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© T.V Maximova, 2007
ENGLISH LOAN WORDS IN CONTEMPORARY RUSSIAN SPEECH
T.V. Maximova
What a living language needs above all else is constant transactions of new blood from other tongues. The day the gates go up, that day it begins to die.
H.L. Mencken
The continuous influx of English loan words which started at the end of the XX c. has led to the fact that the set of anglicisms in Russian is becoming more or less similar to borrowed vocabularies of many western European languages. A convincing proof of this fact is The Dictionary of European Languages 1.
But at the same time it is important to say that the intake of anglicisms in the individual vocabularies differs, reflecting the cultural and social histories of the nations concerned, the structural and semantic properties of the languages and attitudes of the users to this process.
It is a well-known fact that borrowings’ activity is selective even within one language. There is a certain distribution of foreign words between functional styles and speech genres or, in other words, anglicisms vary relative to the text-type of discourse. According to recent investigations they are distributed in the following way in different types of discourses: in fiction they comprise 6 %, in common communication their quantity is slightly higher (9 %), in business discourse they make up 14 %, in scientific discourse - 22 % and in mass-media discourse they are the most numerous - almost 30 %2.
Another proof is the below given short article from a youth magazine in which many an anglicism exceed an average percentage of loan words in mass-media discourse (MMD):
Фестиваль граффити стартует в четверг в новом арт-центре «Винзавод». Организаторы обещают три дня перформансов, инсталляций
под музыку хип-хопа, фанка и электроклэша. Мастер-классы проведут граффитчики столицы, Питера, Брянска, Королева, Киева, Праги. Что особенно приятно - вход на фест свободный, а если кто хочет попробовать себя в «дворовом» искусстве, баллончики с краской выдадут бесплатно (ReaKUHH, 2006).
MMD is not only the sphere of loan words functioning in it, but also a transmitter to other discourses. Mass-media employ English loan words with the intention of obtaining universal basis for communication. A great many loan words have come to be borrowed by Russian as a result of social needs, which are based on the desire of belonging to definite social groups and being properly positioned within these groups as well as the desire of establishing close relations with all group members. MMD is filled with anglicisms because it is in its nature to reflect new tendencies in the language. Loan words represent notions and concepts, ideas and references from various sources and spheres of life denoting rapid scientific, political and economic changes in the world. The need of informational impact laid upon society systematizes all discourses with the appropriate verbal instruments involved to meet the need.
When entering the communication process, Homo sapiens meets his needs - the major of which is need for information - or demands; they become a motive force of communication.
Communication objectives offer a hand to certain needs, such as survival, cooperation with other people, personal needs, persuasion of others to act and think in some particular way, unification of societies and organizations acting
as one whole, obtaining and channeling information, cognition of the world together with our experience within it.
Being led by needs, Man has to use some certain language abilities which help him explicit his needs often worded by means of anglicisms.
Loan words are a natural consequence of language and society interrelation and integration. The remarkable growth of English neologisms in the Russian language results mostly from sociolinguistic factors and widespread public support. Loan words are considered to be a truly international medium in cross-cultural communication and in globalization of English.
Some recent loan words which penetrated through oral and written sources are found in the areas of business and economy, law, politics, science and technology, medicine, trade, advertising, etc.: кросс-курс, сайтхолдер, рейдер, хостинг, флэш-моб, девелопер, блоггинг and others.
The cultural domains affected in previous decades are also being enriched, in particular by heavy borrowing of youth slang referring to names of clothes, money, drinks, music, drugs and food products, parts of human body, and even social groups. It is remarkable how many recent words are strictly based on spoken forms. Due to mass-media colloquialisms have become accessible to language community and spread in the youth language and in journalese: кавер, ре-лукер, флейрингист, слайдер, метросексуал, голд-диггер, хед-лайнер, арт-хаус, мейнстрим, etc. The persistent use of recent loan words is motivated by prestige of these words. Young people use them to accentuate their role as members of the educated elite. The phrase like «Тайминг был супер!» is not a rare case in their speech.
David Crystal was right saying «when a country adopts a language it adapts it»3 in different ways. The analysis of recent anglicisms in terms of adaptation has shown that several cases of this process are in evidence in Modern Russian. All loan words seem to undergo the process of adaptation which relates to vocabulary in the form of pronunciation, spelling, semantics, meaning and word-formation.
Adaptation of anglicisms on the level of words is multifarious, it may be semantic, lexical, stylistic and pragmatic.
Semantic adaptation can be demonstrated by the following examples. An English impact on the semantic structure of some words already existing in Russian is called semantic borrowing or calque. This often pertains to loan words in Russian having common roots with some words in other languages (mostly international ones). For example, the lexeme pirate, which was borrowed from Latin long ago, has lately acquired the new meaning: a person who infringes another S copyright or other business rights under the influence of English. Once a French borrowing menu has extended its semantic structure by acquiring the new meaning from the English computer domain a list of options, usu. displayed on-screen showing the commands or facilities available. New additional meanings of these and other words, for ex. resume are classical examples of semantic borrowing. Let us analyze one of the examples.
The lexeme пират is a frequent unit on printed page. The following derivatives, compound words and word-combinations function in mass-media discourse: пиратский, антипиратский, пиратский диск, пиратский компьютер, пиратская копия, пиратский Интернет, пиратская музыка, пиратство, пиратский продукт, пиратские сайты, пиратский видеорынок, видеопират, etc. The fact speaks for itself. The problem of piracy seems important for the Russian legislation and the Russian society as well as other Eastern communities. It has become a topic of heated discussions in mass-media discourse all over the world.
Lexical adaptation of anglicisms on Russian soil is common practice. Most loan words are used first for specialist purposes in a science-fiction context or discourse and only later gain wider public recognition and usage. The loan words like компьютер, картридж, аутсайдер, роуминг and many others have started as terms but later have become part and parcel of the Russian lexical system as they nominate vital concepts, notions and objects.
Many an anglicism establish one-to-one correspondence with their counterparts and do not undergo any noticeable change, which can be proved by the following cases: клон, лайтбокс, сайдинг, прайм-тайм, etc.
It is well known that polysemantic words are never borrowed as an entity. But two or three
lexico-semantic variants (LSV) may penetrate the recipient language. The recent anglicism промоутер, for example, functions in Russian in two different meanings. At the beginning it pertained to the domain «cinema, cinematography» as it derived from the following meaning of the word promote - help forward, encourage, support actively. But later another LSV of the verb to sell a product became more productive and formed several derivatives - промоутер, промоушен, промо-гёрл, промо-акция, which are frequently employed in mass-media discourse:
Промоутеры впоследствии могут стать мерчендайзерами, торговыми представителями, супер-вайзерами и далее по нарастающей (КП, 2006).
Like a native element, an anglicism may change its semantic structure due to universal metaphoric and metonymic processes which inevitably lead to generalization or narrowing of meaning. This phenomenon is known as semantic derivation.
For example, along with the loan word бренд the buzz word of our time is the anglicism хит. Originally hit meant a popular song or a successful pop record and in this very meaning it appeared in Russian. According to mass-media sources and electronic media the word has widened its semantic structure and in various contexts it functions either in the meaning any phenomenon of mass culture or any noticeable phenomenon:
Киоскер привел свой парад хитов - новинок книжного рынка (ОРТ). Хиты сезона - стол «Иван», кухня «Марья», в столице растет спрос на отечественную мебель (КП, 2006).
A lot of anglicisms do not function in isolation. They are usually supported by derivatives which definitely indicate a high level of lexical assimilation and their productivity. One of the examples is the anglicism паблик ре-лейшнз. Its abbreviated form пиар has firmly established itself in Russian, probably because it expresses a very important concept in communication. It has given rise to many derivatives: пиарить, пиарщик and a number of compounds, too, which are frequently used in mass-media discourse: пиар-менеджер, пиар-деятельность, пиар-агентство, пиар-фигура, пиар-технология, etc. Besides, the lexeme
displays wide collacability: эффективный пиар, политический пиар, черный пиар, etc.
There are other factors determining the course of adaptation. The ability of anglicisms to generate derivatives in Russian may be explained by already existing derivational model in the language. For example, by analogy with the calque челнок, челночный, челночничество, the anglicism рейдер forms its derivational cluster in the same way: рейдерский, рейдерство.
The analysis of my database leads to the conclusion that there exists a tendency of automatic invention of creative neologisms not only in English, but in Russian too. For ex., the lexeme imagemaker became cliched and gave rise to many compounds due to a high productivity of the component maker. Among them we find hitmaker, newsmaker, clipmaker, grantmaker, monstermaker, playmaker, softmaker, troublemaker and many others. Almost all these anglicisms have been borrowed by Russian and what is happening now is the formation of uniting interactional patterns in many European languages, speeding up intergration.
Borrowing of foreign words is justified when the recipient language does not possess stable lexical units to denote unknown for Russian notions. For example, the following anglicisms took their place in the language almost immediately to fill lexical lacoons in the language: буккроссинг (bookcrossing) - leaving a book somewhere purposefully for others to read, хостинг (hosting) - a service to store information in Internet, эндаумент (endowment) - funds or property donated to an institution, individual, or group as a source of income.
Loan words may change their connotative aspect as well. When the word спич first appeared in Russian it had a formal stylistic connotation and had a restricted currency which by now has disappeared in it and the word has become neutral on the one hand and more frequently used on the other hand. The opposite process can be seen in the following example. The neutral English word sequel has first acquired in Russian a negative connotation an unsuccessful continuation of a successful film, book, etc. It might have happened either under the influence of a widely spread opinion that any continuation of a book or film is never successful or under the influence of soap operas and the negative attitude of the
society to them. At present the word сиквел is registered as a neutral one like its English etymon.
The recent loan word кардер is currently used in Russian with the same negative connotation which it has in English: carder - a special kind of criminal that specializes in stealing information about credit cards.
Emotions play an important role in needs transformation. Emotion depends on needs and sometimes even provokes them. Emotion does not only follow but also directs the need formation and human discursive intentions 4.
Any new word expresses and promotes new trends and ideas in Russian and from the speaker’s point of view enhance communication. Here pragmatic effect achieved may be one of modernity, prestige, urbanity and novelty.
There exist several factors or mechanisms of pragmatic impact on addressees. Among them we can point out the following.
The appearance of many foreign words does not seem justified because the native language has its own lexemes with the same meaning. At first sight we can say that they only enlarge synonymic groups. But the comparison of the Russian lexeme убийца and the English killer shows that there is no identity and one-to-one correspondence in their semantic structures: киллер is a professional убийца who is paid for his/ her dirty job.
In spite of the fact that anglicisms denote something already existing in the language their intake seems to be necessary because they differentiate the vocabulary semantically and stylistically and reflect cultural peculiarities as well.
For example, a different degree of expressiveness is obvious in the following pair of lexemes: неудачник and лузер are not absolutely identical and the following sentence explicitly demonstrates it:
Хлесткое словечко «лузер» пострашнее, чем наше домашнее «неудачник» (Я молодой, 2005).
This statement holds true if we compare the pair кастинг - отбор.
The anglicism кастинг practically ousted the corresponding Russian equivalent in the media. Casting appeared in Russian in the meaning the choice of actors and actresses for a film. In the course of adaptation the loan word became
widely known, gained frequency and now functions in different contexts. Along with standard ones like casting of actor/actress, casting of top-models, we came across examples in which the meaning of the loan word weakened its differential semes, acquired a generic meaning and is currently used to indicate a choice of any kind: casting of promoters, casting of worker. But the most unusual case of its usage is registered in the following example:
На больших подносах проходила кастинг свежая рыба (Reакция, 2006). There is not doubt that synonymous anglicisms are pragmatically marked and are of immense significance as a means of impact.
Secondly, the combination of incompatible words has become quite common for creating pragmatic effect of various types: humourous, ironical, expressive, prestigious, etc.
Many anglicisms begin to function in the Russian system in new collacations: тюнинг автомобиля - тюнинг гардероба; громадный айсберг - криминальный айсберг - айсберг безработицы; конвертируемый рубль - конвертируемый юмор - конвертируемый диплом.
Pragmatic effect of these and below given examples are based on transition of terminological anglicisms to general use vocabulary: экологический донор, провайдер Бога, химический СПИД, тур на войну, политический бедлам, политическое клонирование, etc. The expressive use of anglicisms shows that journalists exert a considerable influence over the society using them in certain communicative situations. Mass-media are the main manipulator of information. Loan words are a verbal mechanism to produce a desirable effect on addressees and make them estimate events of communication accordingly.
Thirdly, very often journalists purposefully use absolutely unknown words in headings to intrigue or excite the readers’ curiosity:
Эндаумент! (МН, 2006).
Вечный ребрендинг (Я молодой, 2006).
The explanation of the anglicism is given in the body of the article. The author’s objective is to make readers look through the article to get to know what a term means and what the article is about. Other examples of this type are:
XXI век - век аутсорсинга. (ББ, 2006).
Новый «лук» (пер. с англ. - внешний вид) М. Фрадкова (Итоги, 2006).
The currently used anglicism лук (translation from English outward appearance) is a synonym to the already assimilated and well-known word image. So лук and имидж may be used quite interchangeably. The pragmatic aspect of the loan word лук is achieved by its novelty.
Besides, there seems to be vogue for codeswitching - the use of a foreign word in situations of bilingual communication - by which loans «adorn» the speech or writing to impress the addressee with the help of anglicisms spelled in English. Code-switching takes place quite often in headings, advertisements and youth language.
The following anglicisms spelled in English were found in newspaper articles and their titles.
Американский dress-code: что носить на работе (КП, 2006).
Все российские политики - very important (КП, 2005).
Fifthly, we come across redundant cases of metaphorically used anglicisms with negative or pejorative shade of meaning:
Липосакция российского бизнеса или как сегодня откачивают из России деньги (АиФ, 2006).
Наши самолеты - летающий секонд хэнд (АиФ, 2006).
The sixth factor consists in excessive use of precedent texts. It is suffice to give but one example. By analogy with the title of the film «The pirates of the Caribbean Sea», the journalist uses the following heading for his article Пираты киношного мира (Я молодой, 2006).
And the last but not least factor is repetition of different types. The repetition of the common seme «a rapid surprise attack» may be traced on a deep level in the definition of both parts of the word combination рейдерский захват, the repetition of words - in a word-combination блокбастерный блокбастер and in a sentence: Хороший кредит - это доступный кредит (АиФ, 2006).
Summing up all the factors determining the cause and degree of adaptation we conclude that a fully assimilated anglicism has to be widely used, it has to generate new forms, it has to endure in a new language system in terms of semantics, lexis, style and pragmatics.
With the most positive attitude to the social intention of obtaining universal basis for communication, the world stays alert to the English language aggression into other tongues’ territories. Linguists warn of a linguistic genocide as the absorption of minor cultures by the dominating language. That is why puristic attitude to alien units came into being.
The puristic approach is far from being new. Old Russian linguists (19th century) were strong opponents of foreign words. They suggested that loan words should be replaced by Russian equivalents or tozhdeslovy: the word galoshes was substituted by mokrostupy, scraper - by tractornaya lopata.
At present Russia is experiencing a new puristic uprush concerning the names of foreign currencies. In the article Вперед к мокроступам, published in the weekly «Аргументы и факты», the journalist criticizes draft law suggested by Yevgeny Velikhov, a head of the Russian Public Chamber, according to which it ought to be forbidden for governmental officials, State Duma deputies, Federal Council members, civil state officials and journalists to use the terms «dollar» and «euro», as well as the names of other foreign currencies in public speeches, in mass-media publications, and in the Internet. But the Russian community hopes that the legislation will be reconsidered in the third reading at the fall session (АиФ, 2006).
The President of Iran seems to follow the Russian initiative. He declares war against foreign words, especially anglicisms. His fellow citizens should not speak the language of «abettors of Zionism». That is why to compel the use of Persian words in the country that won Islam fax is replaced by distant letterwriter, pizza - by flat cake.
It is risky to predict what will happen to the process of borrowing from English in our constantly changing world.
According to the pessimistic scenario, there might be «a war» between languages claiming to dominate, which might eventually lead to the effect of Babylon Tower: national cultures will be destroyed, cultural identity will totally disappear.
In my optimistic opinion, this process may be resisted by two major factors. The most important one would be the language feature based
on the power of the culture this language serves to. That is, the language helps get rid of alien elements due to internal linguistic regulations or laws. Temporal character of language influence would make another resistance: it presupposes short-termed existence of anglicisms in the recipient language. Any political regime’s language policy is doomed to fail.
Summing up, it is necessary to stress the following:
As can be seen from the problems discussed and the examples quoted above, recent anglicisms are characterized by novelty, which produces the strongest pragmatic effect on the Russian speech community.
The study of loan words is very important for many reasons. We investigate anglicisms not only for the sake of anglicisms themselves. They give us an opportunity to gain a deeper insight into our own languages and make for the processes of integration which inevitably lead to
the creation of informational «world culture» and the appearance of uniting interactional patterns.
Needs serve as the source of human activity. They are determined by the process of an individual’s upbringing in a wide sense and association with the world of human culture.
NOTES
1 A Dictionary of European Anglicisms: A Usage Dictionary of Anglicisms in Sixteen European Languages. Oxford University Press, 2001. 352 p.
2 Рыцарева А.Э. Прагмалингвистический аспект интернациональной лексики: Автореф. дис. ... канд. филол. наук. Волгоград, 2002. 18 с.
3 David Crystal. Global Understanding for Global English // Вестник Моск. ун-та. Сер. 19, Лингвистика и межкультурная коммуникация. 2001. N° 4. С. 9-29.
4 Olyanitch A.V. On needs - informational approach to communication and discourse classification. Respectus Philologicus, Nr. 5 (10). 2004. P. 42-47.
