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23Анализ и классификация основных типов ассимиляции англицизмов в итальянском языке
Соколова Алла Германовна,
кандидат технических наук, доцент, доцент кафедры иностранных языков и профессиональной коммуникации, Национальный исследовательский Московский государственный строительный университет E-mail: [email protected]
В результате длительного исторического контакта языков, заимствование как процесс и заимствование как результат данного процесса вызывают несомненный интерес для изучающих историю языка, в рамках которой подробно освещаются как причины заимствований, так и их языки-источники. Стремительные перемены, происходящие в научной и общественной жизни, объясняют проникновение и укоренение большого количества слов английского происхождения в современном итальянском языке. Интенсификация информационного потока, распространение глобальной сети Интернет, развитие межгосударственных и международных отношений, расширение мирового рынка и экономики, вовлечение в спортивные мероприятия, международные фестивали и модные показы - все эти факторы не могли не привести к заимствованию новых слов в итальянском языке. В настоящей статье представлен подробный обзор основных типов ассимиляции английских и американских заимствований в итальянском языке.
Ключевые слова: заимствования, англицизмы, ассимиляция, кальки, заимствованные слова, медиатексты.
Introduction
The tremendous advances made by the United States of America and England in science and technology, commerce, government, and public administration have resulted in a large number of English and American terminology appeared in the twentieth century in all languages of the world. English terms have also entered the fields of cinema, music, theatre, sport, and fashion. The English language is favored in schools and universities, and there are plenty of American films on television, Publishers prefer to translate and print literature in English, the press publishes American magazines for youth and women, etc. Besides, internationalization of economic terminology is a common process in our time [1].
However, any language possesses a fair number of tools to denote a concept without borrowing from another language. Under the influence of the recipient language many borrowings undergo significant phonetic, grammatical and even semantic changes, adapting accordingly to the phonetic, grammatical and semantic laws of that system [2]. The process of assimilation can be so profound that the foreign origin of such words is not perceived by native speakers of Italian and is only revealed through the etymological analysis [3].
Is borrowing always the best option? Why is a foreign term favored? Is it possible and necessary to put a precedence over English-language terms? Having analyzed the glossary of typical modern Anglicisms in modern Italian language exemplified by the media-texts, the author will try to answer these questions, at least partially.
Problem statement
The article studies English and American linguistic borrowings in Italian media texts within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Since mass media heavily depends on the effect it has on people, the current interest of the topic stems from the increasing spread of English words, phrases and syntactic constructions into the Italian language within two past decades. Specialized dictionaries of Anglicisms [] published in Italy also prove the timeliness of the topic and may become a part of professional trainings of various specialists: businessmen, linguists, translators, specialists in intercultural communication and others.
Purpose of the study
Purpose of the study is to research English and American linguistic borrowings which can be found in Italian mass media reports as well as the methods of their as-
similation in the Italian language within the framework of cognitive linguistics; to analyse and classify the principal types of assimilation of Anglicisms in the Italian language (phonetic, orthographic and morphological (grammatical).
Findings
Spelling
A moment when a speaker introduces a new unit or a pattern found in another language into his/her articulation in a native language is considered the first stage of borrowing process. Usually, this reproduction is inclined to be as close to the original form as possible. The examples of Anglicisms retaining original spelling like in the lending language are numerous and include: call, jeans, click, boss, chewing gum, body-art, smart working and many others.
Regardless the lending language (it could be any), this linguistic phenomenon has existed throughout the all history of borrowings in the Italian language notwithstanding the discrepancies in contemporary grapho-logical systems of English and Italian.
Pronunciation
The difference in the pronunciation, however, is much more considerable, with Italian having relatively shallow orthography and English has deep one. This results in the noticeable discrepancies between the realization of a borrowed English word and its original pronunciation in the lending language. These discrepancies are mainly originated from the different vowel systems in the contact languages. In the past, the English language has possessed vowels with 'continental' values. However, during the famous Great Vowel Shift this system has undergone radical changes, with the diphthongs being the most affected. Quite often Italians have a tendency towards stressing the vowel and pronouncing it a stronger manner. For instance, the phrase fiscal drug may not be correctly pronounced as [fiscal drag] instead of ['fiskql drAg], or the phrase news flash as [Nu: z fleS] but as ['Nuz fleS]. The prominent difference is noticed in pronunciation of [r]- in the English [r] is pronounced an alveolar approximant, whereas in the Italian it is rolled. Also, in Italian language the diphthong [x] is missing so it is usually approximated to the closed e or so-called e chiusa, being the closest Italian equivalent to [e]. It is worth mentioning that the Italian language does not possess open e or e aperta, which sounds closer to the English x. Two phonetic systems differ widely as far as vowels are concerned. Thus, in Italian, there is no distinction between short and long vowels, so the native Italians usually approximate the English long [x] to the closed sound [e].
For example, in pronunciation of the compound word quiz show there comes interesting phonetic change. Instead of ['kwiz Sou] it is pronounced as [kwits Sou], when the voiceless [z] is replace by the voiced [ts], the sound non-existent in English. Sound [ts] is regarded as the voiced counterpart to [dz] in the Italian language. This phonetic change could be explained by the position of the phoneme in the word.
It is easier to pronounce the last phoneme voiced as the most part of Italian words ends with a vowel. Quite the opposite, a vast majority of English words end with a consonant, which makes for another principal distinction of the phonetic systems in contact. This phenomenon, when Italians try to pronounce English words, in particular Anglicisms, with a final vowel, is called the 'phantom vowel syndrome'. It usually results in adding [q] to the word ends, for example, film [filmq], bar [barq], sport [sportq], power belt [beltq] and many others.
Considering the beginning of words, one can observe an opposite practice, i.e. omitting phonemes when pronounced. This typically occurs when the initial grapheme is <H> because as a phoneme [h] does not exist in the Italian language, thus, native Italian speakers are inclined to treated <H> the same way as they do in Italian - they simply omit the corresponding phoneme. It should be mentioned that this phonetic change is true for Latin words and the majority of French words. In Greek, German and English loans, the [h] might be pronounced also affecting the selection of the article. As is commonly known, the Italian article rules are determined by natural gender and pronunciation of the words.
The effect of pronunciation on articles The general rule of the articles use in the Italian language is as follows: with the words starting with a consonant, the article il is used if masculine and la if feminine. There is also a phenomenon called s impura, when the first consonant <S> followed by another consonant in a masculine word. In this case, the article changes into lo. If an Italian word begins with a vowel or with the initial silent [h], and the word is of masculine gender, the article will be i. Thus, the article of choice for Anglicisms would either be il or lo. As prescribed by Luca Serianni in his "Grammatica italiana" [4], for assigning definite articles to Anglicisms and other borrowed words with "exotic consonant cluster", there is a common practice of using the article lo. This rule is applied to such words as lo hobby [hobi], lo handicap [hqndikqpq], lo hamburger [hamburger]. The word handicap represents slightly problematic case, older dictionaries record it with the article il and pronounced [h], but in recent dictionaries, e.g. "Sabatini Coletti", this word is listed as fully Italianized with unpronounced [h]. Correspondingly, this requires the article change to l' - l'handicap. It can be argued that for the loanwords with the initial <H> the boundary is crossed between being a loanword and being treated as a natural word of the Italian vocabulary. The greater competence of English results in fuller understanding of the language. This allows the phoneme [h] to be actually pronounced and realized in the original form appropriate for the lending language. Thus, this word can establish itself as a natural part of the contemporary Italian vocabulary, and Italian speakers are becoming more confident in using it. Handicap is a rather old loanword; it has been recorded in the Italian language since 1892 and has had a very long lifespan in the recipient language. The grammar dictates how the article l' could be used with derivations with Italian suf-
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fixes that means some level of so-called "Italianization". The same rules are applied to other words beginning with <H> permanently embedded in the Italian language, such as I'hamburger, I'hinterland, with approximately the same lifespan as handicap.
Similar phonetic problems and discrepancies occur for the words beginning with the semivowel [w]. The issue comes in the difference in the usage of the definite article i. The rules of the Italian language state that the words beginning with the vowel are complemented with the article i, e.g. I'uovo, I'autobus, I'isola, for pronunciation fluency. Nevertheless, Anglicisms, such as week-end, whisky, western, are mostly found with the definite article il, regardless the fact the semivowel [w] is pronounced the same way in English and Italian. Thus, we come across il week-end, il whisky, il western, il walkman, respectively [5].
Grammatical gender and morphologically unchanged loanwords
Regardless the fact that some Anglicisms, in particular compounds, adapt to Italian morphology by means of employing Italian morphemes for replacement of English ones, the scenario when loanwords undergo no significant change of their morphemic structure occurs more frequently. The graphological form of loanwords usually correspond to their form in the lending language when adopted to Italian. This could be explained by the structure of Italian grammar that does not incorporate complex grammatical inflections for nouns. Nouns are modified by the usage of articles, prepositions, or by a combination of both [6]. Those elements are not linked to the form of the word itself, thus, noun form does not require any change by this type of inflection. Examples include apple variety of items from various semantic fields:
- sports vocabulary: hockey, volleyball, bob, sprint, team, sport;
- pop culture: film, lunch, bar, pub and others. However, in order to form plural, Italian words require the addition of suffixes, either -i, -e or 0, and change of articles. Correspondingly, Anglicisms are treated in various ways, being transformed into plural, some take zero suffix, whereas some retain original inflection in English. The latter is true for nouns, usually used in their plural forms, e.g. hippies. These cases should be taken into account carefully because of hy-percorrection occurred due to the increasing English proficiency among Italian speakers [6]. For instance, the grammatically prescribed form of noun il film would be created by the article change and application of zero suffix - i film. However, the form i films could also be spotted in some cases.
For some words, such as manager, leader, and designer, there can be seen some grammatical gender anomalies in agent nouns. In English, these words are unmarked for gender, but in Italian gender need to be 5 assigned by attaching the article. The default gender 5 in Italian is masculine but when it is required to specify ~ that the agent is feminine, loanwords do not change S their forms, regardless the presence of specific suf-^ fixes in the Italian language for female reference. For
example, masculine principe 'prince' - feminine princi-pessa 'princess'. The word form stays the same, along with addition of the article la, but in some cases, there could be created hybrid compounds, commonly by adding donna, e.g. la donna manager.
Borrowed proper nouns represent another group of words with irregular morphology. They are crystallized in form and are derived by metonymy process, whereas a proper noun is changed into a common noun and then adopted into a recipient language as an Anglicism. Such words are often related to scientific sphere, with a scientist's name assigned to invention. For example, the word tesla, named after the inventor Nikola Tesla, meaning a unit of magnetic induction. There also exist the words denoting some products named after the place of origin, e.g. oxford, a cotton fabric for shirts (It. tessuto di cotone per camicie), which was first produced in Oxford, the UK. In addition, there are derivations noun to verb, noun to noun and noun to adjective, e.g. grog, californio, boicotaggio, linciare. The latter is derived from the English word lynch and is introduced into Italian as linciaggio but also with a verb derivative linciare. On the other hand, the word californio denoting a chemical element is a noun with a typical adjectival suffix -io. In the Latin language, it originally consists of the base morpheme + the suffix -ium, which in contemporary Italian is rendered as -io. This is consistent with other nouns denoting chemical elements in Italian, for example, laurenzio, as well as native Italian terms, such as ferro (from Latin ferrum). However, there are few exceptions, e.g. Anglicisms lewisite and pentlandite, which did not undergo any morphological changes upon adopting in Italian.
Morphological substitution, function word morpheme replacement
There are cases when Anglicisms have integrated strongly into Italian, with morpheme replacement playing a crucial role. Grammar rules are deeply embedded into a language's identity, thus, the morphemes that undergone the replacement first are function words or grammatical morphemes. The substitution of a foreign affix is an important stage of integration process. This is evident for easily recognizable suffixes, e.g. the English suffix -er. In Old English, this suffix represented occupation and permanent features and was probably borrowed from the Latin -arius. In Italian, it roughly corresponds to the masculine suffix -(at)ore or the feminine -(at)rice.
Speaking of verbs, English verbs are diffused into Italian in their infinitive form and have to be conjugated in sentences under three different conjugation patterns -are, -ere, -ire. Verbal Anglicisms are rather often conjugated with the first pattern -are, resulting in creation of verbs film(are), boycott(are), stop(are). If the verb is borrowed in inflected form, e.g. doping, substitution of grammatical morphemes takes place. The suffix -ing in English can serve as the grammatical aspect in verb or for nominalization. If the English suffix is substituted with a native Italian one, the potential ambiguity will be removed. The noun doping was adopted in its original -ing form, but for verbalizing the noun, the rules of Italian word formation should be ap-
plied. This would mean the verb dopare in this case. Other substitutions for the -ing suffix include -eggio or -aggio, which is used for noun-to-noun borrowing, e.g. campeggio and linciaggio [8].
Loanwords productivity and calques Loanwords can form compounds that do not exist in the English language by using certain suffixes or lexical morphemes, or borderline suffixes, e.g. -man. This suffix is used when it is necessary to express agency in words used in collocations and are not subject to derivation in English, e.g. English record holder transformed into Italian recordman. The other solution is application of the suffix -ista, also denoting agency, for instance, tennista or barista. The word barista originated from English barman and was adopted around 1908. However, around 1940, it was italianized in the form of morphological substitution, the English suffix -man was replaced by an Italian equivalent, resulting in formation of the word barista. It is worth mentioning that around 1990, the word barista entered the English language again with slightly different meaning, i.e. a person, who prepares and serves espresso-based coffee drinks.
Loanwords productivity sometimes leads to formation of so-called preposterous 'pseudo-English words', invented by Italian speakers by means of adapting or replicating English words and expression to the Italian syntax. Thus, Italians would watch a reality (instead of reality show), cheer after a dribbling (instead of dribble) during a soccer match, or apply for a stage (the English pronunciation is used for the French word for internship).
Syntactic substitution or calquing also plays an important role in development of any language. If the loanwords comprise Latin or Greek elements, calques are constructed in Italian with relative ease, e.g. microonde (En. microwave). However, calquing or loan translation is commonly avoided when the term is more difficult to translate. If a loanword incorporates prepositions, its form is left intact, e.g. by-pass or turnover.
Semantic range of a term could be expanded by sematic calques, for example, the verb realizzare in Italian means 'make real', but influenced by English, it can also mean 'to understand something'. This case is seen as an example of homonymy, i.e. the meaning of an Italian word with the same or similar form of an English loan is expanded to cover the meaning of the English term. Initially, the words pair realizzare and to realize were false friends, but they became a true pair over the course of time.
The principle of synonymy in syntactic substitution relates to the words, which are similar in meaning but different in form. Semantic value of the English word is borrowed, and the word is created by selection of a native Italian equivalent morpheme, e.g. fuorilegge (meaning 'outlaw'). And finally, there exist compounds comprising literal individual Italian translations of the English compound components, or translation calques, for instance, grattacielo for 'skyscraper or Guerra fredda for 'Cold War. Here the effect of different compounding pattern takes place, whereas
the right- and the left-hand components swap places to accommodate the pattern head+modifier. Thus, the component Guerra goes to the front meaning 'war and fredda, meaning 'cold goes to the back.
Conclusions
To sum up, the influence of foreign languages on Italian is mainly due to external extra-linguistic - commercial, political military, cultural, scientific - ties between the countries. The current linguistic situation is characterized by the expansion of English language as lingua franca. The world needs a common language that can link different language groups to achieve mutual understanding.
The article also provides an overview of etymology of loanwords in modern Italian language and their types. The Italian language is dominated by unassim-ilated loanwords, i.e. borrowed words that have retained their original spelling and sound from the native language.
The semantic characteristics of the borrowed words have been studied. Based on the research, it was concluded that over time, many borrowed words had changed their original meaning. Other borrowings with the help of morphological means such as prefixes, suffixes, endings have formed new words and new parts of speech.
Литература
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ANALYSIS AND CLASSIFICATION OF THE PRINCIPAL TYPES OF ASSIMILATION OF ANGLICISMS IN ITALIAN LANGUAGE
Sokolova A.G.
National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering
As the result of a long historical contact between languages, borrowing as a process and borrowing as a result of this process are of considerable interest for the history of language, in which not only the causes of borrowing, but also their source languages receive detailed attention. The emergence of a large number of foreign words of English origin in the Italian language is due to the rapid changes in social and scientific life. Increased information flows, the emergence of the global system of the Internet, the expansion of inter-state and international relations, the development of the world market, economy, information technology, participation in sport competitions, international festivals, fashion shows - all this could not but lead to the introduction of new words into the Italian language. The present article provides a detailed overview of the main types of assimilation of English and American borrowings in Italian language.
Keywords: borrowings, Anglicisms, assimilation, calques, loanwords, media-texts.
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