Anglicisms in RomanianAuthor:erban
Gabriel___________________________________
TABLEOFCONTENTS
AbstractArgumentPaper Presentation1Prolegomena to English
Borrowings in Romanian2History / Evolution3Reasons for Borrowing
Anglicisms4Anglicisms and Related Terms (terminological
issues)5Researches5.1. Sourses of research5.2. Linguistic
approaches6The Spread of Anglicisms6.1. In Europe6.2. In
Romania7Attitudes towards Anglicisms7.1. In Europe7.1.1. France and
the French influence7.1.2. Germany7.1.3. Italy7.1.4. Other
countries7.2. In Romania7.2.1. Romanian acceptance7.2.2. Romanian
rejection8Adaptation8.1. General aspects8.1.1. Adaptation vs.
adoption8.1.2. Linguistic aspects (types of changes)8.1.3. Stages
of integration8.2. Orthographic adaptation8.2.1. Stages of
orthographic adaptation8.2.2.Factors favouring the English
spelling8.2.3. Types of orthographic adaptation8.2.3.1. Backward
adaptation8.2.3.2.Double letters8.2.3.3.Words containing the
lettersyandw8.2.3.4.Homonyms,
homographs8.2.3.5.Compounds8.2.3.6.Abbreviations8.2.3.7. Proper
names8.2.4. Tendencies and difficulties8.3. Morpho-sintactic
adaptation8.3.1. Articles3.1.1. Enclitic articles3.1.2. Indefinite
articles8.3.2. Plural endings8.3.3. Noun genders8.3.4. Special
cases8.3.5. Adjectives8.3.6. Verbs8.4. Phonetic adaptation8.5.
Semantic adaptation8.5.1. Stages of semantic assimilation8.5.2.
Stages of semantic adaptation8.5.3. Semantic changes8.6.
Derivation8.7. Minor processes8.8. Conclusions9Calques9.1. Semantic
calques9.2. Structural calques9.3. Phraseological calques9.4.
Referential approach9.5. Other cases10Accessibility11Necessity vs.
Luxury12Domains13VariantsConclusionsBibliographyDictionariesAppendix
1(Compound borrowings)Appendix 2(Anglicisms from various
domains)Appendix 3(Variants)
ABSTRACT
Anglicisms are found in all walks of life and learning them is
therefore almost a prerequisite for the mastery of the Romanian
language. English, as the main donor language for the international
pool of words, has become a lingua franca,serving as an
indispensable means of communication with the outside world. Its
presence in the present-day Romanian language has become so
influential that, undoubtedly, it deserves a lot of our interest
and scrutiny. And this paper aims exactly at examining this
overwhelming influence of this universal language by means of its
ever pervading invaders,Anglicisms.Although more or less extensive
research has been done to date on the nature of Anglicisms as well
as on the way they are used or have been integrated in our
language, a better understanding of their behaviour and impact can
nevertheless be acquired only by having all the relevant theories
and scholarly contributions on this topic collected in a
comprehensive structure. And that is exactly what I have tried to
create in this paper. In this respect, proper attention has been
given to all areas that have a role in this complex process of
borrowing, starting with the history of the presence of Anglicisms
in Romanian, going through the various researches in the area and
the estimations on the spread of these words not only in our
language, but also in other European languages, insisting on the
intricate process of adaptation, with all its many implications and
peculiarities, and ending with a view on the attempts to regulate
the presence of Anglicisms in Romanian. All these areas come in
this paper supported by a large number of details and illustrative
examples, as provided in the works of various researchers or in
dictionaries.The final conclusions underline some of the most
conspicuous elements as arisen from my analysis, such as the
implications of the adaptation process and the general tendencies
related to it, some of the most important difficulties that occur
in the complicated process of borrowing, the impact Anglicisms have
and/or is expected to have on the Romanian language in the future,
as seen in the larger picture of the world we live in, or reason
for understanding and accepting this phenomenon as a natural and
implacable, irreversible process.
ARGUMENT
In Romania, Anglicisms have been under the scholars scrutiny for
less than half a century. Yet, in spite of the rather numerous
studies written in the recent years, none of them has covered this
subject in all its facets and implications. Each scientific
research has covered a more or less complex area of interest:
either a specific domain (economics, IT or others), or
peculiarities of the complex process of adaptation or adoption, or
the impact and the spread of Anglicisms in various languages, each
restricting its approach to that particular field.The study of
lexical borrowings has a long tradition, going back at least to the
historical comparative language studies of the 19th century and
extending over all the fields of philology. Research on Anglicisms
concentrates on several main areas. First of all, a number of
empirical-descriptive studies should be mentioned, mostly based on
print media as general text corpora, such as ManfredGrlachsAn
Annotated Bibliography of European Anglicisms(Oxford, 2002).Then
there is the lexicographical preoccupation with Anglicisms, with
several dictionaries,ManfredGrlachsDictionary of European
Anglicisms, A Usage Dictionary of Anglicisms in Sixteen European
Languages(2001) being the most notorious, referred to by a large
number of authors from all over Europe, as itprovides the first
exhaustive and up-to-date account of British and American English
words that have been imported into the main languages of
Europe.Furthermore, there are some historical studies which deal
with the increasing influence of English, accompanied by research
on attitudes towards Anglicisms and on language policies. Among the
authors with the most relevant contributions in this area I would
mention Roswitha Fischer (2008), Monica Sim (2006), Arina Greavu
(2010), Georgeta Ciobanu (1991, 1996), Mioara Avram (1997) and
Adriana Stoichioiu-Ichim (2006). I would say that Georgeta Ciobanus
contributions are particularly important, as sheanalyzed the
influence of the English element on contemporary Romanian earlier
than many other authors,trying to point out some peculiarities of
the borrowing process, insisting on the nature of the borrowing
process and its evolution,the integration of the English element in
the Romanian lexis and the relationship with the international pool
of Anglicisms.In the European Research ProjectThe English Element
in the European Languagesdirected by Rudolf Filipovic, a project
whose results were to prove the peculiarities of borrowing English
elementsinto Romanian and other European languages, as well as
those aspects aimed at outlining the universalia of borrowing
English elements in all European languages. G. Ciobanu was the one
who gave the Romanian contribution on the project.The results of
her study, as well as those of F. Bncil and D. Chiorans studies,
were included in the second and third volumes (Bncil, Chioran,
1982), (Ciobanu, 1991) and in the 41-42nd volumes (Ciobanu, 1996),
and have been pursued afterwards at all language levels.
Nevertheless, some of the examples and data supporting her findings
are outdated now, especially those related to the presence of
certain Anglicisms in dictionaries and some statistics. G. Ciobanus
studies were soon followed by another valuable contrubution, much
quoted by all analysts of this phenomenon, which isMioara
AvramsAnglicismele n limba romn actual(1997).The Bulgarian Rumyana
Lyutakova (Orthographical Adaptation of Anglicisms in Romanian and
Bulgarian,2004) gave a minute description of theorthographic
adaptation, in three stages, also of the morphosintactic and
phonetic adaptation. Her study includes aspects rarely touched
elsewhere: backward adaptation, acronyms or double letters.
Constantin Maneas studies (2009, 2010) are also worth mentioning,
in referrence with thethedegrees of assimilation in point of both
form and semantics and of the technique of quotation as a first
step in taking over recent loanwords. He alsoaims to spot some of
the main sources of difficulty resisting the linguists and
educationalists efforts to regulate the form of the Anglo-American
terms that have entered the vocabulary of contemporary Romanian.As
regards the difficulties related to the adaptation process, it must
be said that all authors involved in researches related to
Anglicisms have come with more or less personal contributions in a
general attempt to decipher all the implications of this fuzzy
process.A number of authors (Avram, 1997;Stoichioiu-Ichim,
2003;Lyutakova, 2004; Rus, 2005; Manea, 2010; Athu, 2011)render in
their studies different norms (phonetic, orthographic, morphologic
etc.) of the adaptation of English elements into Romanian language,
mostly with reference to the way these elements appear in variants
in some of the main Romanian dictionaries (DEX, 1998, MDN, 2002,
DOOM, 1982 and 2005). As Lyutakova (2004) remarks in her study, the
existence of variants proves that the adaptation process is not
complete.The present paper aims not only at covering a specific
limited area regarding Anglicisms and their presence and influence
in Romanian; it has a more ambitious aim, which is to synthetize
some of the most relevant studies and offer a global perspective on
this increasingly powerful phenomenon which tends to affect our
native language more and more each day. In my thesis I have only
tried to point out some of the most qualified opinions in this area
and to put them together as with the pieces of an intricate puzzle,
in an attempt to offer the reader a clearer picture of this area
which I consider of much linguistic interest nowadays.
PAPERPRESENTATION
The main purpose of this paper is to study the English borrowing
in Romanian in all its linguistic aspects, trying to point out some
peculiarities of the borrowing process and some of the main sources
of difficulty which resist the linguists and educationalists
efforts to regulate the form of the Anglo-American terms that have
entered the vocabulary of contemporary Romanian.Following the
introduction, I presented a shortHistory(or theEvolution) of the
borrowing process, including other channels that helped this
process and two cases of words whose evolution presented some
peculiarities.The next chapter,Reasons for Borrowing, presents the
most important factors that encourage the borrowing of English
elements into Romanian. Among them, the communicative needs,
prestige and the new cultural and technological realities
prevail.In the chapter calledAnglicisms and Related Termssome of
the main terms related to the subject of this paper are described
in order to clarify some of the issues that are likely to generate
confusion.The next chapter,Researches, gives a glimpse at the way
scientists have treated the borrowing phenomenon in their research,
focusing either on the study of general language terms or, more
often, on the researching and inventoring of the
technical/specialized vocabulary, with all the difficulties this
strenuous effort entails.The Spread of Anglicismsaims at analyzing
the impact the English element has had both on Romanian and,
comparatively, on other European languages. All estimations and
findings present the influx of Anglicisms as a pervasive
phenomenon, with an increasing impact in the more recent years,
especially in the Eastern countries (Romania included) after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union.InAttitudes towards AnglicismsI
tried to offer a short view as to what extent European peoples
(Romanians included) accept English loans open-heartedly or not. As
in many other fields, opinions towards this phenomenon are split,
both at global level and at the national level. Most countries
accept this intrusion with no significant opposition, while very
few others (France and Germany being the most notable examples)
have always made efforts to limit this influence. Romania's
tolerance places us in the first category, in spite of some voices
of criticism.The next chapter (Adaptation) is the most elaborate of
my thesis. It is a thorough analysis of the complicated process of
integration/adaptation of Anglicisms in Romanian, with its
implications and peculiarities at all levels, be them orthographic,
morpho-sintactic, phonetic or semantic. All these levels are
accompanied by explanations and illustrative examples. Also the
stages of adoption and some related tendencies and difficulties are
described here. Obviously, the most prominent part is dedicated to
the orthographic adaptation, with its many subdivisions and special
cases. Adaptation is a highly complicated and complex process which
requires a lot of attention. Therefore, this chapter is naturally
the most important and carefully looked upon from this
paper.Calquesare treated separately as they refer not to lexical
borrowings but to the borrowing of translations. The main
subdivisions here are the three types of calque analyzed in the
approaches of various linguists: semantic calques, structural
calques and phraseological calques, along with a referential
approach offered by Stoichioiu-Ichim (2003), and some special
cases, euphemisms among them. All these types offer different
peculiarities, as described in this chapter.The way Anglicisms are
rendered in written media is described in the next chapter
calledAccessibility. As shown in this chapter, most authors who use
such English terms in their writings often resort to various
methods in order to help the Romanian reader understand the exact
meaning of these terms. Some resort to graphical conventions
(inverted commas, italics, bolds, etc.), others offer explanations
or Romanian equivalents, in parallel. Then, there are lots of cases
when the English terms are given without any explanation, as they
are considered popular enough among readers.The chapter
calledNecessity vs. Luxuryobviously treats Anglicisms from the
perspective of whether they are considered necessary or not in the
Romanian vocabulary. As shown here, the necessary borrowings can be
of two types: denotative and connotative. The denotative borrowings
do not have equivalents in Romanian because they denote recent
realities that have appeared in various field in the more or less
recent years, therefore they are often linked to specialized
languages, while the other type of necessary borrowings, the
connotative ones, double pre-existing Romanian words, having an
effect of amplification on the stylistic meanings and being often
called 'luxury borrowings'.InDomains,I presented some of the fields
with the largest influx of Anglicisms. The importance of the
English element is explained for some of these domains, sometimes
accompanied by several translations and examples of use in Romanian
texts.The chapter aboutVariantsoffers an analysis of the way
Anglicisms are found in the Romanian dictionaries, as well as some
of the main tendencies met in normative works. As often shown in
the linguistic studies, the existence of variants is a proof that
the adaptation of the English term is incomplete. The same type of
proof is the fact that dictionaries like DOOM 2, DEX, DCR, MDN, DN,
NODEX often disagree not only on the variants, but even on the
inclusion or exclusion of some terms. Therefore, the existence of
variants is seen as a phenomenon which seems impossible to ever
disappear.The final chapter is obviously dedicated to my
finalConclusions, as related to all the aspects described in the
present paper.
The in-text citations are rendered according to thePublication
manual of the American Psychological Association(5th ed.).
Washington, DC. Author: American Psychological Association (2001),
and the bibliography according toSTAS 8660-82.
1PROLEGOMENATOENGLISHBORROWINGS INROMANIAN
English, which mainly after 1066 imported thousands of words
from French and Latin, is now by far the world's biggest lexical
exporter, and the trade is growing as English continues to dominate
various fields, ranging from pop music to electronic communication.
Several countries have monitored the inflow of Anglicisms and some
have even tried to block it. But language, as lexicographers have
always found, respects neither boundary nor law.We can say that
there is almost no field of activity in which such words have not
penetrated; moreover, the tendency has become dominant.Under the
circumstances, it is obvious that beside the nationallanguage, a
lingua franca is often seen as an absolute necessity in any
civilized country of this world. In this respect, English is seen
as a foreign language, serving as a useful means of communication
with the outside world, while the national language is used within
one's own speech community.After 1989 social circumstances favoured
increased contacts between Romaniaand many foreign countries, the
English speaking world included; consequently,a large number of
Anglicisms and Americanisms were borrowed viawritten and oral
routes.Beside the natural need to use some terms coming from
English (the influence of English being an international phenomenon
due to the progress of some highly pervasive domains), the invasion
of English borrowed words becomes a sort of trend among some social
categories that frequently and deliberately employ English words,
even though there are Romanian equivalents:job, party, look,
hair-stylist,popcorn, hit,announcing a sort of linguistic fashion
in the present-day written media.This trend of using, sometimes
unnecessarily and abusively, English words instead of Romanian ones
could be seen up to a point as a natural phenomenon, aswe actually
live in a world of fakes, as Monica Sim (2006a) remarks. She also
states that almost everything is being forged and copied:
paintings, clothes, bags, music, sites, books, images, characters,
even words and expressions. There are originals and copies as well.
But it is even easier to fake and copy options, expectations,
words, behaviour, to let yourself taken away by imitation, fake and
not knowledge. It is handy, easy and trendy. Regardless the aim, be
it necessity or trend, these borrowings show the way our vocabulary
changes, as media represents the most eloquent and true reality.As
for the written media, the presence ofagreat number of English
borrowed words suggests the openly expressed wish of the journalist
to be perceived as an accessible, entertaining, up-to-date writer,
but sometimes the result turns to be just the opposite and the
public discourse easily slips towards a familiarity that crosses
theanimated, vivid language, often becoming impolite, even
invective.
Many are the reasons facilitating the enrichment of our language
with English-origin terms: the development of technology, of trade,
and of the economy, to quote just a few. Economic, social and
political factors play an important role in enriching a language by
means of borrowings; in countries where such relationships are
non-existent, words of foreign origin penetrate with more
difficulty, if at all (Sim, 2006b). The boom in technology and
industry smoothed the path towards the exchange of information
between countries and, consequently, new terms are introduced in
order to cover the new realities that are coming up in these
domains at a fast pace.Similarly, trade and population migration
represent another cause of change, and many words belonging to
commerce and transportation have entered Romanian:voucher, trailer,
discount. The Romanian native speakers need to borrow such terms
because these can facilitate communication between Romanian
business owners and European or world traders. Nowadays, it is
almost impossible for business owners of different origins to get
along, sign contracts and establish business partnerships without
resorting to terms connected with economics and business, mainly of
English origin, which spread all over Europe and became
international terms. Newly coined terms appear, some translated,
some adjusted, brands are turned into common nouns and used in
daily speech, some of them have a short life and soon become
obsolete (especially those belonging to daily speech), some others
enter the common core vocabulary (standard language or specialized
language).
2HISTORY / EVOLUTION
Due to its geographical position, Romanian has been influenced
directly by various languages belonging to different genetic types,
and this has turned Romanian into a generous receiver, able to
assimilate words from various languages. The impact of various
linguistic influences has favoured the openness of our language to
borrow foreign words, English words included. In the case of
Romanian, its lack of resistance to borrowings (developed
throughout the centuries) has proved to be helpful, favouring the
integration of English elements.Although chronologically the
English language is the last one among the modern languages (e.g.
Italian, French, Russian, German) to contribute to the enrichment
of contemporary Romanian, the presence of some thousands of
Anglicisms (at least 3,000) (Ciobanu, 1996) in the general Romanian
vocabulary, and many more scientific terms, represents a corpus
worth considering.The origin of neologisms in Romanian is diverse,
but they mainly come from classical languages: Latin and Greek,
from neo-Latin languages (French, Italian), and from Germanic
languages, such as German and English, as well (Dumistrcel, 1980).
Belonging to a language family other than Latin, the borrowings
from English may have to cope with a difficult adaptation and/or
acceptance process on the part of a great deal of speakers. Still,
let us not forget that English itself has got a powerful Latin
component (e.g.audit, bonus, item), and thus, some of these English
loans do not harm our language, they only continue the old process
of re-Latinisation of Romanian. Therefore, we do not have to worry
about the seemingly too large English influence.The origins of the
contact between English and Romanian culture, and within it the
English influence on the Romanian language can be traced back to
the sixteenth century, according to Arina Greavus research (2010).
However, the major influence of English on Romanian started in the
second half of the 19th century, with the intensification of the
cultural and economic relations between the two countries, this
influence being recorded in the lexicographic works of the
time.Hristea (1984) shows that the neologisms that Romanian started
to borrow from English in the 19th century came almost exclusively
through the intermediacy of French, many of them belonging to the
sports terminology:aut, baschet, base-ball, bowling, bridge,
corner, dribbling, fault, fini, fotbal, hen, ofsaid, meci,
outsider, polo, pressing, ring, rugby, scor, set, skeet, sportsman,
start,ut, tenis, volei, etc.A very important wave of English
borrowings in Romanian began at the turn of the 20th century and
coincided with the intensification of economic and cultural
contacts, being encouraged by Romanias industrial and economic
development on West European models, many of them of British origin
(Greavu, 2010). Thus, British technological methods, and with them
English terminologies, were brought to the attention of specialists
in oil drilling, mining, finance, steel production, shipbuilding,
weaving, etc. To these industrial / economic elements, others were
added such as military and political circumstances - Romanias
joining the Triple Entente countries in 1916, or the fact that
Queen Maria, the wife of Ferdinand I, king of Romania from 1914 to
1927, was a grandchild of Queen Victoria and born in England.The
second half of the 20th century saw a further intensification of
this influence, in spite of political, economic and cultural
barriers existing between east and west Europe. The various, mainly
political circumstances of the time, resulted in changing attitudes
towards English. Thus, while the 1950s are thought to have been the
years most intensely marked by xenophobia, more and more English
words found their way into technical terminologies and the standard
language in the 1970s, when Romania began to assume an air of
independence, with Russian models being increasingly discarded.
This period was marked by an inflow of translations of scientific
and literary writings. Evidence of the increasing influence of the
English language on Romanian is the recording of ever more
Anglicisms in Romanian dictionaries starting with 1970. These
dictionaries include works of a general nature such asDicionarul
explicativ al limbii romne(DEX), dictionaries of neologisms (DN),
and recordings of new words (Florica Dimitrescu, 1982,
1997:Dicionar de cuvinte recente- DCR1 and DCR2), as well as
specialized dictionaries restricted to individual domains, e.g.
computer science, finance and trade, marketing, sports and
medicine.Finally, the contemporary period, i.e the end of the 20th
century andthe beginning of the 21st century is characterized by
what is usually referred to as an unprecedented English influence
which manifests itself directly, without the intermediacy of other
languages, mainly through second language teaching and the mass
media, being supported by extra-linguistic factors such as fashion
and prestige.Thepresent-day flood of Anglicisms to Romanian that
characterizes this period makes it particularly interesting and
worth studying from the linguistic perspective. Therefore, these
recent Anglicisms constitute the main corpus of words under
analysis in the present paper.
OTHER CHANNELS;TWO SPECIAL INSTANCESIt is interesting to notice
that there are English loans that came into Romanian
throughFrench,after French had adopted them first:biftectakes after
fr.bifteck(DEX),rather than en.beefsteak[bi:fsteik]
(DN),golaverajfrom fr., en.goal-average(DEX, DN,
MDN);sandvi/sanvi/sandvici(DEX, DN: cf. Sandwich - an English lord)
/senvi(DOOM2), as in the pronunciations of other French loans
(champagneorchauffeur); alanger(DEX), from fr.challengeur, although
DOOM2 recommends the English spellingchallengerand the English
pronunciation (also accepted in DN). There are also updated French
loans:trezorier(en.treasurer),cupon(en.coupon),retail(en.) anden
detail(fr.),similaritate(en.similarity)
andsimilitudine(fr.similitude),wholesaleandangro(fr.en-gross).TheRussianchannel
also helped entrance of several English
terms:conveierandscreper(DEX, DN, MDN),not with the English
pronunciation ofconveyerandscraper.TheGermanchannel has led to
incorrect spelling or pronounciation, with:start(DEX, DN: en.
start, ger. Start), sprint(DEX: fr., en.), spray(DEX: en., fr.),
probably by analogy withtrand(ger.Strand).
In theArticle on Linguisticsfrom Encyclopdia Britannicait is
stated thatlanguages borrow words freely from one another, a
process that usually takes place when some new object or
institution is developed for which the borrowing language has no
word of its own. The article mentions the case of the large number
of words denotingfinancial institutionsand operations borrowed from
Italian by the other western European languages at the time of the
Renaissance, which testifies to the importance of the Italian
bankers in that period. (The wordbankitself, in this sense, comes
through French from the Italianbanca). Comparatively, words now
pass from one language to another on a scale that is probably
unprecedented, partly because of the enormous number of new
inventions that have been made in the 20th century and partly
because international communications are now so much more rapid and
important. The vocabulary of modern science and technology is very
largely international.As a representative case of the way in which
a borrowed word can almost displace a native equivalent in a
relatively short amount of time, Arina Greavu provides the example
of the Anglicismretail,inan article written inRevista
economic(2010). In 1998, according to her count, this word did not
appear at all in the studied corpus ofCapitalmagazine, whilecu
amnuntulwas used for 76 times, anden-detailfor 7 times. All three
terms had a surge in 2000, probably as a result of the arrival of
large supermarket chains in Romania, and after that
momentretailclearly gained a lot of ground in front of the two
native synonyms, and it probably continued its upward trend after
2005. This firm position held byretail, which is very likely to
continue to gain ground in the future as well, is reinforced by a
similar evolution inretaileranddetailist.Another example given by
the same author isbusiness,whosefrequency in the studied period
grew dramatically, from 27 occurrences in 1998 to 321 in
2005.Having the past, the present and the future of this borrowing
process in mind, we may conclude that the penetration and usage of
the English loanwords in Romanian vocabulary is a highly dynamic
process, a complex phenomenon whose amplitude is, in my opinion, in
spite of all the elaborate studies and statistical researches,
impossible to predict for theyears to come.
3REASONSFORBORROWINGANGLICISMS
Thecontinuous progress of arts, technology, sciences brings
along a great number of new words. Each new thing, object, must
bear a name; for instance:virus, appendicitis, motoretc. And these
new words are either borrowings from other languages or new
creations from old words by means of all the internal means of
enriching vocabulary: derivation, conversion, composition etc. It
is interesting to notice that all these items were not registered
in the dictionaries when they first appeared. Nowadays we can no
longer communicate efficiently without them. Still, like most of
the things in this world, there is a reverse of this process: all
these new words that appear in a language must be carefully
monitored so as not to suffocate the borrowing language.As regards
the various elements that have contributed to this inflow of
Anglicisms, two factors are in my opinion the strongest predictors
of borrowing from English into contemporary Romanian: need and
prestige. Thus, many of the words that have been borrowed in the
last two decades for their informative function answer specific
referential and communicative needs in various compartments of the
Romanian society, e.g. economy, politics, culture, entertainment,
science and technology.The dominant place English holds in the
avant-garde of scientific advancement, as well as in business and
other international relations, endows this language with certain
connotations of modernity, fashion and prestige, which promote the
borrowing of words not motivated by need, therefore these words are
called luxury or unnecessary loans. Thisis the case with a lot of
words borrowed after 1989, and a high degree of Anglomania
justifies the use of very many terms in domains related to everyday
life, such as music, sports, fashion etc.Many such words are simply
taken over (they are not really borrowed) out of snobbery:fashion
adviser- (newspapers, magazines and TV prefer to use the English
term);high tech, whose Romanian translation is tehnologie de vrf,
but it is preferred in the English form, and so on.It is generally
agreed that borrowing American/British terms (such asfast food, pop
music, management)to describe various cultural realitiesis
considered a sign of internationalization of the Romanian
vocabulary (Stoichioiu-Ichim, 2001), while rejecting them is a
manifestation of self-isolation and cultural provincialism.
To sum up, all these aspects - progress, communicative needs,
prestige, efficience, inexistence of terms, new cultural realities
- can be seen as powerful factors that help promoting the borrowing
of Anglicisms in Romanian, as in many other languages.
4ANGLICISMSANDRELATEDTERMS(TERMINOLOGICALISSUES)
In order to get a better understanding of the elements analysed
in the following chapters, I consider useful to define some of the
main terms related to the subject of this paper and clarify some of
the issues that are likely to generate confusion as far as these
terms are concerned.
ANGLICISMThe termAnglicismwas first used in the 17th century and
refers toa linguistic feature ofEnglish used in another language
(cf.OED). Or, according to Wikipedia, anAnglicism,as most often
defined, is a word borrowed from English into another
language.Anglicismalso describes English syntax, grammar, meaning,
and structure used in another language with varying degrees of
corruption.Today the term is commonly associated withthe increasing
influx of English borrowings from WW II onwards, related to the
international role of mainly the United States, and to English as a
lingua franca. Opponents of Anglicisms often use the term
derogatively. Roswitha Fischer (2008) righteously remarks that,
thoughAnglicismis connected to the wordEnglandetymologically, it is
generally not only used for Anglicisms from England, but also for
English loans from all varieties of the English language.
Sometimes, in order to specify the origin of an Anglicism, the
termAmericanismis also used for borrowings originating from the
United States, this then being a subordinate of the
termAnglicism.
BORROWINGAccording to American Heritage Dictionary, aborrowingis
especially a word or phrase borrowed from one language for use in
another. Ora word adopted from another language and completely or
partially naturalized.But what exactly is aborrowing? Roswitha
Fischer (2008) explains in her thorough analysis of this term that,
though phonological, morphological and syntactic borrowing also
exists, the term is usually applied to words and their
meanings.Borrowingdenotes the process as well as the object. As a
process it typically refers to the importation of a word or its
meaning from one language into another. As an object, it denotes
the form and/or the meaning of the item that originally was not
part of the vocabulary of the recipient language but was adopted
from some other language and made part of the borrowing language's
vocabulary.A second cause for the fuzziness of the termborrowingis
its use for a subgroup of borrowing, namelylexicalborrowing, in
contrast tosemanticborrowing. Lexical borrowings are also
calledloan wordsorloans. Both the form and (parts of) the meaning
of a foreign word become imported, not only the meaning as is the
case with semantic borrowing. Some scholars also equate lexical
borrowing withdirectorintegral borrowing, i.e. a borrowing whose
form is transferred directly from the source language, and not via
another language. The latter case is usually calledindirect
borrowing.Then, semantic borrowing can be further subdivided
intoloan meaningandloan formation. Loan meaning refers to the
borrowing of a meaning through meaning extension of a word in the
recipient language.Three further subcategories of semantic
borrowing canbe subsumed under the termloan
formation:loantranslation(calquing,loan shift), i.e. the (complete)
translation of a borrowing (e.g. ro.relaii publice