicisms abnormal or parasystemic from
the viewpoint of the Czech linguistic system (appearing with increasing frequency also outside professional
communication) and on figurative phraseological terms taken over. Some traditional terms (with Latin and Greek
roots) are compared with (Anglo-American) terms from modern (for instance alternative) medicine.
How to record the Usage of Anglicisms?
Some Comments on the DEA-1 and some Suggestions for the DEA-2
Ulrich Busse, Professor of English Linguistics
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany
ulrich.busse@anglistik.uni-halle.de
The Dictionary of European Anglicisms [DEA], edited by Manfred Görlach in 2001, is a pioneering work, as it records
for the first time ever the usage of Anglicisms in sixteen European languages on a comparative scale. In its
theoretical and practical approach, the concept of usage plays an important role. Görlach (2003: 110) acknowledges
both the special importance and the inherent difficulty of this concept. He says: “In a dictionary which has ‘usage’ as
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the first word of its subtitle, readers will rightly expect this type of information to be central” but the difficulties of
describing the usage of specific items in an individual language multiply when sixteen sets of data are compared.
The DEA presents its entries according to the degree of acceptance and arranges them on a scale reaching from 0 to
5. These figures “indicate a cline of increasing integration (and often also of frequency and acceptability” (DEA
2001: xxiv). Usually, this information is paired with usage restrictions indicating the field, medium, region, register,
style, status and currency of an entry (ibid: xxxiv f.).
The idea of the paper at hand is to have a closer look at the concepts of usage, acceptance and integration in order to
work out how they intersect. For this reason the methodology and the categories as presented in DEA-1 will be
revisited, and scrutinised, especially in the light of review articles. If necessary, suggestions on how to improve the
dictionary will be made.
References:
Görlach, Manfred, ed. (2001). A Dictionary of European Anglicisms. Oxford: OUP.
Görlach, Manfred (2003). English Words Abroad. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Anglicisms in Spain: The Language of Tourism
Isabel de la Cruz Cabanillas, Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics
Mª Rosa Cabellos Castilla, Lecturer in English Linguistics
Esperanza Cerdá Redondo, Lecturer in English Linguistics
Mercedes Díez Prado, Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics
Cristina Tejedor Martínez, Senior Lecturer in English Linguistics
University of Alcalá, Spain
isabel.cruz@uah.es
rosa.cabellos@uah.es
esperanza.cerda@uah.es
mercedes.diez@uah.es
cristina.tejedormartinez@uah.es
It is traditionally assumed that the influence of English upon Spanish is particularly pervasive in the area of languages
for specific purposes. In the case of the language of tourism it is more complicated than in other areas, as it covers
several subfields, for example economics, history of art, marketing, sports, law, etc. We have carried out previous
research on the presence of loanwords in tourism and computer language showing the increasing influence of
English. The present study analyses the frequency and usage of anglicisms in the language of tourism in five different
publications aimed at the general public, as well as web pages. Most of the articles and pages are related to adventure
sports and rural tourism.
The analysis of anglicisms has been undertaken having two main objectives in mind. Firstly, we shall examine their
adaptation to the system in terms of gender assignment and plural formation to determine whether English
loanwords in Spanish are governed by the usual criteria regarding gender assignment. We shall see whether the
English pattern prevails over the Spanish one or if there is a mixture of both methods. We have also concentrated on
the type of coinage that is derived once the item has been introduced in Spanish; some of the terms remain as
sporadic code-switches, but others can be regarded as real borrowings that develop into derivatives or undergo other
processes of word formation. This in mind, we have attempted to discover which seems to be the most common
procedure to fully integrate the borrowing into the Spanish system.
Secondly, we have centred our analysis not only on linguistic aspects, but also on some
socio-pragmatic issues in order to establish a correlation between the frequency of foreign elements and the textual
genre, the textual type, the discourse topic and the thematic area in which they are mainly used. Thus, in the research
we present, we have also tried to account for the reasons lying behind the preference for English terms rather than
the native ones, providing not only a qualitative analysis but also quantitative evidence from corpus-based driven
data.
Football lexis and phraseology in the contemporary Bulgarian language
Vladimir Dosev, Lecturer in Bulgarian language
University of Economics, Varna, Bulgaria
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The paper aims to introduce Bulgarian football lexis and the methods of terms supply in the language. It indicates
the lexical specificity in the communication in the steady football social groups and studies the lexical and
phraseological problems in the media. The paper discoveries the functioning of the football lexis and phraseology
and describes theirs potential usage in different semantic and functional fields.
The research uses three different methods. 1. Descriptive method- collecting lexical material from media,
dictionaries, encyclopedias, normative documents; 2. Sociolinguistic analysis of the speech behavior of the football
crowds and the communication in football social groups. It includes internet pages, communication in chat rooms,
fans placards, records of the speech in football social groups (method “Hidden microphone”). The material about
the media is especially from newspapers 24 часа (24 hours), 7 дни спорт (7 days sport), Меридиан мач (Meridian
mach), Топ спорт (Top sport) and from electronic media. 3. Statistic analysis in the media of the frequency of the
new English loan-words.
Die Anglizismen und ihre Behandlung in der Sprachreinigung der Jahrhundertwende
Irene Doval
Weder die Aufnahme englischer Wörter ins Deutsche noch die Ablehnung von Anglizismen sind etwas Neues. Die
Bekämpfung von Wörtern fremder Herkunft hat im deutschsprachigen Raum eine lange Tradition: Die Tätigkeit der
Sprachgesellschaften im 17. und im 19. Jh., die Verdeutschungswörterbücher im 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jhs. sind
hier als Beispiele zu nennen. Die Sprachreinigung wandte sich zuerst gegen das lateinische und französische, dann
auch gegen das englische Lehngut. Noch um die Jahrhundertwende richteten sich die Aktivitäten der damaligen
Sprachreiniger fast ausschließlich gegen das vorherrschende Französisch und schlugen sich in zahlreichen Aufsätzen,
Broschüren, Büchern usw. nieder, die für eine "Entwelschung des Deutschen" plädierten. J.F.A. Kinderling hatte
1795 in seiner Preisschrift Über die Reinigkeit der deutschen Sprache und über die Beförderungsmittel derselben lediglich zwölf
englische Fremdwörter genannt. Hundert Jahre später führte Dunger in seinem Wörterbuch von Verdeutschungen
entbehrlicher Fremdwörter schon 148 Anglizismen an, denn es gab bereits Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts eine gewisse
Anglizierung der deutschen Sprache. Der Zustrom des Englischen ging nicht nur auf die weitere Verbreitung
englischer Sprachkenntnisse zurück, sondern auch auf den großen Einfluss, den die englische Mode, die englischen
Einrichtungen im politischen und gesellschaftlichen Leben und vor allem die ursprünglich englischen Sportarten wie Tennis oder Fussball - in Deutschand gewonnen hatten. Aus diesem Grund kämpften schon um die
Jahrhundertwende Sprachreiniger, die meistens Mitglieder des damals führenden Vereins gegen Fremdwörter, des
Allgemeinen deutschen Sprachvereins, waren, gegen das Vordringen englischen Sprachguts. Die erste und
bekannteste Schrift gegen englische Fremdwörter kam 1899 von Hermann Dunger, Mitbegründer des ADSV,
"Wider die Engländerei". Er stand aber mit seiner Anti-Engländerei nicht alleine da. In den folgenden Jahren
erschienen auch andere Aufsätze, Verdeutschungstafeln, und Glossare, die zum Ziel hatten, der Zunahme der
englischen Ausdrücke ein Ende zu setzen und sie durch deutsche Wörter zu ersetzen.Der vorliegende Beitrag befasst
sich mit den Anglizismen und ihrer Behandlung in den puristischen Kreisen um die Jahrhundertwende. Es werden
verschiedene Veröffentlichungen zur Sprachreinigung, insbesondere die Zeitschrift des deutschen Sprachvereins,
ausgewertet. Berücksichtigt werden hierbei die Anglizismen, die um die Zeit in den verschiedenen Bereichen ins
Deutsche eingedrungen sind, die Verdeutschungen, die als Ersatz dafür vorgeschlagen wurden und der Erfolg, den
solche Verdeutschungen gehabt haben.
Face control, electronic soap and the four-storey cottage with a jacuzzi:
anglicisation, globalisation and the creation of linguistic difference
Dr John Dunn
University of Glasgow, Scotland
J.Dunn@slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
The aim of this paper is to consider the processes and the consequences of linguistic borrowing (with particular
reference to anglicisms) and to examine situations where these lead not, as might be expected, to greater linguistic
homogenisation, but to the creation of linguistic difference between the donor and recipient languages. Examples
will be taken mostly (though not exclusively) from Russian, but it is suggested that the principles will apply to a
greater or lesser extent to all European languages. There are four factors which can contribute to the creation of
linguistic difference: semantic, formal, cultural and what may be termed creative.
The principal semantic factors are:
 the borrowing of only part of a loanword's meaning
 the extension of meaning in the recipient language
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
partial or total lack of correspondence between the meanings in the donor and recipient languages.
The main formal factors are:
 the entry of a loanword into the word-formation system of the recipient language
 the adaptation or 'domestication' of loanwords
The principal cultural factors that contribute to the creation of linguistic difference are:
 the acquisition of a range of allusions and references in the recipient language
 the use of borrowed elements in word-play.
The principal form of linguistic 'creativity' is the creation of 'pseudoexoticisms', using English elements.
The conclusion suggested by the material examined here is that linguistic anglicisation is, both in special fields of
discourse and more generally, a more complex and more nuanced process than may at first sight appear and that
many phenomena that are perceived as 'anglicising' do not, in fact, have the consequence of bringing the recipient
language(s) closer to English. In this sense they demonstrate the paradox that linguistic globalisation is often at the
same time linguistic fragmentation, which has the somewhat unexpected consequence of leading to a more complex
and varied linguistic landscape.
First Names as Indicators for National (Dis)Orientation
Roswitha Fischer, Professor of English Linguistics
University of Regensburg, Germany
roswitha.fischer@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
Most parents choose the name for their newborn child just because it sounds nice, and generally disregard the
meaning and origin of the name. However, a number of mutually dependent factors also play their part, such as
traditions of all kinds, preference for certain naming cultures, social class, region, gender, religion, and the influence
of mass media.
In the course of modernization, globalization and mass tourism, today’s first names have become more individual
and more international. Presuming that human beings act on the basis of concepts constructed from the objects of
the world, I suggest that social change is reflected in the naming conventions of a country.
Today, the Anglo-American countries are amongst the major global players; they exert their influence on
international politics, business, technology and the entertainment industry. The attitude of the people of a nation
towards the Anglophone culture and its world-wide importance is also reflected in their practice of naming. The
giving of a name that has been taken from English-speaking countries indicates a certain liking for the values of
Anglo-American culture, which may also be interrelated with a critical attitude towards one’s own heritage. It is the
aim of this study to compare the naming practices of various European countries, with regard to names that
originate from or are associated with the Anglophone societies.
I will proceed as follows: I will first take into account existing research in the field, then make use of various
databases, including the database of given names Kunigunde and state statistics, and finally evaluate some interviews
and questionnaires.
Our study shows that Northern European countries have generally been quite open towards English first names.
Germany saw a rise of non-Germanic names (mostly from the Anglophone and Romance countries) in the second
half of the 20th century, which can also be related to the deligitimization of German tradition due to the damage
caused by National Socialism and WWII. Southern European countries have been more reluctant to take on English
baby names, possibly also due to different phonological structures of the Romance languages. As regards the Eastern
European countries, no studies have been done in this area so far (at least I am not aware of any). The evaluation of
my interviews and questionnaires suggests that English baby names have not increased since the end of the Soviet
system. Furthermore, their use is related to the prestige that the Western world enjoys in the respective country –
while, for instance, the Poles are fonder of these names, Russians hardly use them today. Some countries are also
witnessing a revival of old, traditional names – in Russia, for example, the names of the czars are enjoying more and
more popularity, which can be interpreted as a recollection of old cultural values.
It seems to be the case that some of the European countries are reacting to globalization with a renewed interest in
their own culture; a phenomenon that has been subsumed under the term glocalization.
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Anglicisms in Italian: the role of corpus-based frequency counts in lexicography
Cristiano Furiassi, Lecturer in English Linguistics
University of Torino, Italy
cristiano.furiassi@unito.it
The great deal of research on anglicisms in Europe has recently led to the compilation of A Dictionary of European
Anglicisms (DEA) (Görlach, 2001). This dictionary documents the spread of anglicisms in several European languages
with different degrees of openness to borrowings from English. Italian appears to be one of the most receptive
languages. Documented by studies and collections of anglicisms, Italian linguists have generally viewed the presence
of anglicisms in Italian as harmless (De Mauro et al., 1993; Lepschy and Lepschy, 1995; Marello, 1996; Fanfani, 2002;
Pulcini, 2002). However, there are scholars who maintain that anglicisms in Italian have been growing at an alarming
rate (Castellani, 1987; Giovanardi, 2003).
At present, the Grande dizionario italiano dell’uso (GDU) has a wordlist of 261,624 lemmas (excluding 131,139 subentries) which include 5,510 non-adapted anglicisms, i.e. 2.1% (De Mauro and Mancini, 2004). Does this mean that
Italians use roughly two anglicisms every one hundred words? Is there a difference in the percentage of anglicisms
which are part of the Italian lexicon from their actual usage? The present article aims at answering these questions by
quantifying the real impact of non-adapted anglicisms in Italian with the aid of frequency counts (Summers, 1996;
Meijs, 1996).
A sample list of non-adapted anglicisms will be retrieved from the HF corpus, i.e. an Italian corpus of newspaper
texts including about 24 million words (Furiassi and Hofland, forthcoming). This procedure will help demonstrate
that, even though the number of anglicisms in Italian dictionaries may be regarded as considerable, the extent to
which they are used in newspaper texts – a genre which has been traditionally recognized by linguists as prone to
including borrowings in general and specifically anglicisms – amounts to interestingly low percentages.
The number of anglicisms encountered in Italian monolingual dictionaries must indeed be considered under a
different perspective. Although marketing strategies force publishers and editors to enlarge the wordlists of
dictionaries by including an ever-increasing number of borrowings, especially anglicisms (see Zingarelli), only corpusbased frequency counts, which testify their actual usage, are to be considered meaningful. A quantitative analysis of
the incidence of non-adapted anglicisms in Italian will try to establish the threshold frequency on the basis of which
lexicographers should include some anglicisms and exclude others from Italian monolingual dictionaries. Anglicisms
which score above a certain threshold level should be part of general dictionaries. Conversely, anglicisms which score
below this level should be restricted to the wordlists of ‘special-purpose dictionaries’ (Landau, 2001). Although a
clear-cut threshold is unlikely to be determined, corpus linguistics may help provide tentative frequency scores which
seem necessary in order to grant anglicisms the appropriate standing in dictionaries. Hence, the same generalizations
made for Italian may be applied to all other European and non-European languages influenced by the presence of
anglicisms.
English shortenings in German institutions:
development, status and function
Heiko Girnth, Lecturer in German Linguistics
Sascha Michel, Scientific Assistant
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany
girnth@uni-mainz.de
sa.michel@gmx.de
Shortenings (acronyms and clippings) play a major role in all fields of discourse. They fulfil the basic need for
articulatory economy, memorability and referential precision (from the speaker’s point of view) which can be
considered as the ‘driving forces’ behind the massive formation of shortenings within and their influx from different
languages into German.
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Extensive corpora for the German language show that the number of shortenings from other languages is noticeably
high. Thus, Kobler-Trill postulates for the standard variety of German: “Ein auffallender Befund in den
Untersuchungsjahren ab 1949 ist, daß der Anteil der Fremdwörter an den KW [Kurzwörtern, H.G./S.M.] so hoch
wie sonst wohl bei keinem anderen Wortbildungstyp ist“ (1994: 177). Furthermore, she notices: “Fast alle
fremdsprachlichen Kurzwörter unseres Korpus sind englisch […]“ (1994: 177).
Kobler-Trill’s observation for this variety, which refers to the high proportion of English lexemes (borrowings) with
respect to a specific type of word formation (shortening) and the total amount of lexemes, can also be verified by
focussing on other varieties of German. Particularly in languages for specific purposes, of which an international
cooperation is not only characteristic, but even constitutes an essential condition in many respects, numerous
borrowings - especially from English - can be empirically proved (cf. Bartsch/Siegrist 2002). Since terminological
precision is just as important as shortness for an effective communication, many shortenings can be expected to
appear in this field, too, in order to fulfil the mentioned task.
Steinhauer (2000), for instance, who focusses in her dissertation on the formation and use of shortenings in the
(scientific) languages of chemistry, medicine, technology, economy, law and sports, yields the following results as far
as the amount of foreign shortenings in her corpus is concerned: “In der Medizin und in der Technik ist das etwas
ein Drittel aller Belege (genau 34,09 % bzw. 36,36 %), in der Wirtschaft und im Sport sind es sogar über 40 Prozent
(46,53 % und 40,37 %)” (258-259).
Basing the horizontal division of languages for specific purposes on Ehlich/Rehbein (1980), it becomes obvious that
the language of science and technology, with regard to loan-shortenings, is basically described and explained by
Steinhauer. What is largely unexplored in this respect is the language of institutions. In this area, a documentation of
the formation and use of shortenings can be described as a desideratum which is more urgent the more one takes
into consideration that institutions create their own terminologies (and thus shortenings) which are (partially)
normed and - due to a close agent-client (communicative) interaction - can have a lasting effect on the
standard/common language.
In the presentation we try to fill this gap by analysing the development, status and function of loan-shortenings from
English in the languages of the German Police (Deutsche Polizei) and the Armed Forces (Bundeswehr). Our corpus
consists of several newspapers and magazines (e.g. Deutsche Polizei and aktuell – Zeitung für die Bundeswehr) from 1965,
1985 and 2005. This diachronic and synchronic perspective cannot only show the development of English
shortenings within these institutions, but - by applying a prototype-analysis - will illustrate their (often highly
debated) status within certain categories.
Anglicisms in Croation Medical Terminology
Anamarija Gjuran-Coha
University of Rijeka, Croatia
agjuran@medri.hr
English is widely regarded as having become the global language. Today it is used for many purposes and it is present
in all spheres of life. English is the language of technological and scientific development, trade, diplomacy, sports,
media and it is widely used in everyday conversation as well. Technical vocabulary is most likely to accept foreign
words and the language of medicine is not excluded from this angloamerican influence.
The topic of this paper is the use of anglicisms in Croatian medical terminology. It is well known that the
terminology of medicine and biology has Latin or Greek origin, but during the last century the development of these
sciences was very fast, new branches of medicine, like genetics, molecular biology, proteomics and others developed,
so new terminology was introduced. New diseases apperared as well as new therapies and treatment procedures. All
the terms are English, because English has become the language of medicine.
Croatian medical science wants to keep pace with American and Western achievements, so the new terminology is
accepted in its original form, as anglicisms and after some time Croatian equivalents are invented.
But, it is not always easy. This is hard work, which requires a perfect knowledge of medicine and the language as
well. So a close cooperation between medical experts and linguists is needed, but it has not been realized so far.
The result is a great number of anglicisms in all the branches of medicine, both in written and oral forms. It is not a
problem for physicians who follow the most recent medical literature and are familiar with all the achievements in
medical science, but it creates serious difficulties among laymen.
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For that reason we conducted a research based on the knowledge and attitude towards anglicisms in medical
terminology. Its aim was to show understanding, acceptability and adequacy of anglicisms in the two groups of
examinees: doctors and laymen. The research included 150 examinees. Their age, education, profession, place of
work and medical specialization were taken into consideration. The results are interesting and show what we
expected: doctors prefer anglicisms, which perfectly fill the gaps in the Croatian medical terminology (they consider
them adequate and they prefer ortographically non adapted forms, i.e. original graphics e.g. screening instead of
skrining, pace maker instead of pejsmejker etc). On the other hand, laymen do not understand most of the terms and
they cannot even predict their meaning from the context. They consider that the Croatian equivalents are the only
possible solution. But we noticed differences in the attitudes regarding the age and the level of education.
We can conclude that this research will have both practical and theoretical impact on the creation of Croatian
medical equivalents and the formation of up-to-date Croatian medical terminology. It is a never ending process,
because we notice everyday penetration of English words into Croatian language. Their acceptance is closely
connected to general state policy and the degree of linguistic purism, which is present in all the languages in varying
degrees.
Anglicisms in Macedonian: Cultural and Linguistic Aspects
Dr. Aleksandra Gjurkova, Research Associate in Macedonian Language
University Sv. Kiril i Metodij, Skopje, Macedonia
aleksandra.gjurkova@gmail.com
The paper deals with the use of anglicisms in Macedonian as a developing process in the last ten years. In Macedonia for
fifteen years since the independence, the democratization of society in general has influenced also the use of
language in a way that the use of foreign words and especially anglicisms has increased due to the prestige role of
English in almost every aspect of life at a global level: education, technology, science, academia, communication,
lifestyle, entertainment etc.
The research here considers the tendency of using anglicisms in several domains, such as: music, fashion, movies,
sports, computers and other technologies and the Internet. All of these domains are closely linked to the media and
advertising, which have a very important role as far as language use is concerned. It is particularly interesting how the
media influences the language of certain social groups - such is the case with the younger generations, students living
in Skopje, which is the first important aspect in the analysis of anglicisms. The distribution of anglicisms is a
characteristic mainly of the urban speech of Skopje and especially present in the speech of younger people. Skopje as
the capital of Macedonia has gained importance as an administrative, political, educational and cultural center, which
is the main reason for the idiolect of Skopje to become more prestigious in relation to Standard Macedonian and the
other dialects. This also represents an important aspect in the research of anglicisms. The relation between the media
and the use of anglicisms in the media with the growing use of anglicisms by the younger generations is also to be
taken in consideration in the research. Anglicisms are also becoming more frequent in political discourse, especially
enforced with the political orientation of the state towards EU integration. This type of vocabulary (implementation
- implementacija; application - aplikacija) is also included in the analysis.
In general there are two groups of anglicisms in Macedonian: the first consists of a number of anglicisms directly
borrowed without transliteration or translation, which is very frequent in the media; and the second consists of
anglicisms which are used transliterated i.e. written in Cyrillic, but with the tendency to transfer directly their
meaning, although some of them are used as earlier borrowings and have other meaning, or they are simply used to
replace Macedonian words. There is also a notable tendency of creating verb and noun forms using the anglicism:
(from to chat - chetuva) and of incorporating them in the morphological system.
It is expected that the analysis of these aspects of use of anglicisms in Macedonian will give important data and give
an insight on the type and extent of influence from English into Macedonian as a cultural phenomenon. This
research may be used in understanding the global process of using English as a Lingua Franca in Europe and in
defining more accurately the status of English in this respect.
Shifting loyalties in Danish: From Germanisms to Anglicisms
Henrik Gottlieb, Associate Professor, Department of English, Germanic and Romance Studies
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
gottlieb@hum.ku.dk
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Especially in so-called minor speech communities, foreign-language influence will always be a fact of life – and has
indeed always been. What changes is
(1) which language(s) that exert this influence, and
(2) whether this influence goes beneath the lexical surface and penetrates the syntactic foundations of the effected
languages – which is what English is now doing worldwide.
In my talk, I will start by introducing a comprehensive taxonomy of Anglicisms, ranging from simple direct loans, via
’reactive’ Anglicisms echoing English phraseology and grammar, to various types of code-shifting.
Then follows a diachronic (and corpus-inspired) discussion of written Danish usage of synonymous Germaninspired vs. English-inspired lexemes and syntactic patterns over the last 150 years. As it turns out, English
borrowings that temporarily seem to enrich the language by supplementing existing Danish (German-bred)
expressions, often end up supplanting them. Due to the high prestige of English-sounding elements in Danish (as in
any other language), a large number of established Danish words and phrases, including many Germanisms and
Gallicisms, are now marginalized or ousted by Anglicisms – or rather, being abandoned by new generations of
language users.
In conclusion, the implications of continual Anglophone influence will be discussed, and alternative future scenarios
outlined.
Exciting English, funny Finnish,
or is the English always really worth the effort?
Pertti Hietaranta, Professor of English
University of Tampere, Finland
pertti.hietaranta@uta.fi
The archives of Helsingin Sanomat, the largest Finnish-language newspaper in Finland, contain altogether 20 texts
(news items, letters to the editor, etc.) which make explicit reference to the notion of anglicism between the years
1990 and 2006. Some of the texts clearly convey a specific attitude towards the English language in their titles
(“Tappajakieli” nimeltä englanti '”Killer language” called English') while others seem to be more neutral in their
wording.
In some of the texts, not very surprisingly perhaps, an equally positive attitude towards the use of English or
English-based terminology is displayed. Thus, a professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering and
Management at the Technical University of Helsinki in an interview in December 2000 said that he wishes to
eliminate the notion of yrittäjyys ('entrepreneurship') and use instead the concept of venture (activities) on the
grounds that “the English word venture creates positive associations.”
The present paper seeks to establish, first, how warranted such attitudes towards English and anglicisms are, and
secondly, what kinds of anglicisms one is likely to encounter in a specific text type where anglicisms are believed but
not necessarily known to be exceptionally common, viz. computer magazines. The paper offers a preliminary analysis
of an in-depth look at data culled from two Finnish computer magazines, and suggests that the use of anglicisms in
Finnish information technology texts of this type is often explainable by reference to more than one factor.
The paper also seeks to provide support for the view that the existence of the national culture(s) of Finland is in no
real sense threatened by the appearance of such distinctly non-Finnish items in otherwise explicitly Finnish-language
texts. This is so even if the number and frequency of such non-domestic items occasionally exceed the threshold
value which makes the general public call for help in their efforts to “save the mother tongue.” In reality, there
appears to be no need to save the Finnish language in this sense, but there may be a need to see to it that the
adequacy of the language for various purposes is deliberately assessed on a more or less regular basis so that
neologisms and the development of the language in general are not jeopardised for spurious reasons having to do
with the unwarranted attitude of linguistic purism.
Anglizismen im Französischen: immer noch ein Sonderfall?
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John Humbley
Das Französische zählt wohl nicht weniger Anglizismen als die anderen europäischen Sprachen, aber die Haltung der
Franzosen im Verhältnis zu Anglizismen war bis in den letzten Zeiten ziemlich zurückhaltend. Es handelt sich um
eine lange Geschichte der Sprachpflege, aber ist es immer noch der Fall? Wir stellen uns also zwei Fragen: die erste –
hat französisch dank einer langen Sprachpolitik effektiv weniger Anglizismen als in der anderen europäischen
Sprachen? Und die zweite: nimmt das Französische jetzt (d.h. 2006) weniger oder so viel Anglizismen auf wie die
anderen europäischen Sprachen? Um die erste Frage zu beantworten, nehmen wir die Erhebungen des europäischen
Anglizismenwörterbuchs (Görlach 2001), und vergleichen einige Schlüsselwörter, die von den
Terminologiekommissionen angeglichen worden sind. Um die zweite Frage zu beantworten, vergleichen wir die
Erhebungen des neuen deutschen Neologismenwörterbuch HERBERG, Dieter, KINNE, Michael, STEFFENS,
Doris (2004), und des neuen italienischen Neologismenwörterbuch (ADAMO DI VALLE) und unsere eigenen
Erhebungen. Es wird festgestellt, dass die verschiedenen europäischen Sprachen einander nähern, und dass das
Französische bald kein Sonderfall mehr bildet.
Adaptation of English loanwords as reflected in dictionaries of anglicisms
Marcin Kilarski, Assistant Professor in English Linguistics
Marcin Ptaszyński, Ph.D. in English Linguistics
Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland
kilarski@amu.edu.pl
marcin.ptaszynski@mail.dk
The aim of this paper is to examine the extent to which the adaptation of English loanwords in receptor languages is
reflected in selected dictionaries of anglicisms. With our focus largely confined to spelling, phonology, and inflection,
we investigate the presence (or absence) of linguistic data concerning particular issues within each of these areas in
the Dictionary of European Anglicisms (Görlach 2001), which we take as our starting point.
Our findings are subsequently examined in two ways. First, we try to find out to what degree the state of affairs
attested in this dictionary remains in agreement with the description of its compilation provided in Görlach (2003).
Second, we attempt to place it in a (micro-)diachronic context by comparing the features of adaptation reflected in
the DEA with those present in contemporary dictionaries of anglicisms in Polish, German, Danish, Swedish, and
Norwegian. While the results of this comparison confirm that the DEA is undoubtedly an innovative work, its
representation of some aspects of adaptation is open to debate. Accordingly, we come up with tentative suggestions
for improvement in representing the adaptation of English loanwords in future dictionaries of anglicisms.
Language Policy: There is no Peace on the Shop Front
Dr. Veronika Kniezsa, Lecturer in English Historical Linguistics
ELTE, Budapest, Hungary
kniezsav@freemail.hu
How important are lexical borrowings? The usual definition is that when a new concept arrives in the life of the
speakers it is usually taken over together with its name. Later the foreign word is naturalised, i.e. its pronunciation
and grammatical features are adapted to the host language and sooner or later it is accepted as a part of the
vocabulary. Purist languages may want to go further and replace the foreign element by a calque. Occasionally, the
whole new notion raises objections and it is rejected through abolishing the word, its name. Thus lexical borrowing
is not merely a linguistic problem but also one of history, politics and fashion.
English words in Hungarian have much to do with social influence, since due to the geographic distance no close
contact could develop between speakers of the English language. Cultural influence created the necessary contact for
Hungarians to learn and borrow, use and forget English words. In the period between the two world wars America
had a great cultural impact on Europe and also in Hungary. American jazz together with the new art medium, the
movie, gained in importance and popularity. It became fashionable to use the vocabulary connected to the American
way of life; music bands formed at the period usually had American-type names, musicians adopted English
sounding nicknames. Movie theatres also had international names, which could be found all over Europe of the
period. New types of bars and clubs were also established where the name, and English one, indicated the kind of
service offered by the establishment.
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After World War II and the beginning of the cold war feelings against anything capitalist, received a linguistic turn as
well. All foreign words earlier used in sports (not only English but French, which gave the terminology to fencing)
were replaced by Hungarian names. Places of entertainment were renamed, sometimes with strange associations (e.g.
the movie theatre Forum was renamed Puskin and Astra became 1st of May). Band names were abolished together with
jazz.
After the change of regime in 1990, all restriction fell away and the veritable flood of English words started
streaming in. It was not only a political question or one of mere fashion but there were too many new concepts
arriving and too few people with the necessary knowledge of language to handle the problem. Words, which were
not new in essence, were adopted, many new ‘false friends’ have been created, and calques based on
misunderstanding were the rule. Advertisements abounded in English elements, sometimes only the connecting
word was in Hungarian. A new wave of English names on shop-signs appeared, most frequently than not misspelling
the unfamiliar foreign word. In 2000 a new regulation appeared, which obliged the shop owners and advertisers to
indicate in Hungarian too what is on offer.
Anglicisms in Russian Mass-Media Discourse
Tamara V. Maximova
English has displayed a great influence on all European languages. The Russian language is not an exception. Its
vocabulary has become enormously enlarged by English loanwords.
It will not come as a surprise that the intake of English words in the individual vocabularies differs a great deal,
reflecting the cultural and social histories of the nations concerned, the structural properties of the language and
attitudes of its users.
But the continuous influx of English loanwords which started at the end of the XX c. has led to the fact that the set
of anglicisms in Russian is becoming more or less similar to borrowed vocabularies of western European languages.
As our research states, borrowings’ activity is selective: there is a certain distribution of foreign words between
functional styles and speech genres or in other words anglicisms vary relative to the text-type of discourse. They
demonstrate the following representation within different discourses: fiction – 6%, common communication – 9%,
business – 14%, scientific discourse – 18%, computer discourse – 23%, mass-media discourse – 30%.
Mass-media employs English loanwords with the intention of obtaining universal basis for communication. A great
many loanwords have come to be borrowed by Russian to suit the needs of the society: to name things and concepts
denoting rapid scientific, political and economic changes in the world, to differentiate the vocabulary stylistically and
to fulfill a cultural function. Recent loanwords from the English language through oral and written sources are clearly
found in the areas of business and economy, law, politics, science and technology, medicine, trade, advertising, etc.
The cultural domains affected in previous decades are also being enriched, in particular by heavy borrowing of youth
slang referring to names of clothes, money, drinks, music, drugs and food products, parts of human body, etc.
David Crystal was right saying “when a country adopts a language it adapts it” (Crystal 2001) in different ways. The
analysis of recent anglicisms in terms of adaptation has shown that several cases of this process are in evidence in
Modern Russian. All the languages seem to undergo the process of adaptation which relates to vocabulary in the
form of pronunciation, spelling, semantics, meaning and word-formation. Adaptation of anglicisms at the level of the
words is manifold which can be seen from the following examples
We can trace adaptation at the level of words. As a rule, the meaning of an English word and the meaning of an
anglicism in Russian are identical: loser - luzer, siding - saiding, shooter - Shuter, etc. But in some cases lexical assimilation
leads to different changes in the semantic structures of borrowed anglicisms in Russian. In particular, they undergo
processes of generalization, specialization of meanings.
Another case of semantic adaptation can be demonstrated by the following examples. An English impact on the
semantic structure of some words already existing in Russian is called semantic borrowing. This often pertains to
words in Russian having common roots with some words in other languages (mostly international words). For
example, the word pirate which was borrowed from Latin long ago has acquired lately the new meaning “a person who
infringes another's copyright or other business rights” under the influence of English. Once a French borrowing has extended its
semantic structure by acquiring the new meaning from the English computer domain “a list of options, usu. displayed onscreen showing the commands or facilities available”. New additional meanings of these words are classical examples of
semantic borrowing.
Loanwords may change their connotative aspect as well. When the word spich first appeared in Russian it had a
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formal stylistic connotation and had a restricted currency which by now has disappeared in the word and it has
become neutral on the one hand and more frequently used on the other hand. The opposite process can be seen on
the following example. The neutral English word sequel has first acquired in Russian a negative connotation “an
unsuccessful continuation of a successful film, book, etc” It might have happened under the influence of soap operas and the
negative attitude of the society to them. At present the word sikvel is registered as a neutral one like its English
etymon.
It is remarkable how many recent words are strictly based on spoken forms. Due to mass-media colloquialisms have
become accessible to language community and spread in the youth language and in journalese. Any new word
expresses and promotes new trends and ideas in Russian and from the speaker’s point of view is motivated by
prestige and expressiveness. Here stylistic effect achieved may be one of modernity, urbanity and
internationalization.
Besides, there also seems to be vogue for code-switching  the use of a foreign word in situations of bilingual
communication  by which loans “adorn” the speech or writing to impress the addressee with the help of various
pragmatic functions. Code-switch takes place quite often in headings, advertisements and youth language.
Wordplay involving English loans has become quite common for creating pragmatic effect nowadays. So the reasons
for extensive use of English element are not only their specific denotative and connotative components but
pragmatic ones as well.
Pragmatic aspects of anglicisms may be a result of purposeful and spontaneous processes.
Loanwords are a natural consequence of language and society interrelations. The remarkable growth of English
neologisms in the Russian language results mostly from sociolinguistic factors and widespread public support.
Loanwords are considered to be a truly international medium in cross-cultural communication.
With the most positive attitude to the social intention of obtaining universal basis for communication, the world
stays alert on the English language aggression into other tongues’ territories. Linguists warn of a linguistic genocide
as the absorption of minor cultures by the dominating language (the invader-tongue). According to the pessimistic
scenario, there might be “a war” between languages claiming to dominate, which finally might lead to the effect of
Babylon Tower: national cultures will be destroyed, cultural identify will totally disappear. In my optimistic opinion,
this process can be resisted by two major factors. The most important one would be the language feature based on
the power of the culture this language serves to. That is, the self-clearance of the language which helps get rid of
alien language elements due to internal linguistic regulations. Temporal character of language influence would make
another resistance: it presupposes short-termed existence of borrowings in the recipient language.
Dictionaries of Anglicisms in Croatian
Anja Nikolić-Hoyt & Lelija Sočanac
Linguistic Research Institute, Zagreb, Croatia
ahoyt@ffzg.hr
lelija@hazu.hr
Historically, the reception of anglicisms in Croatian follows a similar pattern with that in other European languages.
The first loanwords appeared in the course of the 19th century, while the massive influx began after 1945, reaching
its culmination in the most recent period when the English influence intensified as a result of globalisation. The
interest in anglicisms in European languages began rather early in Croatian linguistics; thus, R. Filipović set up the
project «The English Element in European Languages» in the 1960's. The aim of the project was to provide a
theoretical basis for the analysis of the adaptation of anglicisms in European languages on the phonological,
morphological and semantic levels, and to produce a series of dictionaries of anglicisms in selected European
languages. Within this framework, a dictionary of Anglicisms in Croatian and Serbian by R. Filipović was published
in 1986, incorporating the elements of his theoretical approach. After the 1990's, a wave of new anglicisms has
entered Croatian, which requires a new lexicographic approach. The paper will outline the concept of the existing
dictionary (Filipović 1986), and present work in progress in corpus development and compilation of a dictionary of
new anglicisms in Croatian.
The de-anglicization of the vocabulary of informatics in French
Tibor Őrsi, Senior Lecturer in English and French Linguistics
Eszterházy College, Eger, Hungary
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orsitibor@t-online.hu
Throughout the 20th century, the French language borrowed extensively from the English language and its
American variety. The birth and the rapid development of information science in the second half of the twentieth
century accelerated the massive influx of English words and expressions into French. The proliferation of anglicisms
has provoked violent official reactions. A systematic de-anglicizing process started in the early seventies. Instead of
discussing the principles of French language policy, I focus on the etymological aspects of eliminating anglicisms. I
discuss the techniques applied in the process of Frenchification. Some of the categories overlap. Several of them
involve a degree of calquing.
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5.
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7.
8.
A great number of words ultimately of Latin origin are common to English and French: compatible/compatible,
to connect/connecter, error/erreur.
Other English words of Latin origin have no related equivalents in French. The corresponding French terms
have obviously no etymological connection whatsoever: The difference arose from the particular development
of the two languages and not from artificial intervention: to delete/effacer, data/les données.
Native English terms are consistently replaced by “French” terms: hardware/logiciel, software/matériel.
Earlier borrowings from French like file are subject to de-anglicization as well: file/fichier.
Certain anglicisms persist side by side with their nativized doublets: CD-ROM/CD-ROM, cédérom, to
debug/déboguer, débuger.
The vitality of French produced some highly successful neologisms like surfer/internaute, computer game/ludiciel,
educational software package/didacticiel. Bureautique, first used as a trade mark, was later generalized in the sense of
‘office automation’. Motivated French lexical creations intended to oust e-mail are courriel and mél.
Phonetic motivation explains the choice of the French expression in the word pairs on-line/en ligne, file/fichier. The
French form comes close to the pronunciation of the original English term and allows easy identification.
Occasionally, we come across semantic motivation. English byte is an arbitrary word, whereas its French
equivalent octet is semantically motivated as it is composed of eight bits.
Fairly frequently, a new term appears in French in its foreign form like driver (1972). Then its form is adapted as
driveur before being officially replaced par pilote. Very few adaptations survive. This the case of spool adapted as spoule.
Modem was not banned: although it was forged in English, it can be decomposed in both languages thanks to the
common scientific vocabulary (mo)dulateur and dém(odulateur).
It seems obvious that the outright hostile official attitude towards recent borrowings from English and American
arises from a threat to French culture. The proposed French equivalents are very often direct borrowings from Latin
and Greek or composed of elements taken from those languages. We may wonder whether (photographie) numérique is
better French than digitale would have been. The fact that it differs from the English term seems to have motivated
its adoption.
Anglicisms in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympic Games
Virginia Pulcini, Associate Professor
University of Turin, Italy
virginia.pulcini@unito.it
The slogan ‘Passion lives here’ accompanied the Winter Olympic Games which took place in Turin last February
2006, with English playing its usual role of lingua franca for international events. A large amount of printed material,
including bilingual leaflets, programmes, brochures, guides and newspaper inserts, were issued during the two weeks
of the Olympics to guide foreign visitors from 80 different countries. International events offer a golden opportunity
for linguists to observe a language being used in an international context. For our research interests, it was a good
opportunity to observe the increased use of English in an Italian environment and in particular the terminology of
winter sports and the vocabulary of this semantic field.
Sport is one of the first fields of Italian culture to be affected by the English language. In fact, many sports originated
in Great Britain and most sports were for the first time subjected to regulations there, and then exported to other
countries together with their technical terms during the 19 th century. The word ‘sport’, to start with, was borrowed
by Italian in 1820 and has always resisted substitution with other native terms, and is now a fully integrated word in
many European languages (as attested by Görlach, 2001). While in some older sports like football, many terms have
been replaced by Italian equivalents, in others, like tennis and car racing, anglicisms prevail over Italian terms.
This paper will briefly introduce anglicisms in the field of sports used in Italian. Then it will focus on the 15 winter
sports represented in the Olympics and their related semantic fields: alpine skiing (sci alpino), biathlon (biathlon),
bobsleigh (bob), cross-country skiing (sci di fondo), curling (curling), figure skating (pattinaggio di figura), freestyle skiing
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(freestyle), ice hockey (hockey su ghiaccio), luge (slittino), nordic combined (combinata nordica), short track (short track), ski
jumping (salto dal trampolino), skeleton (skeleton), snowboard (snowboard), speed skating (pattinaggio di velocità). Italian
terminology includes calques (7), English unadapted loans (5), compound ellypses (2), and hybrids (1). The analysis
of anglicisms recorded during the winter Olympics will be based on a corpus of newspaper articles dealing with the
Olympic games, which was collected during the event (February 10 th-28th, 2006). The corpus includes articles
downloaded from Italian online dailies and newspaper articles scanned and stored in electronic format. The Italian
newspapers considered are: La Stampa, La Repubblica, Il Corriere della Sera and La Gazzetta dello Sport. The corpus is
currently being prepared for subsequent quantitative analysis. Unadapted anglicisms will be extracted manually and
using n-gram statistics, a procedure which allows the retrieval of recurrent combinations of graphemes (FuriassiHofland, forthcoming).
This study will hopefully prove that in the course of the Olympics the number of anglicisms used in Italian increased.
In our corpus we expect to find ephemeral anglicisms such as proper names, casuals, quotation words and highly
technical terms related to sports, but also old, well-established anglicisms and perhaps more recent ones.
Quantitative data on frequency and the observation of their use in context will provide a good picture of Italian
anglicisms in this semantic field. Comparisons with other languages will also be made where possible.
Anglicisms in German and Polish Hip-hop Magazines
Dr. hab. Hanna Pulaczewska, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics
University of Regensburg, Germany
hanna.pulaczewska@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de
The paper reports the findings of comparative research on anglicisms in major German and Polish hip-hop
magazines. Like other areas of culture, today’s youth cultures are heavily under the influence of globalisation
manifested first of all by importing cultural patterns from the USA. Also hip-hop, with its US origin, became a
source of inspiration for the European youth. Hip-hop discourses in particular countries may differ in the degree to
which they maintain the link to the “mother culture”, or, the degree to which they re-contextualise the original
phenomenon and make it feel and look local, also in the field of language. The analysis pertains first of all to the
quantitative differences in the German and the Polish use of lexical anglicisms (borrowings) and code switching in
two hip-hop magazines in Poland and Germany. The interpretation of the data touches upon the role of English
expressions as signs of interest in maintaining close links to the American model in the respective two communities.
The ongoing discussion on Anglicisms within the German hip-hop community is interpreted as a sign of
emancipation from an earlier dislike of language purism, treated as a symbolic expression of German nationalism.
Finally, a questionnaire conducted among the readers of both magazines concerning the attitudes towards, the
understanding of and the way of dealing with anglicisms that are not understood is briefly touched upon.
Anglicisms in Spanish homosexual terminology
Félix Rodríguez González, Professor of English Linguistics
University of Alicante, Spain
frodriguez@ua.es
The aim of this study is to examine English influence upon Spanish terminology within the field of homosexuality
(especially masculine or gay), which has led to a great number of “evident” (or “direct”) anglicisms as well as some
calques and adapted forms of recent creation. In doing so, the author also refers to the context in which this
influence has taken place, which leads him to give an account of the role played by English speaking countries,
notably the United States, in shaping gay culture.
As to the meaning of the terms compiled, they are grouped into two major types: those referring to general concepts
related to the homosexual condition, and to some subcultures with this particular sexual orientation, and those
designating more specific concepts related to the activities and communicational and sexual practices of their
members.
The data used in this work have been drawn from various sources: homosexual magazines with a wide circulation,
gay literature (mainly novels), specialized glossaries, chats on the internet, and oral interviews. The specific
documentation of the anglicized expressions has not been registered, as they are entries included in the author’s
forthcoming Diccionario gay /lésbico (Madrid, Gredos, 2007).
Do you speak “Denglish”? – The Impact of English on German
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Christiane Schörnig, M.A.
University of Regensburg, Germany
tschoernig@web.de
In looking at how societies interact, it is only natural to conclude that various traits from the cultures or languages in
contact will begin to influence each other. This influence may be something as minor as a new phrase or a word, or
the influence could go so far as to instate numerous changes in an already well established language.
There have been no other languages in Germany’s history that have had more influence on both the language and
the culture than that of Anglicisms. The influence of English on German has coincided with significant historical
occurrences, such as wars, cultural changes, and scientific and technical developments. The English language is now
spoken by almost everyone in Germany; it has become a mandatory foreign language in secondary schools, and is
now being taught in elementary schools.
Also responsible for the impact of English is the prestige associated with this language. This language is generally
held in highest regard by the younger generation of Germans, who are easily influenced by the television, radio,
movies, and other media that are supplied by British and American entertainment, which are considered to be trendy
and cool. Each of those resources has influenced the German population on numerous levels, creating new words
and phrases in the German language.
This presentation will give a short overview of how English has influenced the German language over the years. It
will point out and focus on how Germans feel about the English influence. Do they feel threatened by it and think
this is an invasion on a part of the German culture? Or do they think that this is a necessary and normal change for
the progression of Germany? Are there groups in the population that think that English influence is a benefit?
Should there be a language policy to keep the German language free from English influence? Who speaks “Denglish”?
And why do certain groups in the population choose to use “Denglish” for communication? Is it necessary to speak
the English language in order to understand all the Anglicisms in the German language? Does everybody understand
“Denglish” or do certain groups in the population feel “left out”? All these aspects will be addressed during the
presentation. Examples of the usage of “Denglish” in mass media and everyday communications, as well as definitions
of “Denglish” will also be given.
Enlargement and Euro-Anglicisms: A Romanian perspective
Dr. Rodica Ştefan, Senior Lecturer in Applied Language Studies
Spiru Haret University, Bucharest, Romania
rodistef@yahoo.com
The English language used internationally in the particular context of the European Union has acquired a specific
position. Since 1972, when the UK joined the Community, English has been designated as one of the three working
languages, alongside French and German, of many EU institutions and bodies, except for the European Parliament.
However, English has become the dominant working language to the extent that the European Union tends to be
considered an English-speaking zone. English as a lingua franca for Europe, ELFE, is a concept which aims to
standardise the use of English language in the European Union in terms of efficiency and uniformity. This
trend conflicts one of the main principles the European Union is based on, namely multilingualism, which aims at
preserving the varied linguistic repertoire of Europe.
Nevertheless, English as LFE has become a reality, even if it is not a language of/for the European identity. Such an
appropriation process is already taking over in certain domains. A new variety of English has emerged as a result
within the EU institutions and bodies, called “Eurospeak”, “Euro-English” (“Euroenglish”) or “EU-English”. These
terms define the English employed for the purposes of those working in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg and
the language most EU documents are drafted in.
The process of regulating common aspects within the political construction encompassing the current 25 different
national systems has led to the necessity to coin supranational terms to be accepted by all member states. Such words
are deliberately chosen to express a high degree of generality and relevance and to avoid any specific cultural
connotations. Secondly, the new political entity represented by the European Union has produced its own structures
and elements, not to be found anywhere else, a fact that is reflected at the linguistic level as well. Words such as
subsidiarity or comitology are largely unintelligible but to those involved in the EU issues.
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Apart from these terms that are purely technical or legal terms, there is also the particular case of “Eurojargon” or
“corridor talk” which refers to words and expressions used by people within the European Union institutions and in
the media covering EU affairs (for example Four freedoms, Pillars of the EU). It also includes many words coined with
the productive prefix Euro-, e.g. Eurobond, Euroland, Euromarket, and numberless baffling abbreviations, such as IGC,
EEA or EEC.
As a candidate country, Romania has also undertaken to implement EU laws into its own legislation. The legislative
harmonization meant tens of thousands of pages to be translated into Romanian and a significant effort as regards
terminology.
My paper will focus on the process of borrowing Euro-English and Eurojargon terms related mainly to the political
area and on the solutions found in adapting them to the system of the Romanian language. The paper will examine
both the official discourse and the media discourse on Romania’s accession to the European Union and will attempt
to establish the extent to which such Euro-Anglicisms have been adopted in every-day speech.
Unschön, überflüssig, unverständlich?
Kognitive und kommunikative Bewertungskriterien unterschiedlicher Typen von Anglizismen
Esme Winter-Froemel, Graduate Research Associate in Linguistics of the Romance Languages
University of Tübingen, Germany
esme.winter-froemel@uni-tuebingen.de
Anglizismen wie show, shopping, T-shirt sind heute in vielen Sprachen anzutreffen und stellen ein scheinbar gut
bekanntes Phänomen dar. Überraschenderweise zeigt sich jedoch, dass unter diesem Begriff eine Vielzahl von
heterogenen Typen sprachlicher Einflüsse aus dem Englischen zusammengefasst wird, die durchaus unterschiedlich
bewertet werden. Dies veranschaulichen exemplarische Analysen von Stellungnahmen zu Anglizismen in
Deutschland, Frankreich und Italien. Direkte Übernahmen wie frz. interview und hardware werden teilweise als
„notwendige“ Entlehnungen zugelassen, von sprachnormierenden Instanzen und Sprachbenutzern jedoch häufig
auch negativ beurteilt. Ferner bestehen hier kontroverse Auffassungen bezüglich des adäquaten Umgangs mit dem
fremdsprachlichen Material hinsichtlich lautlicher und graphischer Adaptationen (vgl. Diskussionen zu Schreibungen
wie dt. Ketschup). Andererseits werden auch Nachbildungen des fremdsprachlichen Vorbilds mit eigensprachlichem
Material wie bei dt. Rechner (engl. computer) oder frz. communication longue distance (engl. long distance call) zwar in einigen
Fällen als akzeptable Form des Umgangs mit fremdsprachlichen Einflüssen angesehen, in puristischen Ansätzen aber
auch als indirekte, weniger offensichtliche und insofern gerade besonders gefährliche Formen der Beeinflussung
eingestuft. Um entsprechende, häufig unsystematisch erscheinende Positionierungen differenziert zu beurteilen,
erscheint es notwendig, zunächst ein begriffliches Raster zu explizieren, das verschiedene Grundstrategien des
Umgangs mit fremdsprachlichen Einflüssen und damit verschiedene Typen von Anglizismen gegenüberstellt.
Dabei kann auf umfangreiche theoretische Literatur zurückgegriffen werden. Bezüglich einiger Punkte wie der
Einordnung der sog. 'Lehnschöpfung' scheint die Diskussion jedoch festgefahren. Gerade der Bereich der
Lehnwörter ist überdies im Gegensatz zu den in der Nachfolge von Betz fein untergliederten Lehnprägungen bislang
nur sehr unzureichend theoretisch erforscht - und dies, obwohl aktuell Assimilations- und Integrationsprozessen
großes Interesse entgegengebracht wird. Einerseits sollen daher Rückbezüge zu traditionellen Klassifikationsansätzen
hergestellt werden; andererseits sollen neuere Ansätze einbezogen werden, um Lehnwörter sowohl hinsichtlich ihres
Verhältnisses zum ausgangssprachlichen Wort als auch hinsichtlich ihrer Integration in das System der Zielsprache
differenziert zu charakterisieren. Insgesamt werden vier grundlegende Strategien gegenübergestellt und anhand
linguistischer Kriterien voneinander abgegrenzt: Übernahme/Ersetzung, Analogiebildung, eigene lexikalische
Innovation und okkasionelle Paraphrasierung.
Nachdem die verschiedenen Typen von Anglizismen sowie mögliche Alternativen dazu ermittelt wurden, können in
einem zweiten Schritt die jeweiligen Bewertungen dieser Optionen analysiert werden, indem die kognitiven und
kommunikativen Vorzüge und Nachteile der einzelnen Strategien gegenübergestellt werden. Dabei sollen
Rückbezüge zu traditionell genannten Faktoren wie Prestige, Bezeichnungsnotwendigkeit, Luxusentlehnung usw.
hergestellt und einige der Faktoren durch linguistische Kategorien präzisiert werden. Entlehnungen werden hierbei
innerhalb eines allgemeinen Sprachwandelmodells behandelt, das verschiedene Stadien ihrer Übernahme und
Verbreitung berücksichtigt und das Zusammenwirken unterschiedlicher Einflussfaktoren modelliert. Insgesamt
erhält man damit ein differenziertes Raster, das kognitive und kommunikative Bewertungskriterien von Anglizismen
erfassen kann und deren Wechselbeziehungen Rechnung trägt.
Anglicisms in Present-Day Romanian: Paradoxical Attitudes, Hybrid Results
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Rodica Zafiu, Associate Professor of Linguistics
University of Bucharest
rodica_zafiu@yahoo.com
My presentation is intended to present the situation of Anglicisms in Romanian today with regard to the dominant
attitudes and evaluations which influence the process of acceptation and adaptation of the loan words. The main
theoretical aspect of this issue could effectively be the connection between cultural and sociolinguistic factors and
the more structural properties of a language.
Essentially, the dominant attitude in the Romanian society (with an obvious difference respect to age and generation)
is very favorable to anglicisms. Arguments in favour of anglicisms include pragmaticism, with references to necessity,
modernity, situational relevance, specialization or the advantages of international communication. I think that there
are some historical explanations for what can seem a paradoxical attitude (in a context of other nationalistic and
traditional discourses inherent to the transition period): first of all, a tradition of loan acceptation (the loan
translation had no cultural success). The reason is that main Romanian purism was only partially of the xenophobic
type, merely proposing a substitution of a precedent influence (Slavic, Greek, Turkish) with another one (Romance,
mainly French); 19th century purism was associated with a claim for modernization (that privileged the second term
of the opposition East/West). The last substitution is oriented in the same direction. Then, the very rapid
modernization in the 19th century has produced in Romanian a clear stratification, stylistically marked: many
traditional Romanian terms are connotated "archaic" and "popular", they are highly polysemantic, in some ways
seeming incompatible with the modern culture. In present-day Romania, the language symbolizes less the national
identity, and more a personal instrument for access to modernity: it is a means of social affirmation and prestige.
This attitude clashes with the linguistic (grammatical) constraints; the contradiction appears in hybrid formulas of
adaptation: a strong tendency of conserving the English orthography (modification of which is perceived as a stigma
for uneducated people; there is a return to the original form even for already adapted forms) and the pronunciation
(minimally and unconsciously modified) is associated with an inevitable morphological adaptation (necessary for the
inflection) and sometimes with semantic transformation. All these factors produce some important changes in the
writing system (as it contradicts the phonological principle, dominant in the Romanian orthography) and even in the
morphology (through a new tendency to reducing inflection, by using invariable forms).
Language attitudes are investigated using a press language corpus and a collection of debates on various Internet
forums, as well as some answers to special questionnaires. I will also deal with some recent cases: a project for
"defending the Romanian language", nearly unanimously ironized, parodied and finally rejected; a new edition of a
normative orthographic and morphological dictionary, introducing many anglicisms, but very intensely criticized for
completely different issues (the acceptation on some popular, "uneducated" variants); a campaign against doubling in
Romanian the English cartoons. On the other hand, one can notice that, in spite of (or maybe: due to) the refusal to
bring in legislation to deal with this phenomenon, there are many signs of spontaneous auto-regulation: many recent
loans already have related loan translations.
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