Recent Anglicisms in Romanian Language

Recent anglicisms in Romanian language

In the years after the fall of the communist regime in 1989, when Romania opened to the

West, the influence of English on the Romanian language rose to an unprecedented level.

Nowadays, English words can be found in all Romanian newspapers and journals, can be heard

on any Romanian TV channel, and are frequently used as shop or business names (Parlog 2002);

English has even become the language of Romanian graffiti. The phenomenon has been most

recently charted in the three volumes on European Anglicisms edited by Manfred Görlach (2001;

2002a; 2002b).

A previous article on English loanwords in Romanian, published twenty years ago (Parlog

1983), was based on a corpus in which only eighteen nouns referred to human beings. The

current corpus, collected since 1990 from several newspapers and magazines of different

orientation, contains more than six times as many (see Annex).1 With some exceptions, they

denote human agents or members of a profession and many do not represent random usage but

seem to occur regularly. Their gradual adaptation to Romanian is governed by formal and

semantic criteria. From a formal point of view, borrowed names of human agents ending in a

consonant or a semivowel may become either masculine or neuter in Romanian and the

difference becomes obvious only in the plural forms; from a semantic point of view, however,

such nouns usually become masculine while the neuter is reserved for nouns with non-animate

referents.

Many of the borrowed English words are used unmodified, without any change in their formal

structure e.g.: o pozitie de outsider ["a position of outsider"];2 angajeazä brand manager,

creative director, account manager, art director, account executive, copywriter, designer

["wanted . . . " ] ; locuri de muncäpentru baby-sitter ["jobs as baby-sitter"]; and A.N., hostess de

night-club ["A.N., night-club hostess"].

Sometimes the words are placed between inverted comas, which suggests that they are

regarded as foreignisms or quotations, and there is, sometimes, a kind of translation which is not

necessarily correct e.g.: exis-tenta oamenilor sträzii (a acelor "homeless") ["the existence of

street people (of those 'homeless [people]')]; englezescul "headhunters", expresia "vånå-tori de

capete", este folositä ["the English word 'headhunters', a phrase meaning 'headhunters', is used"];

denumirea de politolog. Termenul in englezä e "political scientist" ["the word 'politolog'. The

English term is 'political scientist'"]; gazetar de talent, så-i zicem "free-lancer" ["a talented

journalist, let's call him a 'free-lancer'"].

Sometimes there are no translations or inverted commas, as in al såu "daddy" iubit ["his

beloved 'daddy"'], acest "newcomer" feminin ["this feminine 'newcomer'"]; dog-walker, cei

care plimbå cåinii ["dog-walker, those who walk dogs"]; avänd drept idoli hackers (spärgåtori

de programe) ["having hackers (hackers) as idols"].

The gender of Romanian nouns is marked and can be established by means of determiners in

the singular and in the plural.

The determiners for masculine nouns are un ["one"] - doi ["two"] (e.g., un doctor ["one

doctor"] - doi doctori ["two doctors"]);

for feminine nouns they are o ["one"] - douå ["two"] (e.g., ofemeie ["one woman"] - douå

femei ["two women"]); whereas

neuter nouns have un ["one"] - douå ["two"] (e.g., un studiu ["one study"] - douå studii ["two

studies"]). The determiners may also be demonstrative adjectives indicating nearness: acest

(masculine, singular) -acesti (masculine, plural), aceastå (feminine, singular) - aceste (feminine,

plural), acest (neuter, singular) - and aceste (neuter, plural).

English nouns are adapted to Romanian genders by means of such determiners whose form is

suggestive of the gender of the English noun. Here are some examples: acest "newcomer"

(demonstrative adjective, singular, masculine); aceastå redutabilä business woman ["this

formidable business woman"] (demonstrative adjective, singular, feminine + variable adjective,

singular, feminine); acesti new-comers ["these new-comers"] (demonstrative adjective, plural,

masculine); asemenea altor douå first ladies ["like two other first ladies"] (numeral, feminine);

dot båtråni dons ai Oxfordului ["two old dons at Oxford"] (numeral, masculine).

The gender of the borrowed word may be suggested by both modifying adjectives and by

nouns (be they modifiers or heads).

Just like Romanian nouns, Romanian variable adjectives also indicate gender. The English

adjective "good" may, for instance, correspond to: bun (masculine and neuter, singular); buna

(feminine, singular, nominative and accusative); buni (masculine, plural); bune (neuter, plural,

and feminine, singular, genitive and dative).

In al säu "daddy" iubit ["his beloved daddy"], the adjective, iubit, is in the singular, masculine

form; therefore, daddy is regarded as masculine. In perfectionarea metodelor diver§ilor killers

["the improvement of the methods of various killers"], the modifier, diversilor, is an adjective

used with the definite article, plural, masculine, genitive, which automatically makes killer a

masculine noun. The adjective, viitoarea, in viitoarea first lady a Ger-maniei ["Germany's future

first lady"] is used with the definite article, singular, feminine, which makes the first lady a

feminine noun. The same features with the same outcome are found in the adjective clasica, in

clasica self-made woman ["the classic self-made-woman"].

Sometimes the modifier is a noun marked for gender: e.g., au preferat in locul englezoaicelor

baby-sitters ... ["they preferred to English baby-sitters

Worlds of Words -A tribute to Arne Zettersten [sic]..."](noun used with the definite article,

plural, feminine, genitive); "call-boys" licentiati ["call-boys with a diploma"] (noun, plural,

masculine); cintareata rapper de mare success ["the successful rap singer/rapper"] (noun used

with the definite article, singular, feminine gender).

Many borrowed nouns for humans are used with a plural non-articulated masculine ending, a

non-syllabic [i], which palatalizes the final consonant: Inscrierea la cursul de broken ["The

enrolment for the courses training brokers"]; serie despre grupårile de rockeri ["s/he writes

about the groups of rockers"]; bikeri din toatä lumea ["bikers from all over the world"]. If the

noun ends in a consonant other than [x\, which is sounded in final position in Romanian, [i] may

be separated from it by a hyphen; however, it may also be attached directly: e.g., plutoane de

vesnic zimbitori yes-man-i ["hordes of always smiling yes-men"]; remarcabili intåi de toate ca

yesmani ["remarkable first of all as yesmen"]; La Davos au fost prezenti ... 1000 de 'mari boss-i'

["1000 big bosses were present at Davos"].

There are nouns whose singular-plural opposition is marked not only by the palatalization of

the final consonant, but also by final consonant alternations. The most frequent alternations are

[t]-[ts] as in Romanian pirat-pirati ["pirate"-"pirates"], [d]-[z] as in bard-barzi ["bard"-"bards"],

[s]-[f] as in as-a§i ["ace"-"aces"]. Such alternations are also found in Romanian Anglicisms:

internaut - internauti, bodyguard - bodyguarzi, homles - homlesi, exemplified in e.g. internauti

au putut savura detalii ["internauts were able to enjoy the details"]; o armata de bodiguarzi ["an

army of bodyguards"]; sint homlesi boschetari ["they are homeless people living in bushes"].

Interestingly, there are no plural, non-articulated, feminine nouns in my corpus. Zafiu (2003: 19)

reports the pair hosteri - hostessuri; hoster has been created for the masculine gender in analogy

with other professions denoted by nouns ending in -er and assimilated to the masculine, while

hostessuri, the plural of hostess, denoting a feminine profession, is formed with the inflection -

uri, typical of the plural, non-articulated neuter gender.

The English borrowings are often preceded by Romanian indefinite articles. They are un

(Nominative, Accusative), unui (Genitive, Dative) for the masculine animate singular nouns, o

(Nominative, Accusative), unei (Genitive, Dative) for the feminine singular nouns. They are

illustrated in these examples: trimite dupä gratii un hacker ["puts a hacker behind bars"]; el este

un performer ["he is a performer"]; C. a bdtut un bodyguard ["C. has beaten a bodyguard"]; un

"drag queen" este un bårbat travestit ["a drag queen is a transvestite"]; in fata unui native

speaker ["in front of a native speaker"]; confesiunea unui gay ["a gay's confession"]; imaginea

unui outsider ["the image of an outsider"]; sunt dansatoare, o gipsy, spune Shirley ["I am a

dancer, a gipsy"]; o neo-yuppie ["a neo-yuppie"]; avansuri fåcute de o hostess ["advances made

by a hostess"]; o jazz-dancer americanä ["an American jazz-dancer']. Other nouns in my corpus

which are accompanied by one of the Romanian indefinite articles indicative of gender are: un

baby-sitter, un boss, un fan, un gamer, un manager, un new-historicist, un outsider, un play-boy,

un scholar, un self-made-man, un superstar; o spice girl, o party girl.

The Romanian definite article is enclitic, i.e. forming a unit with the noun. It is often attached

to words borrowed from English. The distribution of its forms depends on the ending of the

noun, on gender, number, and case (cf. Avram 1986: 66).

In the singular, the definite article has five distinct forms: -/, -le, -a, -lui, -(e)i. They are used

as follows:

- in the nominative and the accusative, -I, -le, -a are used for the masculine gender, (e.g.,

scriitorul "the writer", fratele "the brother", and popa, "the priest"); -a for the feminine gender

(e.g., mama "the mother", vulpea "the fox"); -I, -le for the neuter (e.g., teatrul "the theatre",

dealul "the hill", and numele, "the name");- in the genitive and the dative, -lui [luj] and - / (a

syllabic [i]) for the masculine (e.g., scriitorului "the writer's" or "to the writer", fratelui "the

brother's" or "to the brother", and popii "the priest's" or "to the priest"); - (e)i for the feminine

(e.g., mamei 'the mother's" or "to the mother", vulpii "the fox's" or "to the fox"); -lui for the

neuter (e.g., teatrului "of the theatre" or "to the theatre", numelui "of the name" or "to the

name").

The plural forms are -i, -le, -lor.

- in the nominative and the accusative, -i (a syllabic [i]) for the masculine gender (e.g.,

scriitorii, "the writers", fratii, "the brothers"); -le for the feminine gender (e.g., mamele, "the

mothers", vulpile, "the foxes"); and -le for the neuter (e.g., teatrele, "the theatres", numele, "the

names", dealurile "the hills");

- in the genitive and the dative it is -lor for all genders (e.g., masculine: scriitorilor, "the

writers'" or "to the writers", fratilor, "the brothers'" or "to the brothers", feminine: mamelor, "the

mothers'" or "to the mothers", vulpilor, "of the foxes" or "to the foxes"; neuter: teatrelor, "of the

theatres" or "to the theatres", numelor, "of the names" or "to the names").

The definite articles most frequently attached to the Anglicisms in my corpus mark them as

masculine, e.g.:

- singular, nominative: killerul industriei nationale de apdrare ["the killer of the national

defence industry"]; la Varis rapperul nu s-ar fi bucurat de succes ["the rapper would not have

enjoyed success in Paris"];

- singular, accusative: så ne referim la pleiboiul cu pulover ["let us refer to the playboy in the

pullover"];

- singular number, genitive: piciorul goal-keeperului ["the goalkeeper's foot"]; mitul easy-

riderului american ["the myth of the American easy-rider"];

- singular, dative: investitia apartine dealerului autorizat ["the investment belongs to the

licensed dealer"]; rockstarului ii este teama ["the rockstar is afraid"]; piesa ii apartine

rockerului ["the musical piece belongs to the rocker"];

- plural, nominative: trainerii vor fi douå personalitäti ["the trainers will be two

personalities"]; thrasherii autohtoni continuå ... ["the local thrashers continue to . . . " ] ; sunt

bikerii anului 2000 ["they are the bikers of the year 2000"];

- plural, genitive: campionatul mondial al bodyguarzilor ["the world championship of

bodyguards"]; registrul national al auditorilor ["the national register of auditors"]; lumea rock

starurilor ["the world of rock stars'];

- plural, dative case: 'welfari§tiloi/ li se vor lua amprentele ["persons living on welfare will have

their fingerprints taken"].

Sometimes the definite article is separated from English nouns by a hyphen which indicates

that users still regard it as a non-native word: e.g., n-a intors masina cum arfi vrut 'boss'-ul"

["he didn't turn the car around as the boss would have liked"]; o simplå marionetå a king-maker-

ului ["a simple puppet of the king-maker's"]; home worker-ii intåmpinä probleme ["the home

workers face problems"]; miscarea de emancipare a gay-lor ["the gays' movement of

emancipation"]; totalitate a VIP-urilor ["the total of VIP's"].

Only two nouns are used with the definite article of the feminine gender: bosä, derived from

boss, and outsidern, from outsider (cf. Romanian elev ["schoolboy"] - elevå ["schoolgirl"]). The

former occurs in a so-called Hebraism (Brunot 1922: 621), with the feminine article -a,

nominative case: se stråduieste så inteleagå ... care e bosa bosilor ["s/he does her/his best to

understand who is the boss of bosses"]; the latter is used in the dative, singular: Nobelul a fost

atribuit ... outsiderei W.Sz. ["The Nobel Prize was awarded to the outsider W.Sz."].

Several nouns call for attention.

The words baby-sitter, top-model (both usually denoting women), (super/rock/mega) star, and

VIP are exceptions from the normal tendency for [+ animate] loanwords to become masculine in

Romanian.

The gender of baby-sitter is not quite clear yet: it may belong to any of the three genders. In my

corpus the word occurs in an unmodified, non-articulated, singular form (e.g., Locuri de muncä

pentru baby-sitter ["Jobs for baby-sitter"] as well as in contexts that suggest that it can be

interpreted as either feminine or masculine. This goes for Apelati la 'Agentia Gabriela' pentru afi

angajatå baby-sitter ["turn to 'Gabriela Agency7 in order to be hired as a baby-sitter"], where the

participle angajatå has a feminine ending, or Rockerul a angajat un karatist pe post de baby-

sitter ["the rocker hired a karate fighter as a baby-sitter"], where un karatist is masculine.

Sometimes, baby-sitter is preceded by the indefinite article, typical of masculine and neuter

nouns (e.g., a angajat un baby-sitter ["he hired a baby-sitter"], but it may also take a plural

masculine, non-articulated form: Facilitäm angajarea de ... baby-sitteri ["we facilitate the hiring

of baby-sitters"]. My corpus does not comprise examples that would clearly support the

appurtenance of the word to the feminine or the neuter gender, but if I came across a feminine: o

baby-sitter(ä) - douå babysittere or a neuter: un baby-sitter - douå babysittere, I would find them

perfectly acceptable.

Top-model usually denotes a profession for women, for instance, in Fe-meie de afaceri §i top-

model ["business woman and top-model"]; and in ieri top-model, azi cow-girl ["yesterday a top-

model, today a cow-girl"]. However, the word would take the indefinite article un (un top-

model) and the singular definite article -I, attached either to the noun itself (e.g., top-modelul

ceh ["the Czech top-model"] or to its modifier (e.g., celebrul top-model ["the famous top-

model"]. Articulated or not, the plural forms definitely mark it as neuter: tinere top-modele cu

sanse reale ["young top- models with a real chance"]; concurs de selectie a top-modelelor

["competition for the selection of top-models"].

Star is usually neuter and the plural has the -uri ending (staruri) typical of the neuter. Star and

superstar are registered in Görlach (2001); however, the latter can also be used as a feminine

noun: e.g., Este o foarte apreciatä superstar ['She is a highly appreciated superstar'] (cf. Avram

1986: 34).

In Görlach 2001, the noun VIP could belong to any of the three genders in Romanian.

However, my examples attest only the neuter: Au participat peste 300 de VTP-uri ["there were

over 300 VIPs present"]; Tehnici de com-portare cu VJP-urile ["techniques of behaviour with

the VIPs"]; and limuzine de lux ale ...VIP-urilor ["luxury limousines belonging to the VIPs"].

Some Anglicisms are derived with the suffixes -ist and -itä.

The —ist noun-forming suffix is borrowed from French (< Latin, < Greek) and is found in

English and Romanian - as well as in other languages. That is why 'importing' words with this

ending is easy (e.g., Romanian cartist < English chartist; Romanian diarist < Italian diarista ?,

French diariste ?, English diarist ?). Lobbyist, which was registered in Romanian as early as

1978 (Marcu and Maneca), is nowadays often spelled without the suffix vowel, which reflects its

pronunciation with one [i] rather than two: lobbyst [lob'ist]. Assimilated to the masculine gender,

the noun has a plural form with a non-syllabic [i] whose addition triggers the consonant

alternation [s]-[fj, e.g., neobositi lobby-i§ti ["tireless lobbyists"]. It may take the plural definite

article in the genitive or the dative, e.g., umbra lobby-stilor ["the shadow of the lobbyists"], and

it has served as the root for the formation of its feminine counterpart with the suffix -å, e.g., Se

indrägoste§te de o lobby stå ["He falls in love with a lobbyist"].

This suffix is still productive and several masculine nouns have been introduced in Romanian

from English words: offsetist ("person specialized in offset printing"), short-storist ("writer of

short stories"), welfarist ("per-

son who lives on welfare"), and xeroxist ("person who works with a copier"). In my examples,

offsetist and welfarist are used in the plural, with the [s]-[f] consonant alternation, and the

feminine counterpart of xeroxist is created by adding the suffix -a. to the masculine form:

Angajåm tipografi offseti§ti ["wanted: typographers specialized in offset printing"]; Cel mai

cunoscut short-storist al generatiei 80 ["the best known short-story writer of the 80s"];

Welfaristilor li se vor lua amprentele digitale ["persons living on welfare will have their

fingerprints taken"]; Angajåm xeroxistå ["we hire a woman who knows how to operate a

copier"].

The suffix -itä forms Romanian feminine nouns from masculine ones: e.g., actor - actritå

("actor" - "actress"), doctor - doctoritå ["male doctor" - "female doctor"]. There are three nouns

in my corpus with this suffix: barmanitå, rockeritä, and fänitå. Barmanitå and rockeritä are

recorded in Görlach (2001). They occur in e.g.: Angajeazå fete ca barmanite (plural, feminine)

["hires girls as barmaids"] and Seamänå cu o rockeritä ["looks like a female rock singer"].

Derived from fan, the third noun, fänitå, is first recorded by Zafiu (2000:7) and has a parallel

form with -å, fana, the plural of which is fane, e.g. Nu te-ai incurcat cu fanele? ["Haven't you

got involved with your female fans?"].

Through back-formation, from racketeer, Romanian has created the masculine raket, with the

plural raketi, with the same meaning as the English word: e.g., Trei raketi moldoveni ["three

Moldavian racketeers"]; Rachetii din Brasov ["the racketeers of Brasov"].

Finally, borrowed words also lend themselves to composition: two nouns in my corpus are

created by combining one foreign and one Romanian element, which are hyphenated in writing:

O cyber-vräjitoare predä vråjitoria ["a cyber-witch teaches witchcraft"]; Copii pe care ii

transforma in baby-soldati ["children transformed into baby-soldiers"]. Although cyber has a

multiple etymology, I believe that it is used because of English influence in the text in which it

appears as a compound-forming element:

cyber-religie ["cyber-religion"], cyber-religios ["cyber-religious"], cyber-ritual ["cyber-rituai"],

cyber-spatiu ["cyber-space"], cyberpunk ["cyberpunk"].

The assimilation of Anglicisms in modern Romanian which has been discussed in this article

is a slow process; it is manifest in the gradual acceptance of Romanian inflections for gender,

number, case, of definite and indefinite articles, and in the words' participation in word

formation. In spite of these signs of integration, I think that many of them will ultimately

disappear. It is, however, a linguist's obligation to register and describe them.

2. Lexical borrowing from English.

One of the aspects of globalization is language contact due to communication.

Globalization presupposes higher intensity of contact between the languages. In turn, theoutcome

of language contact is language change. I will focus on one of the majorphenomena in language

change – lexical borrowing.

The process of lexical borrowing is controlled by two equally important aspects that

support or hinder borrowing. The first one is the extralinguistic aspect of lexical borrowing

which leans on the essence of the language contact situation. The Bulgarian-English language

contact situation is intensive and it offers fruitful soil for the developing of lexical borrowing in

Bulgarian. Together with the extralinguistic aspect, the intralinguisticaspect of lexical borrowing,

i.e. the receptor language and its system are ready to accept theforeign words, and thus the two

aspects form a unity which will, inevitably, weaken if somecrevices appear in them.

I will proceed with the concrete factors with the help of which the phenomenon known as

lexical borrowing is possible.

2.1. Factors for lexical borrowing

The most common factor for borrowing is a mere linguistic necessity. The adventof

new phenomena, concepts, ideas stimulate the speakers to use borrowed words to denotethese

unfamiliar new objects and phenomena which have entered Bulgarian society and forwhich a

native equivalent does not exist. One of the domains, fully depended on the Englishterminology,

is the IT technology. The sports and music domains are also interspersed withEnglish terms

– футбол, джаз, рокендрол, for they have been invented оn British orAmerican soil. In any

case, borrowing these terms, which have already turned intointernationalisms, does not imply

that English is superior to the other languages and theother languages such as Spanish, German,

and Bulgarian are inferior. Conversely, everylanguage is developing in such a way as to fulfill its

communicative needs and increase itsword stock. This process of filling in communicative needs

is called lexical gap filling.

Prestige is the second factor that stimulates the phenomenon of lexical borrowing.It is

beyond any doubt that the English language is a prestigious language for being

globallywidespread and having so far-reaching influence. In the first subsection I have

mentionedthe prerequisites for its being a global language which contribute to heightening the

interestin it. In the preface to the Dictionary of the New Words and Meanings in the

BulgarianLanguage it is noted that the majority of lexical borrowings in Bulgarian are names

oftechnical, sports, musical, social and political phenomena originated in Britain or the

USAwhich have turned into internationalisms (Pernishka, 2003:7).

The prestige factor triggers another factor that deserves consideration – the strivingof

the Bulgarians for “Westernization” (Borislavov, 2009). Another reason is the abrupttransition

from the communist system to democracy and market economy. The desire tolook like a

Western-oriented society, founded on seemingly solid foundations of democracy, result in an

overuse of Anglicisms. Such an overuse also stems from deep psychologicalmotives such as

fashion and snobbery (Молхова, 1979: 228). Some snobbery is typical of foreign language

beginners who have an ambition to show some knowledge, in this case, of English. On the one

hand, the words used by a certain person are characteristic only ofhis/her idiolect and do not

belong to the pool of English borrowings in the language. It is of importance how frequently a

foreign word is used by the majority of the language community in order to acquire the label

“borrowing”. Thus, finding its place among theother English borrowings, the word becomes

widely spread in Bulgarian society with atendency to becoming a well-established loanword such

as “бизнес”. On the other hand, some people generally prefer foreign-sounding words such as

“хепънинг” and “френд” tothe native ones “събитие” and “приятел” simply because they

sound modern, no matterwhether they are aware of the difference in meaning or register between

the borrowings andtheir native synomyns. In turn, such words become fashionable.

These factors and tendencies in employing words of English origin instead of thenative

ones are present in journalese. I will concentrate once again on them when examining journalese.

2.2. Hierarchies of borrowability

Hierarchies of borrowability present the synchronic aspect of lexical borrowing. Such

a hierarchy presents a sequence of lexical elements borrowed from one language intoanother. I

will refer to a distinguished linguist – William Dwight Whitney, who was thefirst to state that

some linguistic elements are borrowed more freely than others. WilliamWhitney was a Sanskrit

specialist, who “in 1881 noted that nouns are mostly borrowedelements of language, followed by

other parts of speech, then suffixes, inflections, andindividual sounds"(Field, 2002:35). The

offered idea of hierarchy of borrowability issupported by irrefutable evidence and a reliable

analysis of great amount of texts. Whitney does not confine his field of interest only to the living

languages. What he does is broaden his scope of research by investigating hierarchy of

borrowability in Sanskrit. He presents the sequence in which all the borrowed linguistic elements

appear and he devices a paradigm applicable to almost all languages in terms of hierarchy of

borrowability. Here is his paradigm:

nouns > other parts of speech>suffixes> inflections>individual sounds

Another linguist suggests a similar hierarchy. Haugen built up a hierarchy

ofborrowability based on a data collection from American Norwegian and American Swedish

(Haugen, 1950:224):

nouns>verbs>adjectives>adverbs, prepositions, interjections

These hierarchies present borrowing patterns specific to a particular contact situation. As

Field points out – content items are more easily borrowed from grammatical items and

grammatical items more frequently than inflexional affixes (Field, 2002:35). Fromthe hierarchies

above, we can arrive at the conclusion that nouns are the most frequently borrowed part of

speech. Whitney does not divide the other parts of speech to make hishierarchy more specific

and to make clear which part of speech comes next; whereas, Haugen puts the verbs immediately

after the nouns andthe adjectives after the verbs. Haugen’s hierarchy is more sophisticated with

respect to which part of speech follows thenouns. On no occasion, however, should we overlook

Whitney’s hierarchy, because it washe who introduced such a hierarchy for borrowing patterns!

In chapter III, I will determine the frequency of the borrowed items employed innews

articles. Then, I will build a hierarchy of borrowability applicable to the present-day Bulgarian-

English contact situation reflected in the Bulgarian journalists’ word choice.

2.3. Thematic classification

Loanwords which have entered Bulgarian can be semantically grouped according tothe domain

which they penetrated into. Thus, Andrei Danchev differentiates between 13 areas: Social and

Political Life: мит инг, брифин г,бойкот

Finance, Economy and Trade:

Maritime Terms: танкер, лайнер, яхта, демюридж

Military Terms:   танк, бункеp

Traveling and Tourism: чартър, уикенд, Foods and Drinks: бекон, коктейл

Clothing: джинси

Sports: футбол, финиш, корт, гол, 

Pop Music and Entertainment: джаз, хит,хепънинг, 

Culture and Arts: филм, хепиенд, бестселър, 

Animals and Plants: пони,бройлер,

Measures: ярд, инч, пинта (Danchev, 1986:9,10). According to the frequency of the English

borrowings included in the Dictionary of New Words and Meanings in Bulgarian, 2003, the

terminology used in the Computer and Information Technologies and the Internet domain

(20,6%) constitutes the largest group. If we consider the fact that all therecent borrowings

registered in this dictionarynumber over 1000 and around 83% of themare English borrowings,

over ¼ from the overall number of the English borrowings consistsof terminology characteristic

of the IT domain. This confirms the fact that IT domain istotally dependent on the English

terminology, on the one hand, andon the other, points to the incredible speed with which

Bulgaria has opened to the new technologies and attempts to keep pace with them. One thing that

the data on the English borrowing in Bulgarian cited in the Dictionary show is that the lexical

borrowings from English out number the borrowings from other languages, which comes to

show what a huge influence English hashad on Bulgarian over the past decade.

Bearing in mind Danchev’s classification and thematic division of the loanwords in

Bulgarian, I will also divide the loanwords found in the news articles according to the news

genre they belong to. Later on, I will make a table in which I will show the percentage ofthe

loanwords found in these articles. On the basis of the information in the table, I will design a

chart which will present the percentage of loanwords used in every single news genre.

2.4. Treatments of lexical borrowing

2.4.1. Traditional treatment

The traditional treatment still dominates the field of lexical borrowing. According toit, loanwords

are new lexical units for the receptor language. The newly appeared word hasits own graphemic

and phonemic structure characteristic of the source language and alien tothe recipient language.

This is the case also with the English borrowings which enter Bulgarian. The English phonemic

system dramatically differs from ours - English differsfrom Bulgarian as regards its diphthongs,

the opposition between long and short vowels and consonants which do not exist or are quite

different from the Bulgarian ones. This phonemicaspect together with the opaque and

unmotivated meaning of the loanword at the verybeginning represent a very strong argument that

supports the traditional view that foreignwords, actually, penetrate the recipient language.

According to the traditional view aloanword is identical with its source word because of their

formal and often, semantic, closeness. Apart from these factors, there is one more factor that

contributes to thecompleteness of this theoretical treatment – the meaning of the term “to

borrow”. This term has preserved the metaphorical secondary meaning “to use an idea

(invention, etc.) originated by another” (COD 1995:150). Modern cognitive linguists believe

thatmetaphorically extended meanings are due to the essentially associative nature of

humanthinking.

But it should be pointed out here that the source language is not deprived of any ofits

words “borrowed” by other languages. The receptor language also has not even theslightest

intention to “give back” or “return” the borrowed words. In addition to theadaptations on all

levels (phonological, morphological, derivational and lexico-semantic) that the loanword is

subject to, the loanword along with the word formation patterns startsproducing new derived

words. In fact, the traditional treatment offers quite an extremeviewpoint on lexical borrowing

describing it as a process of an intrusion of foreign wordsinto the receptor language. Such a

statement is contrary to facts and the threat of “foreignin truders” is unrealistic. That is why I am

turning to a more appropriate and insightful treatment – the alternative treatment.

2.4.2. Alternative treatment

Nevena Alexieva is one of the proponents of an alternative treatment of lexical

borrowing. The linguist inveighs against the traditional treatment of borrowings whichimposes

the idea of borrowings as foreign words, “foreign intruders in the receptor language”

(Алексиева, 2007:41). Moreover, Nevena Alexieva defends the standpoint thatonce having

entered the borrowing language; the so-called “foreign words” start their newlife as lexical

copies. The recipient language uses its own phonemic, graphemic, grammatical and lexical

resources to imitate the foreign item. The point here is therecognition of the active role that the

recipient language plays in this process. This activerole is supported by the conceptual character

of human thinking which constantly demands new linguistic expressions. Thus, bearing in mind

the undeniable role of the recipientlanguage, I also tip the balance towards the alternative

approach to borrowings, which nolonger presents borrowings as actual foreign words, but as

lexical copies of the respectivesource language. After all the term “Anglicism” means “a lexical

copy of the Englishetymon”. What is more, the lexical copies fit the recipient language grammar

rules and supplement word formation by providing non-motivated new lexemes. Thus, this

process leads to the creation of further new meanings along with new derived words.

Another significant view of the alternative treatment is expressed by the British linguist

T. Hope. He explored in detail lexical borrowings in the Romance languages and arrived at a

very important insight into lexical borrowings’ true nature. Hope points to the fact that “During

the act of transfer the most important factor governing the reception of a loanword is its loss of

morphological and semantic transparency” (Hope, 1971:611). So this factor leads to the creation

of close lexical copies of the source words which cannot be expected to convey the structural and

semantic relationships of their models in the source language. The borrowing which enters a new

linguistic system loses its previous motivation and starts adapting to the structural and semantic

relations in the host language. Thus the loanword becomes motivated by the receptor language's

socio-cultural situation which it has entered. If the prototype of the loanword is a compound

word or a derivation (рейтинг, уикенд, пенкилер). Few Bulgarians will think of the loanword

painkill er asconsisting of two separate independent nouns, as is the case with English painkiller.

Therefore, once having entered the new language, the loanwords start their own life independent

of their etymons’ life and gradually find their place in the structural and semantic networks of the

recipient language. The alternative method of lexical borrowing which I sketched above is the

one that I support and rely on. This treatment is far more realistic and close to the nature of

lexical borrowing. I fully accept and firmly support the idea of close lexical copies of the

etymons which enter the semantic and structural networks of the host language and start

complyingwith the host language’s grammar rules. That is why the organization of my corpora

of anglicisms is based on this alternative model. The anglicisms included are copies of

theetymons, which have entered our language mainly with only one of the whole range

ofmeanings of their etymons, the majority of them follow the grammar rules of Bulgarian

andproduce different derived forms as well.

In the following subsection, I will deal with the adaptation on the lexico-semanticlevel

which the loanwords undergo, leaving aside the phonological, morphological and the

derivational level, which I mentioned above.

2.5. Lexico-semantic adaptation

The process of integration of English loan words presupposes their lexico-semantic

adaptation which depends on the nature of the semantic structure of both the recipient andsource

languages (Molhova, 1979:235). In a contact situation, lexical copies usually enter the recipient

language with only one meaning, leaving the rest of the model’s meanings in the source

language. Such a word, borrowed from one language into another, may remain semantically

unchanged when it is used to designate new objects, ideas, phenomena, and activities, as is the

case with the sports language and the language of IT. Thus, this lexicalcopy enters the receptor

language as gap filler. Convenient gap fillers can be divided into two groups: the first group

comprises loan words which designate, as I said, new phenomena, activities and ideas resulting

from the rise of development in all domains. Fo rthese loan words, native counterparts do not

exist and they are infiltrated into the recipient language to improve its communicative or

referential functions. The second group of so-called gap fillers comprises loan words for which

Bulgarian equivalents exist but they are, in most cases, long-winded native phrasal expressions

(уикенд – “the days of rest”). The major point here is that the need for such gap fillers is obvious

as they help to achieve language economy. Thus, gap fillers such as “уикенд” instead of a phrase

meaning “the days of rest”and “рейтинг” instead of a phrasal expression to mean “a degree of

popularity” are already an integral part of the Bulgarian word stock.

Borrowed words “may undergo some transformations of meaning depending on how

they are interpreted and used by the native speakers of the receptor language" (Kolarova,

2005:10). The meaning with which the borrowed word initially entered therecipient language can

undergo different semantic changes due to the active role of the native speakers and the receptor

language, as well. It is important to note that the moment the loan word enters the receptor

language with a certain sense, the rest of its model’s senses cease to exist. Thus, the loan word

starts it independent development, which is different from that of the etymon in its native

environment. Breaking its relations with its etymon, the loan starts building up new semantic

relations in the recipient language. It enters the complicated network of synonyms, antonyms and

homonyms that bears the characteristics of another semantic structure. The loan, thus, should get

adapted to it and find its due place (Молхова, 1979:236). Maria Kolarova also points out that

“borrowed words are forced to establish their own semantic identity” (Kolarova, 2005:10). Later

on, the borrowed word starts acquiring new meanings which, as I previously said, typically do

not exist in the whole range of meanings of the etymon.

To briefly outline the main semantic changes which the borrowed word is subject to, I

will refer to Nevena Alexieva’s 5-prong division of the lexico-semantic adaptation ofthe loan

words – the semantic reduction, semantic narrowing, semantic widening, increaseof loan word

meanings and loan clippings (Alexieva, 2008:42-51).

Semantic reduction denotes a reduction in the range of lexical meanings of a polysemous

English word. An example of this lexical phenomenon is the loanwordгол – it has retained only

one of the 3 meanings of its etymongoal.

Semantic narrowing is a semantic change from a general meaning of the English

source word to a specific one in the host language. Here is an example – the generalmeaning of

the English word killer “a person, animal or, thing that kills” (COD 1995) wasnarrowed down to

“a hired, ruthless, killer” when the loanкилър entered Bulgarian.

The phenomenon of semantic widening is opposite to semantic narrowing. It implies

that an individual meaning of an Anglicism is widened in comparison with the corresponding

sense of its etymon. Here I will mention the example provided by the loanword екш ън in

Bulgarian. It has developed, independently of English, the sense of “afight, conflict”. This

meaning gained ground as an extension of the original meaning of theloan – “an action movie”.

The loan екш ън is a conspicuous example of how two semantic developments cantake

place in parallel. On the one hand, we observe a semantic widening of an individualloan

meaning; on the other hand, the increasing of the loanword’s semantic range, as well.

Loan clippings comprise anglicisms both lexically and structurally different from their English

etymons. Here are some examples: паркинг, холдинг, екшън, баскет. These pseudo-loans

turned into internationalisms, whose English counter parts are parking- lot, holding-company,

action movie, basketball. All the English etymons are compounds which in the process of

borrowing end up in the host language as loan clippings.

2.6. Forms of linguistic borrowing

In her article in "English in Europe" (2002: 256-257) Nevena Alexieva differentiates

among three forms of linguistic borrowing - borrowing (or loan proper), calquing (or loan

translation) and pseudo-loans.

According to her, borrowings are to be divided into three types:

items which are unadapted and hence not felt too be part of Bulgarian. These include

foreignisms, quotation words, ad hoc loans (typically in media language);

words which still look foreign in form or are insufficiently adapted phonologically and

morphologically;

fully integrated items.

Some of the words borrowed from English and employed in the newspaper discourse

are sufficiently adapted phonologically and morphologically and usually producederived forms,

such as медия, медиен, медийно(право); лидер, лидерски (стилове),

лидерство; старт, стартова (линия), стартиращ, стартиране. Others do not share that

possibility to produce different derived forms:

Уикенд (E weekend) is “the end of a week, especially the period of time between

Friday evening and Monday morning”, e.g. Всеки уикенд може да носи своя автентичен дух

- духът на Европа!

Килър (E killer) is “a hired person that kills”, e.g. Руски килър за Георги Илиев?

Имидж (E image) is “the general or public perception of a company, public figure, etc.,

especially as achieved by careful calculation aimed at creating widespread goodwill”,

e.g. Анализ на различни видове имидж чрез интервю, анкета и медиен Бизнес (E

business) is “an occupation, profession, or trade”, e.g. Бизнесът губи прекалено много време

за преодоляване на административни прегради. Although such loanwords do not produce

derived forms, they usually combine with other nouns thus creating the attributive model N+N,

e.g. Работещи бизнес идеи от цял свят, които чакат да бъдат приложени в

България, имидж студио "Алис" София, ешън обувки. Such N+N formations have become

more and more frequently used in the Bulgarian language, especially in journalese. The reason

why such words have not developed new derived forms probably is rooted in the fact that they

have entered Bulgarianas a certain part of speech, in this case, as nouns and people have not felt

the need to coinnew derived forms. A second reason for this derivational deficit could be the

increasingnumber of N+N formations which are found to be concise, informative, convenient,

andcontribute to language economy. Thus formations such as бизнес-дама, бизнес-код, later on

in my thesis. Another form of linguistic borrowing which comes to fill in some lexical gaps and

to satisfy the terminological needs is calquing, the so-called loan-translation.

Calquing is a phenomenon in which the recipient language copies the meaning ofthe

simple word, compound word or phrase and employs native lexical material to renderthis

meaning. Calquing consists of four major groups:

translation of the etymon (e.g. E hot news > Bg гореща новина, E round table >

Bg кръгла маса).Sometimes there can exist the so-called semi-calques, i.e. just one part

of it is translated, (e.g. E attached file > Bg прикрепен файл). Sometimes loan proper

and calques coexist (e.g. Efr ees tyle > Bg фриистайл/свободен стил);

rendering – provides looser equivalents for a part of the foreign item or changes the order

of the components as required in Bulgarian structure (e.g. Ebr ain drain > Bg изтичане

на мозъци);

creations – formally independent equivalents, prompted by foreign items (e.g.

E cornflakes > зърнени храни);

semantic loans – “an existing item in Bulgarian, whether native or previously borrowed,

takes over one meaning of the partial foreign equivalent (e.g. in IT: E memory >

Bg памет).

The third type of linguistic borrowing is “pseudo-loans”. This form of linguistic

borrowing conveys the assumption that a receptor language uses borrowed items to produce new

linguistic units, which only formally resemble English words. The author breaks the pseudo-

loans into 3 subgroups:

lexical pseudo-loans, which are made with combinations of English morphemic material

(e.g. автогол “own goal”);

morphological pseudo-loans are shortenings of items which range fromsimple words

(e.g.крими<криминален “criminal”), through compounds (e.g.хепиенд<“happy

ending”); to phrases (e.g.кокт ейл – “cocktail party”);

semantic pseudo-loans, where the anglicism develops a meaning which does not exist in

its etymon (e.g.тан кове “platform shoes” from the plural ofтанк “tank”)

3. Lexical borrowing from English.

One of the aspects of globalization is language contact due to communication.

Globalization presupposes higher intensity of contact between the languages. In turn, theoutcome

of language contact is language change. I will focus on one of the majorphenomena in language

change – lexical borrowing.

The process of lexical borrowing is controlled by two equally important aspects that

support or hinder borrowing. The first one is the extralinguistic aspect of lexical borrowing

which leans on the essence of the language contact situation. The Bulgarian-English language

contact situation is intensive and it offers fruitful soil for the developing of lexical borrowing in

Bulgarian. Together with the extralinguistic aspect, the intralinguisticaspect of lexical borrowing,

i.e. the receptor language and its system are ready to accept theforeign words, and thus the two

aspects form a unity which will, inevitably, weaken if somecrevices appear in them.

I will proceed with the concrete factors with the help of which the phenomenon known as

lexical borrowing is possible.

3.1. Factors for lexical borrowing

The most common factor for borrowing is a mere linguistic necessity. The adventof

new phenomena, concepts, ideas stimulate the speakers to use borrowed words to denotethese

unfamiliar new objects and phenomena which have entered Bulgarian society and forwhich a

native equivalent does not exist. One of the domains, fully depended on the Englishterminology,

is the IT technology. The sports and music domains are also interspersed withEnglish terms

– футбол, джаз, рокендрол, for they have been invented оn British orAmerican soil. In any

case, borrowing these terms, which have already turned intointernationalisms, does not imply

that English is superior to the other languages and theother languages such as Spanish, German,

and Bulgarian are inferior. Conversely, everylanguage is developing in such a way as to fulfill its

communicative needs and increase itsword stock. This process of filling in communicative needs

is called lexical gap filling.

Prestige is the second factor that stimulates the phenomenon of lexical borrowing.It is

beyond any doubt that the English language is a prestigious language for being

globallywidespread and having so far-reaching influence. In the first subsection I have

mentionedthe prerequisites for its being a global language which contribute to heightening the

interestin it. In the preface to the Dictionary of the New Words and Meanings in the

BulgarianLanguage it is noted that the majority of lexical borrowings in Bulgarian are names

oftechnical, sports, musical, social and political phenomena originated in Britain or the

USAwhich have turned into internationalisms (Pernishka, 2003:7).

The prestige factor triggers another factor that deserves consideration – the strivingof

the Bulgarians for “Westernization” (Borislavov, 2009). Another reason is the abrupttransition

from the communist system to democracy and market economy. The desire tolook like a

Western-oriented society, founded on seemingly solid foundations of democracy, result in an

overuse of Anglicisms. Such an overuse also stems from deep psychologicalmotives such as

fashion and snobbery (Молхова, 1979: 228). Some snobbery is typical of foreign language

beginners who have an ambition to show some knowledge, in this case, of English. On the one

hand, the words used by a certain person are characteristic only ofhis/her idiolect and do not

belong to the pool of English borrowings in the language. It is of importance how frequently a

foreign word is used by the majority of the language community in order to acquire the label

“borrowing”. Thus, finding its place among theother English borrowings, the word becomes

widely spread in Bulgarian society with atendency to becoming a well-established loanword such

as “бизнес”. On the other hand, some people generally prefer foreign-sounding words such as

“хепънинг” and “френд” tothe native ones “събитие” and “приятел” simply because they

sound modern, no matterwhether they are aware of the difference in meaning or register between

the borrowings andtheir native synomyns. In turn, such words become fashionable.

These factors and tendencies in employing words of English origin instead of thenative

ones are present in journalese. I will concentrate once again on them when examining journalese.

3.2. Hierarchies of borrowability

Hierarchies of borrowability present the synchronic aspect of lexical borrowing. Such

a hierarchy presents a sequence of lexical elements borrowed from one language intoanother. I

will refer to a distinguished linguist – William Dwight Whitney, who was thefirst to state that

some linguistic elements are borrowed more freely than others. WilliamWhitney was a Sanskrit

specialist, who “in 1881 noted that nouns are mostly borrowedelements of language, followed by

other parts of speech, then suffixes, inflections, andindividual sounds"(Field, 2002:35). The

offered idea of hierarchy of borrowability issupported by irrefutable evidence and a reliable

analysis of great amount of texts. Whitney does not confine his field of interest only to the living

languages. What he does is broaden his scope of research by investigating hierarchy of

borrowability in Sanskrit. He presents the sequence in which all the borrowed linguistic elements

appear and he devices a paradigm applicable to almost all languages in terms of hierarchy of

borrowability. Here is his paradigm:

nouns > other parts of speech>suffixes> inflections>individual sounds

Another linguist suggests a similar hierarchy. Haugen built up a hierarchy

ofborrowability based on a data collection from American Norwegian and American Swedish

(Haugen, 1950:224):

nouns>verbs>adjectives>adverbs, prepositions, interjections

These hierarchies present borrowing patterns specific to a particular contact situation. As

Field points out – content items are more easily borrowed from grammatical items and

grammatical items more frequently than inflexional affixes (Field, 2002:35). Fromthe hierarchies

above, we can arrive at the conclusion that nouns are the most frequently borrowed part of

speech. Whitney does not divide the other parts of speech to make hishierarchy more specific

and to make clear which part of speech comes next; whereas, Haugen puts the verbs immediately

after the nouns andthe adjectives after the verbs. Haugen’s hierarchy is more sophisticated with

respect to which part of speech follows thenouns. On no occasion, however, should we overlook

Whitney’s hierarchy, because it washe who introduced such a hierarchy for borrowing patterns!

In chapter III, I will determine the frequency of the borrowed items employed innews

articles. Then, I will build a hierarchy of borrowability applicable to the present-day Bulgarian-

English contact situation reflected in the Bulgarian journalists’ word choice.

3.3. Thematic classification

Loanwords which have entered Bulgarian can be semantically grouped according tothe domain

which they penetrated into. Thus, Andrei Danchev differentiates between 13 areas: Social and

Political Life: мит инг, брифин г,бойкот

Finance, Economy and Trade:

Maritime Terms: танкер, лайнер, яхта, демюридж

Military Terms:   танк, бункеp

Traveling and Tourism: чартър, уикенд, Foods and Drinks: бекон, коктейл

Clothing: джинси

Sports: футбол, финиш, корт, гол, 

Pop Music and Entertainment: джаз, хит,хепънинг, 

Culture and Arts: филм, хепиенд, бестселър, 

Animals and Plants: пони,бройлер,

Measures: ярд, инч, пинта (Danchev, 1986:9,10). According to the frequency of the English

borrowings included in the Dictionary of New Words and Meanings in Bulgarian, 2003, the

terminology used in the Computer and Information Technologies and the Internet domain

(20,6%) constitutes the largest group. If we consider the fact that all therecent borrowings

registered in this dictionarynumber over 1000 and around 83% of themare English borrowings,

over ¼ from the overall number of the English borrowings consistsof terminology characteristic

of the IT domain. This confirms the fact that IT domain istotally dependent on the English

terminology, on the one hand, andon the other, points to the incredible speed with which

Bulgaria has opened to the new technologies and attempts to keep pace with them. One thing that

the data on the English borrowing in Bulgarian cited in the Dictionary show is that the lexical

borrowings from English out number the borrowings from other languages, which comes to

show what a huge influence English hashad on Bulgarian over the past decade.

Bearing in mind Danchev’s classification and thematic division of the loanwords in

Bulgarian, I will also divide the loanwords found in the news articles according to the news

genre they belong to. Later on, I will make a table in which I will show the percentage ofthe

loanwords found in these articles. On the basis of the information in the table, I will design a

chart which will present the percentage of loanwords used in every single news genre.

3.4. Treatments of lexical borrowing

3.4.1. Traditional treatment

The traditional treatment still dominates the field of lexical borrowing. According toit, loanwords

are new lexical units for the receptor language. The newly appeared word hasits own graphemic

and phonemic structure characteristic of the source language and alien tothe recipient language.

This is the case also with the English borrowings which enter Bulgarian. The English phonemic

system dramatically differs from ours - English differsfrom Bulgarian as regards its diphthongs,

the opposition between long and short vowels and consonants which do not exist or are quite

different from the Bulgarian ones. This phonemicaspect together with the opaque and

unmotivated meaning of the loanword at the verybeginning represent a very strong argument that

supports the traditional view that foreignwords, actually, penetrate the recipient language.

According to the traditional view aloanword is identical with its source word because of their

formal and often, semantic, closeness. Apart from these factors, there is one more factor that

contributes to thecompleteness of this theoretical treatment – the meaning of the term “to

borrow”. This term has preserved the metaphorical secondary meaning “to use an idea

(invention, etc.) originated by another” (COD 1995:150). Modern cognitive linguists believe

thatmetaphorically extended meanings are due to the essentially associative nature of

humanthinking.

But it should be pointed out here that the source language is not deprived of any ofits

words “borrowed” by other languages. The receptor language also has not even theslightest

intention to “give back” or “return” the borrowed words. In addition to theadaptations on all

levels (phonological, morphological, derivational and lexico-semantic) that the loanword is

subject to, the loanword along with the word formation patterns startsproducing new derived

words. In fact, the traditional treatment offers quite an extremeviewpoint on lexical borrowing

describing it as a process of an intrusion of foreign wordsinto the receptor language. Such a

statement is contrary to facts and the threat of “foreignin truders” is unrealistic. That is why I am

turning to a more appropriate and insightful treatment – the alternative treatment.

3.4.2. Alternative treatment

Nevena Alexieva is one of the proponents of an alternative treatment of lexical

borrowing. The linguist inveighs against the traditional treatment of borrowings whichimposes

the idea of borrowings as foreign words, “foreign intruders in the receptor language”

(Алексиева, 2007:41). Moreover, Nevena Alexieva defends the standpoint thatonce having

entered the borrowing language; the so-called “foreign words” start their newlife as lexical

copies. The recipient language uses its own phonemic, graphemic, grammatical and lexical

resources to imitate the foreign item. The point here is therecognition of the active role that the

recipient language plays in this process. This activerole is supported by the conceptual character

of human thinking which constantly demands new linguistic expressions. Thus, bearing in mind

the undeniable role of the recipientlanguage, I also tip the balance towards the alternative

approach to borrowings, which nolonger presents borrowings as actual foreign words, but as

lexical copies of the respectivesource language. After all the term “Anglicism” means “a lexical

copy of the Englishetymon”. What is more, the lexical copies fit the recipient language grammar

rules and supplement word formation by providing non-motivated new lexemes. Thus, this

process leads to the creation of further new meanings along with new derived words.

Another significant view of the alternative treatment is expressed by the British linguist

T. Hope. He explored in detail lexical borrowings in the Romance languages and arrived at a

very important insight into lexical borrowings’ true nature. Hope points to the fact that “During

the act of transfer the most important factor governing the reception of a loanword is its loss of

morphological and semantic transparency” (Hope, 1971:611). So this factor leads to the creation

of close lexical copies of the source words which cannot be expected to convey the structural and

semantic relationships of their models in the source language. The borrowing which enters a new

linguistic system loses its previous motivation and starts adapting to the structural and semantic

relations in the host language. Thus the loanword becomes motivated by the receptor language's

socio-cultural situation which it has entered. If the prototype of the loanword is a compound

word or a derivation (рейтинг, уикенд, пенкилер). Few Bulgarians will think of the loanword

painkill er asconsisting of two separate independent nouns, as is the case with English painkiller.

Therefore, once having entered the new language, the loanwords start their own life independent

of their etymons’ life and gradually find their place in the structural and semantic networks of the

recipient language. The alternative method of lexical borrowing which I sketched above is the

one that I support and rely on. This treatment is far more realistic and close to the nature of

lexical borrowing. I fully accept and firmly support the idea of close lexical copies of the

etymons which enter the semantic and structural networks of the host language and start

complyingwith the host language’s grammar rules. That is why the organization of my corpora

of anglicisms is based on this alternative model. The anglicisms included are copies of

theetymons, which have entered our language mainly with only one of the whole range

ofmeanings of their etymons, the majority of them follow the grammar rules of Bulgarian

andproduce different derived forms as well.

In the following subsection, I will deal with the adaptation on the lexico-semanticlevel

which the loanwords undergo, leaving aside the phonological, morphological and the

derivational level, which I mentioned above.

3.5. Lexico-semantic adaptation

The process of integration of English loan words presupposes their lexico-semantic

adaptation which depends on the nature of the semantic structure of both the recipient andsource

languages (Molhova, 1979:235). In a contact situation, lexical copies usually enter the recipient

language with only one meaning, leaving the rest of the model’s meanings in the source

language. Such a word, borrowed from one language into another, may remain semantically

unchanged when it is used to designate new objects, ideas, phenomena, and activities, as is the

case with the sports language and the language of IT. Thus, this lexicalcopy enters the receptor

language as gap filler. Convenient gap fillers can be divided into two groups: the first group

comprises loan words which designate, as I said, new phenomena, activities and ideas resulting

from the rise of development in all domains. Fo rthese loan words, native counterparts do not

exist and they are infiltrated into the recipient language to improve its communicative or

referential functions. The second group of so-called gap fillers comprises loan words for which

Bulgarian equivalents exist but they are, in most cases, long-winded native phrasal expressions

(уикенд – “the days of rest”). The major point here is that the need for such gap fillers is obvious

as they help to achieve language economy. Thus, gap fillers such as “уикенд” instead of a phrase

meaning “the days of rest”and “рейтинг” instead of a phrasal expression to mean “a degree of

popularity” are already an integral part of the Bulgarian word stock.

Borrowed words “may undergo some transformations of meaning depending on how

they are interpreted and used by the native speakers of the receptor language" (Kolarova,

2005:10). The meaning with which the borrowed word initially entered therecipient language can

undergo different semantic changes due to the active role of the native speakers and the receptor

language, as well. It is important to note that the moment the loan word enters the receptor

language with a certain sense, the rest of its model’s senses cease to exist. Thus, the loan word

starts it independent development, which is different from that of the etymon in its native

environment. Breaking its relations with its etymon, the loan starts building up new semantic

relations in the recipient language. It enters the complicated network of synonyms, antonyms and

homonyms that bears the characteristics of another semantic structure. The loan, thus, should get

adapted to it and find its due place (Молхова, 1979:236). Maria Kolarova also points out that

“borrowed words are forced to establish their own semantic identity” (Kolarova, 2005:10). Later

on, the borrowed word starts acquiring new meanings which, as I previously said, typically do

not exist in the whole range of meanings of the etymon.

To briefly outline the main semantic changes which the borrowed word is subject to, I

will refer to Nevena Alexieva’s 5-prong division of the lexico-semantic adaptation ofthe loan

words – the semantic reduction, semantic narrowing, semantic widening, increaseof loan word

meanings and loan clippings (Alexieva, 2008:42-51).

Semantic reduction denotes a reduction in the range of lexical meanings of a polysemous

English word. An example of this lexical phenomenon is the loanwordгол – it has retained only

one of the 3 meanings of its etymongoal.

Semantic narrowing is a semantic change from a general meaning of the English

source word to a specific one in the host language. Here is an example – the generalmeaning of

the English word killer “a person, animal or, thing that kills” (COD 1995) wasnarrowed down to

“a hired, ruthless, killer” when the loanкилър entered Bulgarian.

The phenomenon of semantic widening is opposite to semantic narrowing. It implies

that an individual meaning of an Anglicism is widened in comparison with the corresponding

sense of its etymon. Here I will mention the example provided by the loanword екш ън in

Bulgarian. It has developed, independently of English, the sense of “afight, conflict”. This

meaning gained ground as an extension of the original meaning of theloan – “an action movie”.

The loan екш ън is a conspicuous example of how two semantic developments cantake

place in parallel. On the one hand, we observe a semantic widening of an individualloan

meaning; on the other hand, the increasing of the loanword’s semantic range, as well.

Loan clippings comprise anglicisms both lexically and structurally different from their English

etymons. Here are some examples: паркинг, холдинг, екшън, баскет. These pseudo-loans

turned into internationalisms, whose English counter parts are parking- lot, holding-company,

action movie, basketball. All the English etymons are compounds which in the process of

borrowing end up in the host language as loan clippings.

3.6. Forms of linguistic borrowing

In her article in "English in Europe" (2002: 256-257) Nevena Alexieva differentiates

among three forms of linguistic borrowing - borrowing (or loan proper), calquing (or loan

translation) and pseudo-loans.

According to her, borrowings are to be divided into three types:

items which are unadapted and hence not felt too be part of Bulgarian. These include

foreignisms, quotation words, ad hoc loans (typically in media language);

words which still look foreign in form or are insufficiently adapted phonologically and

morphologically;

fully integrated items.

Some of the words borrowed from English and employed in the newspaper discourse

are sufficiently adapted phonologically and morphologically and usually producederived forms,

such as медия, медиен, медийно(право); лидер, лидерски (стилове),

лидерство; старт, стартова (линия), стартиращ, стартиране. Others do not share that

possibility to produce different derived forms:

Уикенд (E weekend) is “the end of a week, especially the period of time between

Friday evening and Monday morning”, e.g. Всеки уикенд може да носи своя автентичен дух

- духът на Европа!

Килър (E killer) is “a hired person that kills”, e.g. Руски килър за Георги Илиев?

Имидж (E image) is “the general or public perception of a company, public figure, etc.,

especially as achieved by careful calculation aimed at creating widespread goodwill”,

e.g. Анализ на различни видове имидж чрез интервю, анкета и медиен Бизнес (E

business) is “an occupation, profession, or trade”, e.g. Бизнесът губи прекалено много време

за преодоляване на административни прегради. Although such loanwords do not produce

derived forms, they usually combine with other nouns thus creating the attributive model N+N,

e.g. Работещи бизнес идеи от цял свят, които чакат да бъдат приложени в

България, имидж студио "Алис" София, ешън обувки. Such N+N formations have become

more and more frequently used in the Bulgarian language, especially in journalese. The reason

why such words have not developed new derived forms probably is rooted in the fact that they

have entered Bulgarianas a certain part of speech, in this case, as nouns and people have not felt

the need to coinnew derived forms. A second reason for this derivational deficit could be the

increasingnumber of N+N formations which are found to be concise, informative, convenient,

andcontribute to language economy. Thus formations such as бизнес-дама, бизнес-код, later on

in my thesis. Another form of linguistic borrowing which comes to fill in some lexical gaps and

to satisfy the terminological needs is calquing, the so-called loan-translation.

Calquing is a phenomenon in which the recipient language copies the meaning ofthe

simple word, compound word or phrase and employs native lexical material to renderthis

meaning. Calquing consists of four major groups:

translation of the etymon (e.g. E hot news > Bg гореща новина, E round table >

Bg кръгла маса).Sometimes there can exist the so-called semi-calques, i.e. just one part

of it is translated, (e.g. E attached file > Bg прикрепен файл). Sometimes loan proper

and calques coexist (e.g. Efr ees tyle > Bg фриистайл/свободен стил);

rendering – provides looser equivalents for a part of the foreign item or changes the order

of the components as required in Bulgarian structure (e.g. Ebr ain drain > Bg изтичане

на мозъци);

creations – formally independent equivalents, prompted by foreign items (e.g.

E cornflakes > зърнени храни);

semantic loans – “an existing item in Bulgarian, whether native or previously borrowed,

takes over one meaning of the partial foreign equivalent (e.g. in IT: E memory >

Bg памет).

The third type of linguistic borrowing is “pseudo-loans”. This form of linguistic

borrowing conveys the assumption that a receptor language uses borrowed items to produce new

linguistic units, which only formally resemble English words. The author breaks the pseudo-

loans into 3 subgroups:

lexical pseudo-loans, which are made with combinations of English morphemic material

(e.g. автогол “own goal”);

morphological pseudo-loans are shortenings of items which range fromsimple words

(e.g.крими<криминален “criminal”), through compounds (e.g.хепиенд<“happy

ending”); to phrases (e.g.кокт ейл – “cocktail party”);

semantic pseudo-loans, where the anglicism develops a meaning which does not exist in

its etymon (e.g.тан кове “platform shoes” from the plural ofтанк “tank”)