English Loanwords in Russian

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English Loanwords in Russian

• Miroslav Stýblo

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English Loanwords in Russian

• Introduction
• Historical Overview
• Methodology
• Collected Data
• Analysis
• Conclusion
• Bibliography

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Introduction

• Russian language is undergoing changes
• Increased use of English loan-words
• Removal and replacement of Soviet-era words
• Why use loan-words instead of Russian words?
• They are not the same! They are acquired through
  Semantic Concretization and have narrower
  meanings than their Russian equivalents.

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Historical Overview

• Popular sources of loanwords in Russian
• French, until Revolution (1917)
• German, until World War II (1941)
• Rate of borrowing from English varied
• Popular WWII, Thaw, fall of Communism
• Unpopular height of Cold War, Stagnation,
  present
• Borrowing always took place and the Russian
  language always adapted and survived.

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Methodology

• Search for English loanwords
• Search for the Russian equivalents
• Examine their contexts
• Analyze their frequency over time
• Determine any differences in their meaning
• Predict their nativization or rejection

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Collected Data

• National Corpus of the Russian Language
• Texts can be searched for occurrences of
  loanwords and adjectives adjacent to them
• Killer ?????? , ??????
• Businessman ????????? , ???????????????
• Boss ???? , ?????????

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Collected Data (contd)
First random 20 occurrences over time
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Analysis

• ?????? Killer
• Likely to be professional, and never serial
• ????????? Businessman
• Likely to be big and prosperous, and never
  private
• ???? Boss
• Likely to be in political organizations
• Usage frequency is increasing for all 3 words

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Conclusion

• These loanwords were adopted into Russian through
  semantic concretization of the actual English
  meaning into a more narrow meaning.
• They will be nativized into the Russian language
  because they do not have to compete against any
  Russian equivalents with an identical meaning.
• Nativized meanings ?????? Assassin
• ????????? Tycoon
• ???? Party Boss

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Bibliography

• Sarah G. Thomason, Language Contact, 2001.
• Bernard Comrie, Gerald Stone, Maria Polinsky, The
  Russian Language in the Twentieth Century, 1996.
• National Corpus of the Russian Language,
  http//www.ruscorpora.ru/.
• Zoya G. Proshina, Brian P. Ettkin,
  English-Russian language contacts, World
  Englishes, 2005.
• Diane Nichols, Borrowings and false friends
  between Russian and English, MED Magazine, July
  2004.