Anglicisms: Towards defining their concept and typology

Anglicisms: Towards defining their concept and typology Aleš Klégr (Charles University, Prague) ABSTRACT Although Anglicisms1 have been the subject of research for quite some time now, their definition in the literature sometimes tends to be somewhat inexplicit, and there are points of disagreement, especially regarding their classification and the distinction between their types. This paper advocates auniform, consistent approach to defining loans (Anglicisms) and their typology in terms of an interplay between three criterial features which are transferred in, and thereby constitute, (lexical) borrowing: concept, model, and form. Their combination results in seven feature patterns or loan types (both monoand bilingual), which the paper correlates and compares with standard categories of Anglicisms found in the literature and illustrates using examples from Czech. KEYWORDS Anglicisms, criterial features, Czech examples, feature-based loan types, hybrid variants, traditional categories DOI https://doi.org/10.14712/18059635.2023.2.1 1 INTRODUCTION The intention of the study is to outline aconceptual approach to describing Anglicisms. The driving idea behind the proposal is that if there is to be consensus on the categorization of Anglicisms, their description needs to be explicit, objective and consistent as much as possible by choosing and applying suitable criteria. The article starts with abrief list of the most common categories of Anglicisms found in the literature and then suggests one way of systematizing the description of loans. The description is based on three features defining loans/Anglicisms whose configurations resolve into several possible loan types. Next the article correlates the proposed types of loans with the traditional categories of Anglicisms taking into account both monoand bilingual loans. Although the approach aspires to be universally applicable, the illustrative examples are drawn from Czech and it is up to researchers on Anglicisms in other languages to check the validity of this claim. 1 It may be of interest to note that while in some sources (such as the Wikipedia entry on Anglicisms; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglicism) the word Anglicism is not capitalized, in serious academic dictionaries such as Cambridge Dictionary (https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/anglicism) or Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries (https:// www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/anglicism), to name but afew, and in linguistic monographs (cf. Pulcini 2023) it is spelt with acapital “A”. OPEN ACCESS 104 LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 2 THE CURRENT SITUATION IN THE CLASSIFICATION OF ANGLICISMS It is not the purpose of this article to make an exhaustive overview of all the different categories of Anglicisms that have been proposed in the literature on this topic. Instead the terminology employed by GLAD is chosen as arepresentative sample. GLAD (Global Anglicisms Database Network, https://www.nhh.no/en/research-centres/global-anglicism-database-network/) is an international body whose worthy purpose is to collect Anglicisms in both European and non-European languages and investigate linguistic and cultural Anglicization world-wide. In an article introducing GLAD (Gottlieb et al. 2018), the section on the identification of Anglicisms moves away from Görlach’s (2003: 1) purely form-based and too narrow definition of an Anglicism (“Aword or idiom that is recognizably English in its form (spelling, pronunciation, morphology, or at least one of the three), but is accepted as an item in the vocabulary of the receptor language.”) to adopt Gottlieb’s (2005: 163) broader definition (“any individual or systemic language feature adapted or adopted from English, or inspired (…) by English models, used in intralingual communication in alanguage other than English”). In asection on the current state of classification of Anglicisms the authors distinguish the following categories of Anglicisms: (1) unadapted borrowings (simple, complex, multiple-word expressions or MWEs, abbreviations) coined in English (or in the Anglosphere); (2) adapted borrowings (coined in English but subject to orthographic/morphological adaptation in the recipient language, RL henceforth); (3) English proper names turned generic names, e.g. Danish plimsoller < English (British MP) Samuel Plimsoll (1824–98)2; (4) semantic loans (domestic words or assimilated loans adopting an English sense); (5) loan translations (unit-forunit translations of English compounds, multi-word units or phraseological units); (6)hybrids (domestic compounds with at least one English component or one English productive affix); (7) pseudo-Anglicisms (instead of ageneral description the authors give three subgroups: (a) clippings, i.e. shortened English words as in parking < English ‘parking lot’, present in anumber of European languages, (b) resemantizations, i.e. domestic sense for English words, as in German handy ‘mobile phone’ or Polish handicap ‘an advantage imposed on acompetitor’, or (c) domestic combinations of English elements as evidenced by Japanese akuhara ‘alcohol harassment’); (8) phono-semantic matchings (unit-for-unit translations in which the English elements are matched with phonetically and semantically similar pre-existent domestic elements, e.g. German Was gibt’s? < English ‘What gives?’). The authors mention several other forms of potential English influence which, however, are not immediately relevant to our goal. In arecent tentative internal update of GLAD terminology the definitions of some of the categories were slightly reformulated: adapted borrowing (adirect loanword, adapted at one or more of the three levels, graphical, phonological, morphological); 2 In fact, the common noun plimsolls goes back to the 19th century in English, and so it is astandard direct loanword rather than a generic name; the connection with Samuel Plimsoll appears to be only indirect, probably through a‘Plimsoll line’. OPEN ACCESS ALEŠ KLÉGR 105 loan translation (an exact or inexact translation or half-translation of apolymorphemic foreign model, whether asingle word or amulti-word unit with possible structural deviation), hybrid (ahalf-English and half-RL expression coined in the RL with no discoverable model in English), semantic loan (an RL lexeme having borrowed an ‘extra’ sense from its English counterpart), pseudo-Anglicism or made-up English (an English-looking word which in English is not used in that form or is used with aradically different meaning), phono-semantic matching (aneologism that preserves both the approximate meaning and sound of the (English) etymon by using established elements in the RL). For the most part these categories draw on Betz’s (1949, 1959) classification of borrowing (and partly on Haugen 1950, and Weinreich 1953 [1963]). Betz’s types of lexical borrowing are reflected in Pulcini et al. (2006: 6; or Pulcini 2023: 53), who likewise distinguish two main groups: (i) direct borrowings subdivided into loanwords (non-adapted and adapted), false and hybrid borrowings, and (ii) indirect borrowings subsuming semantic loans and calques which include loan translations, loan renditions and loan creations (Betz calls the groups ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ borrowings respectively). 3 CRITERIA FOR DISTINGUISHING LOAN CATEGORIES Probably the greatest problem in determining Anglicisms and their types is the lack of shared definite and uniform criteria underlying their description. Acareful look at the established categories and their definitions shows that there are recurrent references to several (inevitable and logical) descriptive criteria which, however, are sometimes only implied and mostly not applied systematically. To bring these criteria or features to the fore, it is useful to start with the kind of borrowings on which there is general agreement as they are something of aprototype for Anglicisms. They are called direct, sometimes “quotation”, loanwords as they are transferred unchanged directly from English (e.g. chatbot, bossing, influencer, start-up, notebook, or web). They are aconvenient starting point in that they naturally concentrate in them everything that lexical borrowing can possibly involve, i.e. everything that can be borrowed from another language through words. By adopting the words such as chatbot or influencer the recipient language “borrows” (a) aconcept (aparticular sense) occurring in English, (b) aparticular word that conveys the concept/sense (and may serve as amodel or blueprint for forming words in the recipient language), and (c) agraphic/phonetic form peculiar to English. Another crucial point which descriptions of Anglicisms in the literature reveal is that for alexical item to be considered an Anglicism, it does not need to exhibit all three of these features: it may display only two but it definitely must have at least one of them. Combinations of the three features form several patterns; technically, the potential patterns are combinations of 1 to 3 elements from the set a, b, c. This translates into the following definition of Anglicisms: an Anglicism is alexical item in the RL’s vocabulary that (a) realizes aconcept borrowed from English, (b) exhibits an English form (graphical, phonological), or (c) is an actual English word or its RL OPEN ACCESS 106 LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 copy (for which it provides amodel), or (d) is any combination of (a) to (c), while it is sufficient for the word’s status of Anglicism to exhibit at least one of these constitutive features. 3.1 FEATURES DISTINGUISHING LOAN CATEGORIES If true that any one of the three features (i.e. concept/sense, word/model and form) and their combinations may account for aloan, then it follows that Anglicisms may in principle come in seven types (see Table 1). Before attempting to assign these presumed types of loans to the existing denominative labels for Anglicisms, it is necessary to specify how each of the three features is conceived of in the following discussion of the feature-pattern types of loan: Concept/sense— aconcept (asignified) may be expressed by different word classes, typically nouns, but also adjectives, verbs, adverbs, etc. By borrowing aconcept is meant its transfer to the recipient language in the word class it has in the source language (the particular word, as the signifier or as the model which stands at the beginning of the transfer). By contrast, the transposition of aconcept into another word class in the recipient language, i.e. conversion (of noun into verb, etc.), is adifferent process, taking place in the RL, and so distinct from borrowing proper and should not be counted as adirect concept loan. With polysemous words typically only one specific sense is transferred. Any deviation in the RL from the sense the word has in English is by default an internal change, the result of aword-formation process in the RL and not an act of borrowing. All such shifts constitute neologisms arising within the RL rather than concept/sense borrowing. It is tempting to argue that since language is primarily about meaning, concept/sense borrowing is the strongest feature of the three. However, the adoption of English words may not be motivated by the need to express novel concepts/senses. Actually, Czech and other languages have frequently, and for various reasons, borrowed English words expressing concepts for which they already have their own words, e.g. cash— hotovost, grab— úchop, level— úroveň, outfit— oblečení, oděv, paperback— brožovaná kniha, random— náhodný, libovolný (cf. Onysko and Winter-Froemel 2011, on necessary and luxury, or catachrestic and non-catachrestic, loans). Such cases do not, strictly speaking, count as concept/sense borrowing. The reason for their borrowing is their English form; the loans are often pragmatically motivated, and used not just to introduce variety, but also because they are associated with prestige and novelty, and thought to be stylistically or otherwise more suitable to some kinds of discourse. Model/word— the feature denotes either aspecific English word (or MWE) directly adopted by RL speakers or an English word or expression that serves as ablueprint to be copied in the RL through matching it (its components) by domestic elements (words or morphemes regarded as standard, or dictionary, equivalents). For example, citizen and scientist are translated as ‘občan’ and ‘vědec’ respectively, and so the novel concept of ‘citizen scientist’ borrowed from English is expressed in Czech by translating the model verbatim by its component equivalents as občanský vědec. With single-word models (and occasionally multi-word models) used with OPEN ACCESS ALEŠ KLÉGR 107 aspecific meaning in English the standard RL equivalents translating them assume this new meaning as well. Sometimes the English models are difficult to match with standard equivalents and the resultant rendition may depart from them to avarying degree. In amore abstract sense English words and their combinations may provide ‘structural blueprints’, i.e. word-formation and syntactic patterns borrowed from English and copied by RL speakers to produce RL words by analogy. Form— borrowing an English form means using an English orthography (spelling) and/or English phonetic form (pronunciation) in the RL. This is the case with direct loanwords in which the features ‘(English) model/word’ and ‘(English) form’ overlap. However, there are RL words which are deliberately spelt using English orthography (cf. Coolna, arespelt Czech word kůlna, shed), or pronounced with English pronunciation (typically to attract attention, for facetious reasons, etc.). That is why it is useful to separate ‘(English) form’ from ‘(English) model-word’ even though in direct loans they coincide. If the written (or spoken) form of the loan is in keeping with English usage, it is said to be unadapted. If the form is altered (intentionally or unintentionally) in accordance with the RL norm of spelling and pronunciation, it is said to be adapted. This adapted/unadapted distinction, however, is not without problems. The written form of English words is difficult to maintain in different writing systems and also different kinds of alphabet. When it comes to spoken form, it may be difficult to draw the line between the unadapted and adapted form of aloan due to the interference between the phonological systems of the RL and English (especially with less competent non-native speakers of English). The phonological adaptation of Anglicisms in Czech is described by Duběda (2018) as being governed by two prevailing principles, phonological approximation (systematic substitution with Czech phonemes) and the tendency to spelling pronunciation. 3.2 RELATING HYPOTHESIZED TYPES OF LOAN TO CATEGORIES OF ANGLICISMS If the initial assumption about the three features constituting the essence of aloan is correct, then the seven types shown in Table 1 theoretically cover all the possibilities there are (or at least the fundamental ones, given that language is not ruled by theory) and encompass all the categories of loans/Anglicisms found in the consulted literature. As was mentioned above, most categories of Anglicisms can be traced to classical general taxonomies of borrowing (Betz 1949, 1959, Haugen 1950, and Weinreich 1953); that is why they will also be referred to. It is important to note that feature analysis of loans cannot offer the type of hierarchies and subdivisions found in classical loan typologies, although it is possible that even feature-based types may further diversify if additional properties and factors allowing afiner description are identified. OPEN ACCESS 108 LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 types of loan (Anglicism) features borrowed from English concept/sense model/word form 1. concept-model-form loan + + + 2. concept-model loan + + – 3. model-form loan – + + 4. concept-form loan + – + 5. concept loan + – – 6. model loan – + – 7. form loan – – + Table 1:Hypothesized types of loan (Anglicism) based on feature patterns (1) Concept-model-form loans, the quintessential type of Anglicisms, include both unadapted and adapted loans/Anglicisms. They are called Lehnwörter (and together with Fremdwörter subsumed under äusseres Lehngut) by Betz (1959), or loanwords by Haugen and Weinreich. Pulcini et al. (2012: 6) and Pulcini (2023: 53) call them direct loanwords. The crucial point regarding this type is where the distinction is drawn between adaptation (i.e. adjustment of the loan to the morphological, graphical and phonological properties of the RL without altering its original meaning, e.g. ‘to stream’ > streamovat, ‘cool’ > coolový, or ‘business’ > byznys, speaker > spíkr) on the one hand and neologisation (i.e. application of aword-formation process to aloan which in effect produces aloan-based RL word with an altered or an entirely new sense, e.g. the colloquial or slang expressions such as hobík for ‘hobby or amateur sportsman’, noťas for ‘notebook’, hambáč for ‘hamburger’) on the other. Neologisation and semantic change are associated with different types of loan. Also, due to formal adaptation the connection between the English etymon and the corresponding loanword may over atime become tenuous (cf. biftek from ‘beefsteak’), and this weakening may result in achange in meaning (e.g. biftek has semantically diversified to mean ‘athick slice of meat’ in Czech, which allows expressions such as vepřový/krůtí biftek, literally ‘pork/turkey beefsteak’). (2) Concept-model loans include cases where the English form is replaced by an RL form, in other words the English model is translated unit-for-unit using (standard) RL equivalents. This type is well known in the literature. Betz speaks of Lehnübersetzung and Lehnübertragung (subcategories of inneres Lehngut) which Weinreich and others call loan translation and loan rendition (the difference between them is in the closeness of translation: renditions are loose translations). They are also called lexical calques (white collar > bílý límeček, Generation X/Y/Z/Alpha > generace X/Y/Z/ alfa). Weinreich stresses that it is frequently accompanied by semantic extension of the native elements. Indeed, the concept-model type also covers another type closely related to loan translations: semantic loans (Lehnbedeutung by Betz, others call them semantic calques, e.g. [computer] mouse > myš). Although Betz and Weinreich distinguish between these two, Haugen uses the term loan shifts for both (but acknowledges the use of the terms loan translations and semantic loans). Pulcini et al. have adopted the terms calque (for loan translation, rendition and creation) and semantic loan. Although both loan translations and semantic loans share the same features OPEN ACCESS ALEŠ KLÉGR 109 (i.e. concept and model), they differ in that semantic loans not only translate, but also expand the meaning of the domestic element (by adding anew sense from English), while with loan translations this is not the case. However, there are many instances of intersecting loan translations and semantic loans (cf. carbon footprint > uhlíková stopa, clean energy > čistá energie, where stopa and čistá, but not uhlíkový and energie, acquire anew meaning in Czech). There is yet another type of Anglicisms, socalled phono-semantic matching, which corresponds to the concept-model loan and which may be considered aspecial case of (imitative) loan rendition. The RL elements translating the English model are selected for their phonetic (and semantic) similarity with the English elements, although they may not be standard, close equivalents (e.g. the English IT slang term ‘lamer’, for an inept computer user, rendered as lama in Czech, meaning ‘llama’, but also ‘silly person’). (3) Model-form loans can be interpreted in two ways: (i) the English word provides amodel on the analogy of which new words are formed in the RL that do not exist in English; (ii) the borrowed English word expresses aconcept which already exists in the RL and so no (new) concept is borrowed, only amore attractive, prestigious form e.g. level, top, smart, leasovat, promotovat, spíkr, lídr or fighter (see the notion of luxury or non-catachrestic loans discussed by Onysko and Winter-Froemel 2011). In either case meaning/concept is not the (primary) reason for borrowing. The first subtype is frequently represented by morphologically complex (often bilingual) lexemes whose one part is shared by alarge set of words based on awidely used English model, e.g. e-book, e-shop, which motivated the Czech neologism e-babyland or hybrid e-words such as e-pivo (‘e-beer’), e-obuv (‘e-footwear’) or e-stredovek. cz (‘e-Middle Ages’). Similarly the borrowing of the combining form -aholic through such model words as workaholic, shopaholic has generated hybrid Czech words like romoholik (‘fan of the singer-musician Roman Holý’) or alzaholik (‘e-shop addict’). The same strategy is followed in other hybrids: the English models ecosystem, ecotourism inspired words like ekokoza, ‘eco-goat’ (‘goat breeding family business and e-shop’), ekovláček (‘eco-train’), eko blázinec (‘eco-uproar’) or ekoprůser (‘eco-mess’). Neither of these subtypes is mentioned in the literature as acategory of Anglicisms on its own. Creation of anew Czech word based on an English model and form (but without acounterpart in English) relates the first subtype to acategory known in the literature as false Anglicisms or pseudo-Anglicisms. The second subtype, “luxury” loans, is usually subsumed under direct loanwords. (4) Concept-form loans are another type which has not been terminologically singled out in the literature as aspecial category. Although the loan is an English word and the concept is borrowed from English, the concept is actually expressed by adifferent word in English (i.e. the English form used in Czech and the word conveying the concept in English do not correspond), for example step (for ‘tap dancing’), stop (for ‘hitch-hiking’), sprayer (for ‘graffitist, tagger’) or mixér (for ‘blender’)3. Such 3 There is akitchen utensil called ‘(food) mixer’ in English; however it corresponds to the Czech hnětač or kuchyňský robot. Blenders cut with sharp blades, mixers knead dough, beat OPEN ACCESS 110 LINGUISTICA PRAGENSIA 2/2023 cases are assessed as resemantization of the English form. In other cases the form of the loan, although ultimately related to an actual underlying English word (“ghost” model), has been changed, e.g. by shortening the English original (such as the Czech basket metonymically standing for the game ‘basketball’, or the much-quoted German Handy derived from the first word in ‘hand-held mobile phone’, or happy end instead of the correct English ‘happy ending’, though this particular phrase may have arisen quite independently of the English expression which is usually unknown to English learners, simply by combining ‘happy’ and ‘The End’ which used to appear in big letters on the screen at the end of films. Also these concept-form loans are usually subsumed under false Anglicisms (see below). (5) Concept loans come into existence when the English expression realizing the concept is difficult or impossible to translate into the RL verbatim. The way the concept is rendered in the RL is reminiscent of the method of oblique translation termed modulation by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995), i.e. avariation on the meaning from adifferent perspective. The result is acognitive equivalent. This type is traditionally called loan creations (Weinreich, Pulcini et al.). Betz’s term is Lehnschöpfung, while Haugen (1950: 220) deems that these creations “are not strictly loans at all” although it is clearly atransfer of the concept. Examples of concept loans in Czech based on English are, for example, roztleskávačka (‘cheerleader’, rendered in Czech as a‘girl clapping her hands to stir up the spectators’), zástupný znak (‘wildcard’, translated as ‘substitute character’), našeptávač (‘autocomplete’, changed to mean ‘whisperer’ in Czech), and odpírač vojenské služby (‘conscientious objector’, reinterpreted as a‘person refusing to do military service’). (6) Model loans are remarked on in connection with pattern replication (Matras 2009) and subsume borrowings of patterns at the word-formation and (morpho-) syntactic levels; the word-formation pattern loans are responsible for the spread of combining-form compounds in Czech. The latter include, for example, the change of word order within noun phrases in Czech (apostmodifier changing to apremodifier): O2 aréna (formerly Sazka aréna) or Langhans Galerie instead of the regular Aréna O2/Sazka and Galerie Langhans, still found in other names, such as Centrum Langhans or Ateliér Langhans. An example of adomestic lexical item following an English model is the Czech abbreviation Z5. Pronounced it stands for “z+pět” (i.e. ‘back’) and is formed on analogy with English abbreviations such as W8 (wait), M2 (me too), or 2nite (tonight), typical of Internet slang and text messaging. Words or names like Z5 and Sazka aréna are obviously Czech neologisms inspired by English but the fact that they rely neither on an English concept, nor an English form sets them apart from all the other loan types. While word-order neologisms are often called syntactic Anglicisms, for cases like Z5 there does not seem to be an established term (they could be described as ‘pattern loans’). eggs and whip cream (see https://www.google.cz/search?q=differnce+between+blender +and+food+mixer). OPEN ACCESS ALEŠ KLÉGR 111 (7) Form loans are words related to English only through their English form which, factually, does not copy an English concept/sense or an existing English word (as amodel). As this would amount to inventing anew English word, such loans in the strictest sense are bound to be rare, cf. beer spa (aCzech take on awellness center combined with beer consumption). Amarginal subgroup of such items is formed by the orthographic Anglicization of Czech words, e.g. the restaurant Coolna < kůlna, (‘shed’), the musical group Yatchmen < Ječmeni (‘barley-boys’) or aCzech brand of cat wet food pouches Shelma < šelma (‘carnivore’). The most common type of form loans in Czech, however, are bilingual neologisms in which the English form is subject to aCzech word-formation process, frequently derivation (e.g. the English ‘tennis’ producing tenista, ‘tennis player’, tenistka, ‘female tennis player’, tenisák, ‘tennis ball’, tenisky, ‘tennis shoes’, etc.), resulting in creations for which there is no immediate English model word to name the concept. It should be stressed that all these cases represent RL neologisms based on English forms, direct Anglicisms. This relates form loans to other types of extreme loans with an English form, namely type 3 (model-form) and type 4 (concept-form), both of which are likewise neologisms formed by Czech speakers. In the classifications of Anglicisms they are usually collapsed into one group and referred to variously, secondary Anglicisms, false Anglicisms, pseudo-Anglicisms, Scheinenlehnung, etc. The neologisation performed by RL speakers— which appears to be the hallmark of false Anglicisms4— may also consist in creating anew meaning while retaining the original form (sometimes called resemantization— see type 4 loans above) or creating anew form (e.g. by shortening the original English term, such as parking for aparking lot— see type 4 again) or combining English morphemes/words in anovel way, such as beer spa (interestingly, babybox, usually referred to as ‘baby hatch’ in English, could be one such case or it may be an example of resemantization, since the word does exist in English, but means something else). Another quite common type of neologisation is the creative use of English combining forms (see type 3 above). As might be expected, there are some curious cases (curious from native English speakers’ perspective), such as the word raut (formerly rout) used in the sense of ‘reception, banquet’ in Czech. The word rout does come from English (OED defines it under sense 9 as “afashionable gathering or assembly, alarge evening party or reception, much in vogue in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries”), but has been long obsolete and out of use and hence technically it is ahistorical loan. 4 For the sake of completeness, if we accept that afalse Anglicism is an RL neologism based on a(direct) Anglicism and that indirect loans, loan translations and semantic loans, are likewise Anglicisms, then even an RL neologism based on aloan translation or asemantic loan may be called afalse Anglicism. It is admittedly an extreme type of false Anglicism which exhibits none of the three features that are posited for aloanword: an English concept, model or form. For instance, the Czech semantic loan (počítačový) virus translating the English term ‘(computer) virus’ has given rise to the verbs zavirovat (‘to infect with avirus’) and odvirovat (‘to remove avirus from’), neither of which has an equivalent in English, and in that sense they are false Anglicisms. OPEN ACCESS