LANGUAGE TRANSFER AND
BORROWINGS
1. Contact situations
> language contact – “the use of more than one language in the same place at the same time”
(Thomason 2001: 2)
> bilingualism: “The bilingual is a fully competent speaker-hearer; he or she has developed
competencies (in two languages and possibly a third which is a combination of the two) to the
extent required by his or her needs and those of the environment. The bilingual uses the two
languages – separately or together – for different purposes in different domains of life and
with different people [this is called “compartmentalization” ]. Because the needs and uses of
the two languages are usually quite different, the bilingual is rarely equally or completely
fluent in the two languages.
Levels of fluency in a language will depend on the need for that language and will be
extremely domain specific. Because the bilingual is a human communicator (as is the
monolingual) he or she has developed communicative competence that is sufficient for
everyday life. This competence will make use of the one language, of the other language or of
the two together (in the form of mixed speech) depending on the situation, topic, interlocutor
etc.” (Grosjean 1985: 471- 472)
2. Borrowing and substratum transfer
> borrowing and substratum differ in direction (foreign to native or vice versa), area
affected (lexicon vs. phonology/syntax) and status (prestigious to less prestigious or vice
versa)
3. Borrowing (transfer)
> borrowing: “attempted reproduction in one language of patterns previously found in
another” (Haugen 1950: 212)
> borrowings can be arranged along a borrowing scale: lexical > slight structural > moderate
structural > heavy structural (Thomason 2001: 69-74)
> this scale consists of several overlapping scales with respect lexical and structural change,
e.g. in structure: none > minor structural (e.g., derivational morphology, new phonemes in
loanwords) > slight/moderate structural (new phonemes in native vocabulary, inflectional
morphology) > intense structural (leading to typological change)
4. Types of borrowings
a) loanword: borrowing of form and meaning, e.g. Afrikaans apartheid lit. ‘separateness’ >
English > P apartheid
b) calque/loan translation: morphologically complex foreign expressions are translated by
means of novel combinations of native elements which match the meanings and structure of
foreign expressions, e.g. P drapacz chmur ‘skyscraper’, nadwaga ‘overweight’, pranie mózgu
‘brainwashing’
c) semantic loan: the meaning of a native word is extended to accommodate a borrowed
meaning; semantic loans are also referred to as “calques”, e.g. P strona ‘page; web page’,
myszka ‘mouse’
d) hybrid: both borrowing of form and substitution with a native element, e.g. E New York >
P Nowy Jork
e) pseudo-anglicisms: forms composed of borrowed morphemes, which are not used as such
in English
> with morphological change: P singel ‘singles’, happy end ‘happy ending’, chips ‘chip’,
leasing ‘lease’; with semantic change: P dres ‘tracksuit’ (E dress ‘one-piece garment for a
woman; complete style of clothing’)
5. Slight structural influence (Mańczak-Wohlfeld (1995: 84-89) and Otwinowska-Kasztelanic
(2000: 101))
a) morphology: derivation, e.g., -gate (Rywingate), cyber- (cyberprzestrzeń); clipping in first
names (Radek Sikorski)
b) syntax: premodification with an adjective, e.g., wirtualna rzeczywistość, romański język; –
and with a noun, e.g., sexshop, Kredyt Bank, antyperspirant żel
c) discourse: use of the pronoun ty, e.g., Spróbuj i poczuj różnicę; use of discourse markers,
e.g., generalnie, sorry
6. Adaptation of borrowings
a) morphological adaptation
> gender assignment: as in native nouns, gender assignment may be based on such properties
as:
> semantic: male animate dżokej; female animate miss, lady; animate dingo; synonymous
party n. (‘spotkanie’), whisky f. (‘wódka’)
> phonological: m. nouns with final -C (tenis, also in spelling as in farmer), f. nouns with
final /a/ (sekwoja), n. nouns with final /ɔ/, /i/ (disco, bikini)
> morphological: suffixation: E -ist as P -ista (eskapista m.); compounding: business lunch m.
(lunch m.)
> double plurals: English -s is reinterpreted as part of the stem, with the word declined with a
Polish ending, e.g. komandos – komandosi
b) phonological adaptation
> substitution: in cases of phonemic differences, closest equivalents are chosen, e.g., E thriller
> P [trilɛr]
c) semantic adaptation
> common semantic changes: shift (as in E dress described above); narrowing (E dealer
‘trader, broker’ > P dealer ‘trader’)
7. Substratum (transfer)
> “Transfer is the influence resulting from similarities and differences between the target
language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly)
acquired.” (Odlin 1989: 27)
8. Types of transfer
a) positive transfer: positive interaction of similar areas, i.e. any facilitating effects on L2
acquisition due to the influence of similarities between L1 and L2; negative transfer:
negative interaction of similar areas, i.e. cross-linguistic
influences resulting in errors
b) production errors
> substitution
> lexicon: lexical shift; false friends (faux-amis), e.g., actually vs. aktualnie
> phonology: replacement of foreign phonemes by native ones; commonly perceived as
foreign accent
> problems with establishing the “closest” sound: French speakers choose /s/, /z/ (e.g. sink,
zem) while Russian speakers choose /t/, /d/ (e.g. tink, dem) as substitutes of English /θ/, /d/
(think, them); both French and Russian have the phonemes /s, z, t, d/
> underdifferentiation: inability to make a distinction made in another language
> lexicon: (P/E): pożyczyć vs. borrow / lend; zazdrość vs. jealousy / envy
> phonology: often perceived as foreign accent; (P/E): contrasts between English vowels
involving quantity and quality, e.g., Pol. /i/ vs. E /iː/, /ɪ/
> overdifferentiation: distinctions made in L1 are carried over to L2
> phonology: not usually perceived as foreign accent; (E/P): contrasts between English
vowels involving quantity and quality, e.g., E /iː/, /ɪ/ vs. Pol. /i/
> calques: errors which reflect L1 structure; e.g. lexical (P/E) stand before a problem (stać
przed problemem); syntactic (P/E) calqued word order in subordinate clauses, e.g., Could you
tell me where is the lecture hall?
> hypercorrection: mistaken correction made through a desire to avoid erroneous
pronunciation, e.g. (E/P) excessive articulation of nasal vowels
> rule transfer: (P/E) regressive voicing assimilation word finally and in obstruent clusters,
e.g., bags [bæks], dove-tail [daftejl], bagpipe [bɛkpajp]
9. Errors independent of cross-linguistic differences
a) simplification (see below)
b) overgeneralization: use of a linguistic rule beyond its normal context
> morphology: extension of articles to nouns that do not allow them, e.g., proper nouns
> lexicon: word coinages where a prefix is extended to new contexts, e.g. nondependent
(independent)
10. Pidginization
> pidgin: contact language, developed where a language of communication is lacking; not a
first language
> a pidgin becomes a creole when it is adopted as a native or when it is adopted as language
of ethnic identification
> pidginization: processes which occur in post-threshold language acquisition (i.e. among
adults and adolescents); in extreme cases they may lead to the creation of a pidgin (Trudgill in
preparation)
a) reduction: there is less of language; while it is used in directive functions (giving orders)
and in referential function (in description), it is not used in interactional function (social
cohesion) or expressively (expression of inner states and ideas); as a result, large areas of
language are reduced or missing, e.g., lexicon, syntax and stylistic devices
b) admixture: interference from the learner’s native language
c) simplification: regularization (lack of allomorphy), loss of opacity (loss of irregular forms,
e.g. went vs. did go), decrease in redundancy (loss of agreement), loss of morphological
categories
11. Code-switching
> code-switching: alternate use of two languages or dialects within an utterance; used e.g. to
report/highlight and to convey social roles in interaction; occurs in tags, within
clauses/sentences or at clause/sentence boundaries and to convey social roles in interaction;
occurs in tags, within clauses/sentences or at clause/sentence boundaries and to convey social
roles in interaction; occurs in tags, within clauses/sentences or at clause/sentence boundaries
and to convey social roles in interaction; occurs in tags, within clauses/sentences or at
clause/sentence boundaries and to convey social roles in interaction; occurs in tags, within
clauses/sentences or at clause/sentence boundaries
English/Swedish (Finn is just off to school)
Mother: Har du din nyckel? ‘Have you got your key?’
Finn: Jo, jag har den – hei, hei. ‘Yes, I’ve got it, bye bye.’
Mother: Hei då. ‘Bye, then.’
Finn: Goodbye. [this time addressed to his father]
Father: Bye, Finn.
> borrowing and code-switching can be distinguished with respect to these criteria (Romaine
1995) borrowing code-switching motivation need to name a new concept stylistic use
adaptation full possible none used by mono- and bilinguals bilinguals only acceptance
accepted individual and idiosyncratic
References
Grosjean, François. 1985. “The bilingual as a competent but specific speaker-hearer”, Journal
of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 6: 467-477.
Haugen, Einar. 1950. “The analysis of linguistic borrowing”, Language 26, 2: 210-231.
Mańczak-Wohlfeld, Elżbieta. 1995. Tendencje rozwojowe współczesnych zapożyczeń
angielskich w języku polskim. Kraków: Uniwersytet Jagielloński.
Odlin, Terrence. 1989. Language transfer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Otwinowska-Kasztelanic, Agnieszka. 2000. A study of the lexico-semantic and grammatical
influence of English on the Polish of the younger generation of Poles (19-35 years of age).
Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Akademickie DIALOG.
Romaine, Suzanne. 1995. Bilingualism. (2nd edition.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Thomason, Sarah G. 2001. Language contact. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Trudgill, Peter. In preparation. Sociolinguistic typology: On the social determinants of
linguistic structure. Oxford:Oxford University Press.