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УДК 811.13
DOI: 10.26140/bgz3-2021-1001-0090
АНАЛИЗ ЛОЖНЫХ ФРАЗЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ АНГЛИЦИЗМОВ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ ИТАЛЬЯНСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ
© Автор(ы) 2021 SPIN: 1931-5614 Author ID: 901322 Researcher ID: F-3314-2017 ORCHID: 0000-0001-8425-1883 ScopusID: 57202822282
СОКОЛОВА Алла Германовна, кандидат технических наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков и профессиональной коммуникации Национальный исследовательский Московский государственный строительный университет (НИУ МГСУ) (129337, Россия, Москва, Ярославское шоссе, д.26, e-mail: [email protected]) Аннотация. Цель данного исследования - оценить прагматическую значимость двух ложных фразеологических оборотов-псевдоанглицизмов в современном итальянском языке, а именно I know my chickens и Don't expand yourself/extend yourself, и их способность осуществлять иллокутивные акты. Ложные фразеологизмы - это идиоматические фразеологические обороты, образованные носителями итальянского языка, английские - по звучанию и написанию, но при этом имеющие другое значение в английском языке. Для примеров ложных фразеологизмов были использованы электронные корпусы enTenTen и itTenTen, а также архивы трех основных итальянских газет La Reppublica, Corriere della Sera и La Stampa. Был проведен количественный анализ лексикографических источников, включающих одноязычные словари английского и итальянского языков, итальяно-английские двуязычные словари и идиоматический словарь. Были исследованы контекст употребления ложных фразеологических оборотов, частота встречаемости, варианты перевода на итальянский язык и их способность осуществлять иллокутивные акты. Уровень прагматической значимости ложных фразеологизмов более высокий по сравнению с итальянскими семантическими эквивалентами. Несмотря на немногочисленность ложных фразеологических оборотов и относительно невысокую частоту встречаемости, при использовании sensu stricto, фразеологические псевдоанглицизмы ярко свидетельствуют о влиянии английского языка на современный итальянский язык.
Ключевые слова: англицизм, ложный англицизм, семантическое заимствование, заимствование, прагматическая значимость, иллокутивный акт, фразеологический оборот, экстралингвистический, словослияние, билингвизм.
ANALYSIS OF FALSE PHRASEOLOGICAL ANGLICISMS IN MODERN ITALIAN LANGUAGE
© The Author(s) 2021
SOKOLOVA Alla Germanovna, PhD. in Engineering, associate professor of the department of "Foreign languages and professional communication" Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (National Research University) (129337, Russia, Moscow, Yaroslavskoye Shosse, 26, e-mail: [email protected]) Abstract. The aim of the present paper is to assess the pragmatic salience of two false phraseological Anglicisms found in present-day Italian language, namely I know my chickens and Don't expand yourself/extend yourself and their ability to perform illocutionary acts. False phraseological units are idiomatic phrases that look and sound English, but are made by Italian speakers and are used with a different meaning in English. Examples are retrieved from web-based corpora enTenTen and itTenTen and archives of three main Italian newspapers La Reppublica, Corriere della Sera and La Stampa. The author has also implemented a qualitative analysis of lexicographic sources, such as monolingual dictionaries of English and Italian, Italian-English bilingual dictionaries and idiomatic dictionary. The research included the study of the typical contexts in which false phraseological Anglicisms occur, the frequency of their occurrence, possible Italian equivalents and the ability to perform corresponding illocutionary acts. Their degree of pragmatic salience is higher when compared to their Italian semantic equivalents. Regardless the limited number of false phraseological units and low quantitative impact, when used sensu stricto, they represent indisputable evidence of English influence on the present-day Italian language.
Keywords: Anglicism, false Anglicism, calque, borrowing, pragmatic salience, illocutionary act, phraseological units, extralinguistic, blending, bilinguialism.
INTRODUCTION THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Nowadays, the so-called Anglification of Italian language is so extensive and pervasive that even large units, such as phraseological Anglicisms can be borrowed from English. While non-phraseological Anglicisms, mostly nouns, have a tendency to conform rather strictly to the hierarchy of borrowing, borrowed phraseological units quite often contain verbs, which are the prevailing class of words performing illocutionary acts. For example, give me/gimme five. Illocutionary act is a complete speech act, a typical utterance, consisting of the delivery of the propositional content of the utterance, including a predicate and references, and a particular illocutionary force, whereas the speaker asserts, suggests, demands, promises or vows. When borrowed phraseological unit includes a verb, it increases its likelihood of being used as an illocutionary act. The aim of this chapter is to assess the "pragmatic salience" of false phraseological Anglicisms in Italian language, in other words, idiomatic phrases composed by Italian speakers, which look and sound English but do not exist in the English language. Examples: "fly down" (It. 378
"vola basso"), instead of the correct English equivalent is "fly low" meaning "to act in a discreet or sneaky fashion"; "I know my chickens" (It. "conosco i miei polli"), instead of the well-known English idiom "to know one's onions" meaning to know a lot about a particular subject. These two examples of false phraseological units coined in Italian language could be regarded as instances of "Inglese maccheronico" [1], or 'macaroni English', i.e. incorrect translations of Italian phrases into English language made by Italian speakers. Some linguists argue that such mistranslations are produced either by the speakers not proficient enough in English or, on the contrary, by highly proficient Italian speakers of English language that aim at a humorous response of interlocutors. Such proficiency in language skills may presuppose the certain extent of bilingualism among speakers or at least a repetitive contact between the English-speaking world and Italians directly or indirectly.
According to the results of the dictionary - and corpus-based research conducted by Furiassi in 2017 [2], phraseological Anglicisms could be classified into three different types in English. The results of classification are presented in the table 1.
Балтийский гуманитарный журнал. 2021. Т. 10. № 1(34) СОКОЛОВА Алла Германовна
ISSN print: 2311-0066; ISSN online: 2712-9780 АНАЛИЗ ЛОЖНЫХ ФРАЗЕОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ ...
Table 1. Classification of phraseological Anglicisms by Furiassi
Type Description Examples
A 'Real' phraseological Anglicism used as pragmatic Anglicisms sensu stricto that can perform illocutionary acts (and) the winner is... Don't try this at home It's not my business Give me/gimme five Take it easy Welcome to... The show must go on Keep calm and...
B 'Real' phraseological borrowings, not used as pragmatic Anglicisms sensu stricto, that are not capable of performing illocutionary acts but are rich in other pragmatic functions Day by day Just in time Ladies and gentlemen Last (but) not least Made in... On the road
C False phraseological Anglicisms used as pragmatic sensu stricto Don't expand yourself Fly down I know my chickens
The last two false phraseological Anglicisms, though being not numerous, are detectable in contemporary Italian language but not included in monolingual dictionaries yet.
Here, it is necessary to give some definitions and to clarify terminological issues such as Anglicisms, phraseological and pragmatic Anglicisms, false phraseological Anglicisms, pragmatic salience as well as illocutionary acts.
1. Anglicisms
Anglicism is defined as a word or idiom recognized as English in spelling, pronunciation, morphology or at least in one of the three forms whereas this item of vocabulary is accepted by the receptor language. The definition might presuppose also communicative and pragmatic aspects that means Anglicism could be seen as any individual or systemic language feature adopted, inspired from English language or boosted by English models and used in the receptor language in intralingual communication. Anglicisms could be further divided into direct or non-adapted, including acronyms and shortenings, e.g. briefing, casualty, decision making, failure, intelligence, peacekeeping, strike, target and others; and also indirect or adapted that are naturalized into Italian language morphologically by means of adding an Italian verbal suffix, e.g. briefingato, bypassare, settato, spottato, taskato, etc.
2. False Anglicisms
False Anglicism is a word or idiom recognizably English in spelling, pronunciation or morphology, accepted by the receptor language despite its non-existence in English or its use with a different meaning in English. These are words or phrases inspired by English language but they would not be used in a native variety of English because in the recipient language, e.g. Italian, a new meaning was added to it. For instance, 'box' meaning 'garage' or 'parking space', 'recordman meaning 'record holder', 'zona living'' meaning literally 'living zone', that is often used to talk about open plan living room/kitchen combos, 'toast' meaning 'a toasted sandwich', usually with ham and cheese, 'slip' meaning 'underwear/pants/briefs' (male and female), 'molto fashion' meaning 'very fashionable', 'stage' meaning 'work experience', 'beauty' meaning 'washbag\ 'baby parking' meaning 'crèche' or 'nursery', 'feeling'' meaning 'chemistry/ rapport', 'una fiction' meaning 'a TV series' and 'mission critic' instead of 'mission critical'.
The example of a false Anglicism that has lost all English traces is the word 'golf. Its derivatives in Italian such as 'golfetto', 'golfino', 'golfone' should not be considered as false Anglicisms since false Anglicisms may only be adapted in pronunciation in order to conform to the Italian phonological system. These words were coined by means of adding Italian suffixes.
This group also includes:
calques, translated English phrases, e.g. 'sottovento" transformed from 'downwind', 'virata base' translated from 'base turn'; 'grattacielo" meaning 'skyscraper';
semantic loans, i.e. Italian words, identical or similar to English words, that derived only the meaning from them, e.g. the word 'drone' existed in Italian vocabulary before 1987, but thanks to extensive influence of English language, it acquired new specific meaning of "unmanned aerial vehicle^";
hybrids or loan-blends, the words formed by blending of genuine English borrowing as one element and native Italian word as the second element, e.g. 'briefingprevolo' meaning 'pre-flight meeting', 'capacita expeditionary', 'la cartella lockdown', 'spotpubblicitario'.
3. Phraseological Anglicisms
Phraseological units are phrase-like readymade expressions possessing semantic and syntactic stability. They might have idiomatic, morphosyntactic and pragmatic functions in a language. Phraseological patterns comprise collocations, catch phrases, proverbs, idioms, paroemias, and routine formulas. For example, speaking about idioms: 'Essere nella stessa barca" (Italian) derived from "to be in the same boat' (English). Other examples include catch phrases, ' Yes, we can!' (Italian and English), routine formulas 'No problem' (Italian and English), and also proverbs and sayings, e.g. 'Business is business' (Italian and English). All the above-mentioned examples prove that Italian language is open to adopting phraseological Anglicisms in the form of calques.
4. False phraseological Anglicisms
These are lexical units, coined by Italian speakers, which are reminiscent of authentic English phrases, and do not actually exist in English vocabulary. These phrasemes are usually larger than words or compounds. Some of them are not attested in native speaking environment whereas the creation of others was most likely driven by learning English as a foreign language in Italy. The coinage of these phrasemes is predetermined by mimicking some English lexical models. Despite of the lack of faithful rendering of an English archetype, their components represent authentic English lexical items. For instance, taking separately the words fly, down and know, chicken are apparent English lexical units, but the phrases 'fly down' [3] and 'I know my chickens' are truly Italian innovations. Speaking of the latter, 'Iknow my chickens' means that a breeder knows her animals (the people around her) well or, in figurative way, to know one's customers and to be nobody's fool.
5. Pragmatic Anglicisms
Treffers-Daller [4] proposes the definition to the term "pragmatic borrowing" as "the borrowing of a discourse function of a particular syntactic form from another language". Thus, pragmatic borrowings carry signals about the attitude of a speaker, the structure of discourse, politeness, information state and others. For example, when the Anglicism 'spending review' (instead of Italian 'revisione della spesa pubblica') is intentionally used in the political context, it bears a drift of the speech and surely implies cutbacks on expenses and probable actual dismissal of employees. Application of these categories enables linguists to go beyond the traditional dichotomy between necessary and luxury borrowing. Moreover, according to the studies [5], borrowings could be classified into two categories:
1) catachrestic borrowings that are lacking native semantic equivalent and of informative nature;
2) non-catachrestic that coexist with a native semantic equivalent and represent marked lexical choices. This category comprises pragmatic Anglicisms.
To put it in other words, pragmatic Anglicisms could be described as Anglicisms borrowed by a recipient language neither out of pure necessity nor for the reasons of prestige but because they are to develop pragmatic salience. Pragmatic Anglicisms might perform more than one illocutionary acts.
6. Pragmatic salience
This term was coined by Errington [6] and describes the level of awareness of the social significance of the selection of a certain linguistic element.
Salience itself is referred to as a phenomenon representing
the part of an extralinguistic event that is highly prominent in a speaker's recollection of that event. Its identification is possible through functional analysis of two or more accounts related to the event. In other words, the speaker/writer is willing to direct interlocutor's attention to a specific aspect of discourse. Other definitions of this linguistic phenomenon include "speaker determined salience" or "pragmatic markedness". The reasoning for the particular choice of a pragmatic salience is determined by the nature of the planned illocutionary act.
7. Illocutionary acts
The terms 'illocutionary act' or 'speech act' are widely used interchangeably in the literature. Salience of each false phraseological Anglicism in Italian may be classified into the following categories (table 2):
Table 2. Classification of illocutionary acts
Category Purpose Examples
Representatives To commit the speaker to the truth of the given proposition Putting forward, suggesting, boasting, complaining, deducing, concluding, stating
Directives The speaker/writer attempts to get the interlocutor/hearer to perform some action Commanding, requesting, asking, questioning, interrogating, ordering, begging, praying, inviting, permitting, advising
Commissives To commit the speaker to a future course of action Promising, motivating
Expressives To express the psychological state about the state of affairs specified in the propositional content Congratulating, thanking, condoling, deploring, welcoming, encouraging, apologizing
Declarations To declare some amendments in the condition of status of the object referred solely in virtue that the declaration has been performed successfully Appointing, nominating, marrying, firing, resigning
METHODOLOGY
The adopted methodology is served to qualify and quantify genuine and false phraseological Anglicisms that could perform as illocutionary acts. However, qualitative approach is more favorable due to the limited number of false phraseological Anglicisms in Italian language. False phraseological Anglicisms are absent in Italian monolingual dictionaries [7-9] that proves their novelty. Nevertheless, they could be detected, gathered and analyzed by investigating Italian press articles. For this purpose, three best-selling Italian newspapers have been used, such as Corriere della Sera (CS), La Repubblica (LR) and La Stampa (LS). The author has also used a web-based Italian corpus itTenTen, a web-based English corpus enTenTen, corpora of English language, English monolingual dictionaries, dictionaries of English and Italian idioms and Italian-English bilingual dictionaries. This was done in order to prove the 'falseness' of phraseological Anglicisms that are not recorded in corpora and lexicographic sources.
Phraseological Anglicisms, both genuine and false, are more likely to be heard or noticed in a spoken Italian, i.e. this phenomenon is related mostly to orality. However, instances of false phraseological Anglicisms used with pragmatic purpose are found in Italian press articles as newspaper texts comprise a variety of text genres and resemble spoken language as far as pragmatic aspects are concerned.
Web-based corpora, such as itTenTen and enTenTen, include data written in a way similar to speech not restricted to ordinary written production. Thus, they are more appropriate to study phenomena pertinent to orality if compared to newspaper archives. Both corpora are available through Sketch Engine. While the itTenTen is a lemmatized and tokenized corpus of web-created texts compiled in 2016, containing 4,989,729,171 words, the enTenTen, updated in 2015, is a tagged corpus comprising 15,703,895,409 words.
Having scrutinized the status of two false phraseological Anglicisms and having proven that they represent direct translation of 'real' Italian phrases into English language, the author attempted to confirm the hypotheses about the following:
a) false phraseological units represent a recent phenomenon appeared in language in the beginning of the 21st century;
b) being characterized by pragmatic salience, the phrases could perform as illocutionary act in Italian language;
c) as they have semantic equivalents in Italian language, they impose pragmatic salience at a greater extent when uttered in so-called 'pseudo-English' language.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The false origin of two phraseological units Don't expand yourself (or expand/extend yourself) and I know my chickens is proven by the fact the both of them are absent in the analyzed English corpora BNC and COCA. In order not to miss out any possible hit, both corpora have been searched by inserting the following strings respectively: 1) expand yourself, don't expand yourself, expand beyond yourself, "expand" yourself; 2) know your chicken/s, know my chicken/s, know our chicken/s, know his/her/its chicken/s, and know their chicken/s.
Thus, these phraseological units could be regarded as the cases of false Anglicisms reborrowed by the real English language from pseudo-English, since they are found in the Urban Dictionary (know my chickens) and web-based corpora enTenTen (77 occurrences of expand yourself, 254 occurrences of extend yourself) regardless their dubious academic reputation.
1. The phraseological unit I know my chickens
The Urban Dictionary attests the phrase I know my chickens on June 19, 2009 and gives the following definition: "when someone knows a group of people really well like a mother knows her children" referring to the origin "comes from an Italian phrase". In Italian language, this phrase (It. Conosco i miei polli or Conosco i propri polli) is very common and is used when you know a person so well that you can almost anticipate all of their next moves. Italians might owe this expression to Saint Francis, a great lover of nature and animals. According to the legend, once he was arguing with a peasant about what to feed to some chickens, and since the peasant would not have a proper food, Saint Francis made an utterance Conosco i miei polli.
Quartu [7] gives the following definition of the phrase: "conoscere bene il carattere di una persona, gli aspetti di una situazione, a percio riuscire a prevederne il comportamento, le azione o lo sviluppo". Along with that, the bilingual dictionary Picchi emphasizes idiomatic senses of the phrase. Most English dictionaries, though, include the informal phrase Know your onions as the lemma, for example, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as "be fully knowledgeable about something". The phrase is attributed to British English slang and dates back to 1908. Despite slightly variable meanings in different sources, there appears to be a certain difference between conoscere i propri polli (the phrase could be referred to both abstract and concrete objects in Italian language), and to know one's onions that normally refers to abstract objects in English language. Both phrases, English and Italian version, in concordance with the definitions given by the dictionaries [7-10] are used idiomatically in their corresponding language.
Both corpora, the British National Corpus (BNC) and the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), as well as enTenTen were searched by all possible variants of strings: know your onion/s, know my onion/s, know his/her/ its onion/s, know our onion/s, as well as know their onion/s.
However, among the occurrences found in the BNC (zero instances were found in the COCA), to know one's onions means "to be experienced in or knowledgeable about something only in 2 cases, namely examples 1 and 2 (BNC). In other two remaining occurrences (examples 3 and 4), this phrase implies a definite ironic element (pun or wordplay)
Балтийский гуманитарный журнал. 2021. Т. 10. № 1(34)
ISSN print: 2311-0066; ISSN online: 2712-9780
related to the literal meaning of onion as a vegetable in the context of the topics dedicated to onions.
(1)"He knows his onions, Stephen? Your dad, eh?" Again, Stephen didn't reply. (BNC)
(2) ..relations is concerned this Lady of Shallott surely knows her onions and if I were she, I would sue Channel 4 [...] (BNC)
(3) Meet a man who knows his onions # GrEEnFINGERED Frank Mercer sowed the seeds of his own success this year. (BNC)
(4) ... for French visitor # FRENCH student Frederique Mace knows her onions after spending a week on work experience at Asda's superstore in Wallasey. (BNC)
To sum up, in none of the occurrences found, the phraseme is used as an illocutionary act.
In the enTenTen, the phrase knows his onions was found 38 times, knows her onions - 9 times, knows its onions - 6 times, know my onions - 7 occurrences, know our onions - 4 occurrences, know/knowing your onions - 35 occurrences, know/knew/knowing their onions - 42 occurrences.
Speaking of Italian newspaper archives, the phraseme I know my chickens/I know my chicken (It. 'conosco il mio pollo') is absent in La Stampa, in La Repubblica three hits have been found and in Corriera della Sera - two hits respectively (bold type added) displayed in chronological order. Only in the examples 6, 7 and 9, the phraseme is used as an illocutionary act; in the occurrences 5 and 8, a metalinguistic use is apparent. It worth noting that in the examples 7 and 13 the phraseological unit appears next to the Italian phrase, possibly for explanatory reasons.
(5) ... know my chickens, tradurrá l' anglofono. I know my chicas, ironizzerá il pollicultore poliglotta. Centocinquanta, la gallina canta, motteggerá Achille Campanile senza cercare né l' uovo né il pelo... [...] (LR, January 31, 2004)
En......know my chickens, an English-speaking person
will translate, I know my chicas, a multilingual poultry man will say ironically. One hundred and five, a hen is singing live, the singer Achille Campanile will laugh sarcastically looking for neither eggs, nor skin ... [...]
(6) ..scrissi - proprio qui - che mi sembrava il male minore, me ne avete dette di tutti i colori. Ma sapevo quel che dicevo: I know my (Italian) chickens, fratelli...(CS, January 23, 2010)
En......wrote - right here - is seemed to me not a
big deal, but I was told that it had caused a lot of trouble. However, I knew what I was talking about. I know my (Italian) chickens, brothers....[...]
(7) Per la riuscita della serata, indispensabile non accendere il televisore. Voto 0,5. Il programma e appena ripartito, lo so, ma sono una carogna prevenuta (I know my chickens). (LR, December 30, 2013)
En. For the evening to be successful, in any situation do not switch on television. I go for the option 50/50. I knew that the program had just started, but I am a well-informed bastard (I know my chickens).
(8) Solo il 61 per cento sa cos'e il blue Monday (nella cultura anglosassone, il giorno piü triste dell'anno) e il 26 per cento sa tradurre bene l'espressione I know my chicken (conosco i miei polli).... [...] (LR, January 29, 2017)
En. Only 61 percent know what the phrase blue Monday means (the saddest day of the year in the Anglo-Saxon culture) and 26 percent are aware of the expression I know my chicken (conosco i miei polli). [...]
(9) Chissá perché, ma ero strasicuro che i due protagonisti delle cronache di questi giorni non si sarebbero fatti vedere. I know my chickens. (CS, September 26, 2019)
En. Who knows why but in my strong opinion, two characters of modern-day chronicles had better not to be portrayed whatsoever. I know my chickens.
In the Italian web-based corpus itTenTen, the phraseme was searched with both uppercase <I> and lowercase <i>. The retrieved examples are presented below:
(10) Dopo qualche centinaio di incontri in giro per l'Italia, da Bassano del Grappa a Montalbano, posso forse
dire: I know my chickens.
En. Having met hundred times during my travelling around Italy, from Bassano del Grappa to Montalbano, I can surely say: I know my chickens.
(11) Si sente quasi il profumo... [...] Complimenti. [...] Conosco Pulchrum da ...un fottio! I know my chickens.
En. Can almost feel the scent. [...] Well done. [...] I
can identify the beauty from.....thousand samples! I know
my chickens.
(12) Messaggio che pud arrivare, facendo ridere, ad un romano che sa un po' di inglese, ma non certo [...] ad un madrelingua. Un po' come i proverbiali "I know my chickens!" [...]
En. The text message sent by some Roman person who knows a bit of English makes me laugh, it is seen straightaway that is not a native speaker of English thanks to the use of the proverbs like "I know my chickens!" [...]
(13) Naturalmente la mia e solo una congettura, e magari si tratta solo di sciatteria. [...] Perd, conosco i miei polli (I know my chickens) [...]
En. Naturally, my story is only a hypothesis, and perhaps it was created only thanks to my negligence. [...] Nevertheless, I know my chickens [. . ]
(14) A scanso di equivoci non fossilizziamoci sul PALLINO era per fare un esempio...perche I know my chickens [...] Questo argomento e stato utile?
En. To avoid any misunderstandings, let's try not to fossilize on the example of PALLINO (grain). because I know my chickens. [...] Was this argument plausible enough?
(15) Invento nomignoli privati per le persone che mi sono care (chiamo mio padre Pipu), esporto proverbi e modi di dire Italiani (qui ormai e di moda dire "I know my chickens ") [.]
En. I invent nicknames for the people I love (I call my Dad Pipu), borrowing Italian proverbs and idioms (presently, it's very much in fashion to say "I know my chickens") [...]
(16) .me 'l'hanno promessa in congedo entro fine qs. mese, ma I know my chickens [...] non ci faccio troppo conto [...]
En. . they promised to reimburse me some money by the end of the months, but I know my chickens [...] I don't really count on it [...]
(17) Ora rallento, ma cosi non e -I know my chickens -10, 15, 20 Km uguale. [...] Ai 20 riesco anche a mangiare e a bere bene.
En. Now, I slow down a bit, but not really. - I know my chickens. - I still do 10, 15, 20 km. [...] When I do 20, I also manage to eat and drink healthily.
(18) Con gli allievi romani e anche insegnando ai carabinieri ci divertivamo a tradurre letteralmente non solo luoghi, ma anche nomi, proverbi ed espressioni romanesche tipo "I Know My Chickens" e "You Want to Put?"
En. While teaching Roman students and police officers, we had a lot of fun trying to translate word-to-word not only proper names, but Roman proverbs and saying like "I Know My Chickens" and "You Want to Put?"
(19) Riprendendo fiato ho visto Graham Joyce, il portiere degli inglesi, uscire alla disperata e ho pensato: ora Francesco gli fa un pallonetto, e Francesco di rado sbaglia un pallonetto cosi. [...] E infatti. [...] Detto in inglese, I know my chickens [...]
En. Having regained the breath, I've spotted Graham Joyce, the concierge of the British, leaving in a rush, and I've thought: Francesco will show him a dribbling, Francesco would never fail to make such a dribble. [...] And really [...] How they say in English, I know my chickens [...]
Having analyzed the examples retrieved from the Web-based corpus itTenTen, the author can draw a conclusion that in 7 occurrences (examples 10,11,13,14,16,17 and19) the phraseological unit is used as an illocutionary act, and in the examples 12, 15 and 18, a metalinguistic use of the phrase is quite obvious.
As demonstrated by the hits in Italian newspaper archives
and classical and web-based corpora, this false phraseological Anglicism is used pragmatically in the majority of cases and an example of a representative category of illocutionary acts (table 2) meaning "stating".
2. The phraseological unit Don't expand (extend) yourself
The phraseological units Don't expand yourself (or expand/extend yourself) is absent in the analyzed official English corpora BNC and COCA that proves their false origin. There is not mention of phraseological units neither in official lexicographical sources nor in the Urban Dictionary. Nevertheless, the definition of the phrase extend yourself is found in the Merriam-Webster dictionary "to do things that require efforts"; and "strain to the utmost", according to the Thesaurus dictionary.
However, in the English web-based corpus enTenTen, the phraseme was searched with the variants Don't extend yourself/Don't over extend yourself/extend yourself/ extending yourself, the retrieved hit accounted for the impressive number of 253. Whereas the search of the phrases Don't expand yourself/expanding yourself/expands yourself/ expanded yourself has given 77 results.
Due to numerous amount of occurrences found in the electronic newspaper archives, the author has included few examples in order to demonstrate their idiomatic character. It worth mentioning that all the hits are related to the period of the last ten years. This proves the original hypothesis of the author regarding the recent origin of the phenomenon. Rather often, this phrase is used as a motivation motto (an illocutionary act of motivating, the category "Comissives"). Some illustrative examples are provided below:
(20) As you expand your world and life views, you expand yourself. (Jim Luce, Huffpost US Edition, June 8, 2009)
(21) Underneath each element, write down how you will expand yourself to achieve your goal in realistic, timely ways. (Carmen Hara, Huffpost US Edition, June 22, 2013)
(22) Open up and expand yourself towards happiness. (Suna Senman, Huffpost US Edition, July 9, 2015)
(23) I was excited about being around all of these nice people and beautiful music and the prospect of learning from a new environment and new circumstances and a new setting, because there is always more to be learned and ways to expand yourself and gain new tools within what you do. (Mike Ragogna, Huffpost US Edition, December 6, 2017)
The origin of the phrase comes from Romagnolo, the Roman dialect of Italian, nut slaerg or nun t'allarga or non ti allargare in Italiano standard that means "Don't be too self-confident" or "Don't flatter yourself' and could be followed by another false phraseological Anglicisms fly down. In a situation when someone asks you a favor but pushes too hard on you, the possible answer though not an extremely polite one could be Nun t'allarga.
For instance, this phrase could be spotted as the song's title Nun t'allarga di Loretta Goggi (album 1981 Il mio prossimo amore).
The investigated Italian newspaper archives have provided only two results: Corriere della Sera - 1 hit, La Reppublica - 1 hit, and none for La Stampa.
(24) ...IT WANTS, IT WANTS quanno ce vo' ce vo'
BUT MAKE ME THE PLEASURE ma famme 'r piacere DON'T EXTEND YOURSELF nun t'allarga
BUT, FROM WHEN IN HERE? ma da quanno 'n qua
THE SOUL OF YOUR BEST DEAD...(CS, February 6, 2001)
(25) Ecco alcune delle espressioni che compaiono in "But speak like you eat", con la rispettiva traduzione: a thing of a day = ' na cosa de giorno; but of what = maddeche; when it wants, it wants = quanno ce vo ce vo; right to be light = giusto pe' esse chiari; by strength of giving and giving = a 382
forza de daje e daje; don' t extend yourself = nun t' allarga; i' m impapering myself = me sto a ' ncarta; this is peppe' s round!"= er giro de peppe; how do you eject? = come te butta? (LR, February 21, 2003)
En. There are certain expressions, which appear in "But speak like you eat", with the corresponding translation: a thing of a day = ' na cosa de giorno; but of what = maddeche; when it wants, it wants = quanno ce vo ce vo; right to be light = giusto pe' esse chiari; by strength of giving and giving = a forza de daje e daje; don' t extend yourself = nun t' allarga; i' m impapering myself = me sto a ' ncarta; this is peppe' s round!"= er giro de peppe; how do you eject? = come te butta?
The following example has been retrieved by means of a web-based corpus itTenTen:
(26) Ed e proprio mantenendo questi canoni che i nuovi coatti del terzo millennio trasformano espressioni come " nun t'allarga" in un esterofilo "don't extend yourself' e "me sto a 'ncarta" in uno pseudo-britannico " I'm impapering myself
En. And following the current tendency when a new generation of ignorant people, those millenials, transform the truly Italian phrases like "nun t'allarga" in the borrowings "don't extend yourself' and "me sto a 'carta' into pseudo-British "I'm impapering myself'.
CONCLUSIONS
This section confirms the initial hypotheses of the author, including the statements regarding the origin of false phraseological Anglicisms as the recent phenomenon appeared on the threshold of new millennium. In addition, false phraseological units can function as specific illocutionary acts, i.e. Know my chickens as an illocutionary act of stating, the representatives' category, and Don't expand yourself/extend yourself as an illocutionary act of motivating, the commissives' category, respectively. Their degree of pragmatic salience is higher when compared to their Italian semantic equivalents. Regardless the limited number of false phraseological units and low quantitative impact, when used sensu stricto, they represent indisputable evidence of English influence on the present-day Italian language.
From a pure linguistic point of view, this is a signal that so-called pseudo-English has started its penetration into the real language thanks to globalization and internationalization when the English language as lingua franca plays a vital dominating role. False phraseological Anglicisms are commonly 'invented' by Italian speakers with various levels of proficiency in English language. Those 'inventors' aim not at accuracy but the effect they are willing to make on the interlocutors or the audience. The core motivations comprise the charm of sounding foreign, the taste for something exotic and glamorous, and the attempt to be creative and play with language. Thus, false phraseological units become socially acceptable and are used by Italians with the purpose to be closer to present-day international environment.
Finally, from psychological point of view, the use of false phraseological Anglicisms seems to provide Italian with the authority and the status they are hankering after. Thus, English language functions as Italian's preferable donor language and inspires invention of English-like phrasemes demonstrating the openness of the present-day Italian language to the pervasive borrowing.
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Статья поступила в редакцию 29.10.2020 Статья принята к публикации 27.02.2021
