This study is based on an exhaustive analysis of 1,500 Russian words that have been borrowed from the Russian lexicon into Modern Chinese.The purpose of this study is in part to provide a scientific basis for the formulation of the standardisation of the Chinese language.The fact that at present there is no standard method by which foreign words are borrowed into Chinese is problematic because it gives rise to confusion amongst Chinese speakers. It is hoped that this study can begin to clarify such methods, and also limit potential abuses of lexical borrowing that do not accord with the linguistic principles of the Modern Chinese language. In addressing these issues this study covered eight forms of borrowing that exist in Modern Chinese borrowings.In effect these eight forms all stem from either phonetic, semantic or direct transplantation forms of borrowing.This thesis has also discussed many of the linguistic difficulties, and their resolutions, that arise in the process of borrowing.It has also highlighted several aspects of lexical borrowing that have not been addressed in previous literature, and suggested creative ways in which these issues could be addressed in the future. It is hoped that the content of this thesis is able to form part of the process of providing a reference for the formulation of an official Chinese language policy. / Master of Arts (Hons)

The following Master thesis "A Comparative Analysis of Anglicisms in German Standard Varieties" focuses on the matter of English lexical borrowing in German which is currently very topical and provokes mixed reactions both from laymen and linguists. First, the thesis introduces the fundamental knowledge of language change focusing on its internal and external causes. Furthermore, the three German standard varieties are characterised - German Standard German, Austrian German and Swiss German. The third chapter is devoted to the concrete influence of English lexical borrowings on German. Moreover, the empirical part presents a comparative analysis based on a collection of anglicisms from 100 newspaper articles from national online newspapers for each of the varieties. At the end of the analysis, current tendencies concerning the use of anglicisms and the particularities of the individual standard varieties are defined. To conclude with, the thesis deals with the critical reception of anglicisms in the public discourse and presents the matter from the point of view of sociolinguistics.

The sport of cycling is an ever expanding global phenomenon, drawing crowds in their thousands to watch the races unfold. Its community has a distinct vocabulary, with many terms borrowed from several other languages, principally French. This study investigates the presence of French loanwords in the language of English cycling commentators, and to what extent these loanwords are used in comparison to their English equivalents. It also examines extra-linguistic factors that could affect the commentator’s choice of vocabulary, mainly the location of the race. The study investigated the language of English commentators from live broadcast of 6 different races: 2 located in English speaking countries, 2 in France, and 2 countries where neither French nor English was the native language. All utterances of French loanwords and their English counterparts were noted and collected for analysis. The findings demonstrated a clear presence of French loanwords in the language of the commentators, with a varying degree of frequency. Some loanwords were preferred over their English equivalents, whilst others were not. The location did not seem to have a significant impact on the choice of vocabulary, with the exception of the only race held outside of Europe, where the commentators demonstrated a clear preference for English terminology over French loanwords. The analysis concluded that many different extra-linguistic factors may play a role in the commentator’s choice of vocabulary.

This diploma thesis aims to analyse the lexical aspect of the contemporary Dutch language, particularly the influence of foreign languages on the state of Dutch advertising language. A short summary of the changes in language throughout the 20th century is described in the first part of the thesis. The chapters which follow are dedicated to the current specifics of the Dutch vocabulary and the current possibilities of its expanding, including the problematics,of lexical borrowings in Dutch. The specific aspects of advertising and its language also have to be introduced because of the possible consequences on the results of the analysis. In the practical part of the thesis, the own corpus, methodology and hypothesis are presented on the basis of the described secondary literature. Finally, the corpus analysis follows where all relevant results of the lexical analysis are discussed, both qualitatively and partly quantitatively.

<p>The aim of this Magister Degree Project has been to investigate if can corpora be used to investigate patterns of lexical distribution and/or borrowing from one variety to another. Another aim has been to investigate how well classification of lexical items as either “British” or “American” supported by evidence from corpora of English.</p><p>In order to accomplish these aims sets of lexical items have been examined in two ways: first through dictionary research and “dictionary dating”, and second through the use of such English corpora as the British National Corpus (BNC), the United Kingdom Web Archiving Consortium (ukWaC), and the TIME Corpus of American English. The results of this research suggest that the simplistic labelling of certain items as “American” versus “British” is sometimes misleading, and that corpus investigations on their own, though useful, may not be entirely sufficient in this context.</p>

Η δυνατότητα δανεισμού των διαφόρων λεξικών και ελεύθερων λειτουργικών κατηγοριών είναι ένα ζήτημα που έχει κατά καιρούς απασχολήσει έντονα την διεθνή βιβλιογραφία στον χώρο της επαφής γλωσσών. Με την παρούσα μεταπτυχιακή διατριβή: (α) εξετάζω την δυνατότητα δανεισμού των διαφόρων λεξικών και ελεύθερων λειτουργικών λέξεων, (β) διερευνώ την αξιοπιστία και την καθολικότητα ορισμένων ευρέως διαδεδομένων κλιμάκων δανεισιμότητας, όπως είναι για παράδειγμα οι κλίμακες των Haugen (1950), Muysken (1981), Matras (2007) κ.λπ., (γ) ελέγχω τους παράγοντες οι οποίοι έχει προταθεί ότι επηρεάζουν την διαδικασία, και προτείνω τους παράγοντες εκείνους οι οποίοι την καθορίζουν. Για τον λόγο αυτό, διερευνώ και συγκρίνω τον λεξιλογικό δανεισμό (α) της Γκρίκο από τις Ρομανικές διαλέκτους, (β) της Καππαδοκικής από την Τουρκική, και (γ) της Κρητικής τόσο από τις Ρομανικές διαλέκτους, όσο και από την Τουρκική. Εξετάζω πόσο εύκολο ή δύσκολο είναι για την καθεμιά από τις μελετώμενες λεξικές κατηγορίες να γίνουν αντικείμενο δανεισμού, καθώς και τους παράγοντες που φαίνεται να επιδρούν στην δανεισιμότητα των στοιχείων. Προτείνω μια κοινή κλίμακα δανεισιμότητας, για όλα τα συστήματα που μελέτησα, της μορφής (ονόματα > ρήματα > επίθετα > επιρρήματα), και με αυτό τον τρόπο δείχνω ότι ορισμένες λέξεις είναι ευκολότερα δανείσιμες από άλλες. Τα βασικά ευρήματα της έρευνας αυτής ενισχύουν την άποψη ότι καμία γενίκευση με απόλυτη ισχύ δεν μπορεί να υπάρξει στο χώρο της γλωσσικής επαφής. Η ένταση της επαφής (intensity of contact) (Thomason Kaufman, 1988; Thomason, 2001) φαίνεται να είναι ο καθοριστικός παράγοντας που μπορεί να εξηγήσει την μεγάλη διαφοροποίηση η οποία καταγράφεται μεταξύ του λεξικού και του δομικού δανεισμού. Με τον τρόπο αυτό μπορεί να εξηγηθεί γιατί για παράδειγμα στην Γκρίκο και τα Καππαδοκικά, όπου η διγλωσσία και ο δανεισμός είναι ιδιαίτερα εκτεταμένα, τα ελέυθερα λειτουργικά στοιχεία γίνονται εύκολα αντικείμενο δανεισμού, ενώ αντίθετα στη Κρητική, όπου το επίπεδο της διγλωσσίας είναι εμφανώς μικρότερο, ο δανεισμός των ελεύθερων λειτουργικών στοιχείων είναι εξαιρετικά περιορισμένος. Επιπλέον, η διαφοροποίηση που καταγράφεται ως προς τον δανεισμό των ελεύθερων λειτουργικών στοιχείων μεταξύ της Γκρίκο και της Καππαδοκικής, δείχνει ότι ο δανεισμός δεν εξαρτάται μόνο από εξωγλωσσικούς παράγοντες (π.χ. ένταση της επαφής), αλλά σε μεγάλο βαθμό καθορίζεται από εργολαβικούς παράγοντες όπως είναι η τυπολογική απόσταση (typological distance) και η δομική (α)συμβατότητα (structural (in)compatibility) μεταξύ των σε επαφή συστημάτων. Χαρακτηριστικό παράδειγμα αποτελεί η απουσία δανεισμού προθέσεων στην Καππαδοκική, γεγονός που εμφανώς οφείλεται στην ιδιότητα της Τουρκικής να έχει μόνο μεταθέσεις. / A prevailing issue of debate in language contact studies involves the borrowability of various lexical and free grammatical categories. In this MA Thesis (a) I examine the borrowing of different lexical and free functional words, (b) I investigate the reliability of well-known borrowability scales, like those that have been formulated by Haugen (1950), Muysken (1981), Matras (2007), etc, and (c) I examine the factors that determine the borrowing process. For this purpose, I examine data from the Modern Greek Dialects. More specifically, I examine the borrowing of (a) Romance words in Griko, (b) Turkish words in Cappadocian, and (c) both Romance and Turkish words in Cretan. I investigate how easy the borrowing of a particular lexical and free functional word- category can be as well as the language-contact factors affecting the process. I propose a common borrowability scale for the lexical categories (nouns > verbs > adjectives > adverbs) for all of the dialectal varieties that I have studied, and I show that certain words are relatively easy to be borrowed. My main findings show that no absolute generalization can be drawn within the language contact domain. The intensity of contact factor (Thomason & Kaufman, 1988; Thomason, 2001) seems to be the key factor in explaining the split between lexical and structural borrowing. It explains why, for example, both in Griko and Cappadocian, where bilingualism and borrowing is vastly extensive, free-functional-words are borrowed with ease, whereas in Cretan, where the level of bilingualism is obviously less extensive, the borrowing of free-functional-words is extremely restricted. Moreover, the differentiation between the borrowing of free-functional words in Griko versus that in Cappadocian shows that borrowing depends not only on external factors (e.g. the intensity of contact) but also on intralinguistic factors such as the typological distance and the structural (in)compatibility of the systems in contact. A concrete example is the absence of borrowed prepositions in Cappadocian due to Turkish containing only postpositions.

The aim of this Magister Degree Project has been to investigate if can corpora be used to investigate patterns of lexical distribution and/or borrowing from one variety to another. Another aim has been to investigate how well classification of lexical items as either “British” or “American” supported by evidence from corpora of English. In order to accomplish these aims sets of lexical items have been examined in two ways: first through dictionary research and “dictionary dating”, and second through the use of such English corpora as the British National Corpus (BNC), the United Kingdom Web Archiving Consortium (ukWaC), and the TIME Corpus of American English. The results of this research suggest that the simplistic labelling of certain items as “American” versus “British” is sometimes misleading, and that corpus investigations on their own, though useful, may not be entirely sufficient in this context.

No description available.

La tesi si concentra sugli influssi lessicali che le lingue indiane hanno esercitato sulla lingua inglese sia in prospettiva diacronica sia sincronica. La prima parte dell'elaborato indaga, tramite l'impiego di uno strumento lessicografico, l'Oxford English Dictionary edizione on-line, la presenza in inglese di prestiti veri e propri, ma anche di derivati e composti, sorti in seguito al contatto tra l'inglese le lingue indiane a partire dal Sedicesimo secolo e fino ai nostri giorni, arrivando a individuare 1791 forme lessicali. La seconda parte intende verificare l'effettiva presenza, la frequenza d'uso e il significato di tali prestiti, composti e derivati nel British English contemporaneo, avvalendosi degli strumenti offerti dalla linguistica dei corpora. Il corpus di riferimento impiegato in questa seconda fase della ricerca è Bank of English. L'elaborato, oltre a delineare lo scenario storico culturale di riferimento, mette in evidenza le procedure metodologiche impiegate, e ricostruisce l'impianto teorico sulle questioni di interferenze tra codici linguistici, lingue in contatto e prestiti lessicali, riferendosi ai maggiori e più recenti studi in materia. / The research focuses on lexical influences exerted by Indian languages on British English as a result of linguistic contacts between Great Britain and India. Both diachronic and synchronic perspectives are taken into consideration in evaluating the extent of such lexical influences. The first part of the research analyses the presence of words of East Indian origin in English by means of the Oxford English Dictionary, on-line edition, be these words authentic lexical borrowings, or derivatives or compounds arisen as a consequence of such linguistic contacts. The historical period taken into consideration goes from the 16th century till nowadays. The second part of the research aims to verify the actual presence, frequency of usage and meaning of such words in contemporary British English by means of a linguistic corpora tool, namely the Bank of English by Harper Collins. The historical and cultural background of the relationships between Great Britain and India, as well as the theoretical background about linguistic interferences as a whole are also illustrated, with reference to the most authoritative and recent studies.

La question des emprunts lexicaux dans le Coran est l’une des premières questions linguistiques posées au commencement de la pensée linguistique arabe. Pourtant, cette question n’a pas connu le même développement qu’ont connu les autres questions linguistiques. C’est qu’elle était toujours un objet de désaccord entre les savants et les chercheurs ; certains ont nié la présence d’emprunts lexicaux dans le Coran, d’autres l’ont admise. Dans les études anciennes et contemporaines, nous avons pu distinguer deux approches: la première est d’ordre linguistique. Elle considère le Coran comme un texte langagier. En effet, les linguistes ont étudié les emprunts coraniques dans leurs caractères phonologiques, morphologiques, syntaxiques et sémantiques. Alors que la seconde est plutôt idéologique. Elle prend une position non objective, en niant complètement la présence d’emprunts lexicaux dans le Coran, ou en glorifiant une langue mère par des motivations nationalistes, religieuses, sociales et culturelles. Après avoir étudié le développement, l’interférence et l’interaction entre ces approches, nous avons proposé notre position sociolinguistique pour élaborer des critères d’identification de nature linguistique, référentielle et culturelle. Ces critères nous ont aidé à dégager deux corpus : le premier contient les emprunts coraniques et leurs langues sources, le deuxième comprend les unités lexicales que nous considérons comme des unités arabes. Ce travail nous a permis de mettre en lumière les motivations idéologiques qui peuvent influencer l’étude linguistique. De même il est un outil pour prendre conscience de la nécessité d’une révision critique des approches qui ont traité les emprunts lexicaux en général et les emprunts coraniques en particulier. / The issue of “lexical borrowings in The Quran” is one of the first issues that had emerged since the beginning of the Arabic linguistic thought. Unfortunately, this issue was fruitless compared to other linguistic researches, because it has always been a subject of a great polemic among ancient and modern Arabic and non Arabic scholars. Some denied the fact that The Quran contains lexical borrowings, others admitted it. Many scholars were pushed by ideological motivations such as religious, nationalist, social, cultural motivations, especially those who denied the phenomenon.In this work, we tried first to evoke main linguistic and extra- linguistic problems concerning lexical borrowing in general, and the study of this phenomenon in the Quran especially. Then, we studied the two main approaches: (1) ideological approach which denies the existence of lexical borrowings in the Quran, or which admits it and tries meanwhile to glorify some languages and dishonour some others, (linguistic approach and its phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic analyses. After studying different approaches and their development, interference and interaction, we have elaborated a socio-linguistic perspective associated with some linguistic, referential and cultural criteria which allowed us to distinguish between two types of quranic words: words that we consider as real lexical borrowings, and genuine Arabic words. This study does not only shed the light on some ideological motivations which have affected linguistic research, but it also provides a crucial critical review of borrowing studies.