The Use Of Borrowings In Political Articles English Language Essay

The purpose of this research is to investigate what the notion ‘borrowing’ means, how words can be borrowed, what types of borrowing are. To accomplish this goal theoretical research and analysis of political articles were done. The result of the research showed that words are frequently borrowed indirectly, they have Latin or French origin and there are many phonetic and morphemic types of borrowing in political articles.

Key words: borrowing, language, word.

INTRODUCTION

Language is an important tool of communication. A man cannot develop without it properly. It is a main mean due to what a man can express his feelings, emotions and attitude towards reality. Language is the most powerful armor what a man can posses. A man can praise with a word, admire, or even ‘kill’ with it help.

An ability to use words correctly, to be eloquent was highly appreciated since the ancient times. This ability helped to cope with problems, decide and convince. Especially, eloquence was very useful in political discourse. Politicians used all their knowledge and rhetoric in order to achieve their goal. They very carefully chose words when they performed with their speech on stage. Every word carried a definite meaning and served for a particular purpose.

Politics, economy, science, education are spheres which demand a specific language. Such language helps to separate one sphere from another. A good example is a political language. The vocabulary of political language is very rich and expressive not only due to the primordial words of a language, but also to words borrowed from other languages.

The goal of the research is to investigate the use of borrowings in political articles.

The enabling objectives were set up to achieve the research’s goal:

to analyse theory on borrowings;

to find out the types of borrowings;

to analyse political articles;

to find out how words are mostly borrowed;

to summarize and interpret findings.

The research is based on a hypothesis: words, used in political articles, are borrowed frequently in the indirect way and most of them have Latin or French origin.

The methods of the research:

Theoretical (the analysis of the information and theory on borrowings, their types, ways of borrowing);

Practical (the analysis of political articles, the analysis of the examples).

Short outline of chapters:

The first chapter gives the analysis of the theory on borrowings.

The second chapter provides the findings of the research and presents the summary of the research.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF

BORROWING

This chapter deals with theoretical material on what borrowing is, what ways of borrowing exist, and what types of borrowing present.

Definition of Borrowing

As postulated in Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, a borrowing is ‘a word or phrase which has been taken from one language and used in another language’ (1992: 42). According to Reformatorskiy, ‘There is no language on earth which lexicon would consist only of its own primordial words’ (1997: 139). Every language uses borrowings, which help enrich its vocabulary. He states that ‘Borrowings are consequence of interaction of different people and nations on the bases of political, trading and economical relations’ (1997:473).

The English language has been open and not been afraid of borrowing words from other languages during the whole history of Britain. It came in a very close contact with different people and languages thereby enriching and widening its lexicon and expressiveness.

As stated in Online 7, ‘there many various borrowings in English from such languages as:

Scandinavian, e.g. they, there, them, skin, sky, skirt.

Celtic, e.g. clan, flannel, slogan, London, Thames, Dover.

Dutch, e.g. yacht, buoy, leak. There are words borrowed from Dutch, which are related to shipping.

German, e.g. bear, kindergarten.

Italian, e.g. piano, solo, pizza, balcony, opera.

Spanish, e.g. guitar, barbeque, ranch.

Arabic, e.g. alcohol, zero, tariff.

French, e.g. government, parliament, court, nation, property, royal, money. There are enormous amount of words from French in English language.

Latin, e.g. bonus, area, collapse.

Greek, e.g. comedy, tragedy, physics, zoology. A great quantity of words were borrowed from both, Latin and Greek, especially during Renaissance Period, when was renewed the interest in classical languages.’

Ways of Borrowing

There are two ways of borrowing:

Directly

‘Directly means that borrowing happens spontaneously, directly from other language’ (Reformatorskiy, 1997: 475).

e.g. ‘Developers analysing the data warned that in some cases it could be incomplete.’ (Online 12)

Data: L. – Eng. (Online 16)

Indirectly

‘Indirectly means that borrowing happens through mediators. Mediators usually are other languages’ (Reformatorskiy, 1997: 475).

e.g. ‘… follows a long-running campaign by the Guardian and campaigners for open government.'(Online 12)

Campaign: L. – L.L. – O.Fr. – Fr.- Eng. (Online 16)

Types of Borrowing

There are four main types of borrowing:

Phonetic borrowings

As stated in Online 17, phonetic borrowings, called also ‘loan words proper.’ ‘Words are borrowed with their meaning, spelling and pronunciation.’

Translation loan or calque

Translation loan or calque is ‘word- for – word (morpheme – for morpheme) translation of some foreign word or expression. On such cases the notion is borrowed from a foreign language but it is expressed by native lexical units’ (Online 7). As indicated by Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics, another explanation of translation loan or calque is ‘a type of borrowing, in which each morpheme or word is translated into the equivalent morpheme or word in another language’ (1992: 78)

Semantic borrowings

According to Online 6, semantic borrowings are ‘such units when a new meaning of unit existing in the language is borrowed.’

Morphemic borrowings

Morphemic borrowings are ‘borrowings of affixes.’ (Online 17)

To sum up, words can be borrowed from different languages as Latin, Greek, Spanish, Arabic, Celtic, Scandinavian, etc. There are two ways of borrowing: direct and indirect. Moreover, one can see that there are four main types of borrowings: phonetic, translation loan or calque, semantic and morphemic borrowings.

PRACTICAL ANALYSIS OF BORROWING

This chapter deals with a practical analysis of articles and provides examples of this analysis.

Phonetic borrowings

e.g. ‘…publishing council tax collection rates and data about the performance of services such as rubbish collection and recycling’ (Online 13)

Rate: M.L. rata – M.Fr. rate – Eng. (Online 16)

e.g. ‘ Mr Blair moved from a twice weekly 15 – minute session to a once- a – week 30 minute showdown.’ (Online 14)

Session: L. sessionem – O.Fr. session – Eng. (Online 16)

e.g. ‘The fact that most cash from President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package’ (Online 18)

Stimulus: Mod.L. stimulus – Eng. (Online 16)

e.g. ‘The two sides and would shape their policy agenda.’ (Online 10)

Agenda: L. agendum – Eng. (Online 16)

Translation loan or calque

e.g. ‘Since his announcement Saturday that he would be the crucial 60th vote necessary’ (Online 11)

Saturday: English Saturday partially calques Latin Diēs Saturnī day of Saturn.(Online 9)

e.g. ‘The opportunity to acquire a potential masterpiece.’ (The Economist, p.7)

Masterpiece – from Gr. or Du. (Probably translation of Dutch meesterstuk or German Meisterstück: Dutch meester and German Meister, master + Dutch stuk and German Stück, piece of work.) (Online 15 )

Semantic borrowings

e.g. The bail-out of the banks coincided with the loss of jobs. (The Economist, p.3)

The German semantic word die Bänke originally meant “a bench”. The English noun “a bank” has more than one meaning: it means ‘a place where people and organization can invest and borrow money; a sloping raised land along the sides of a river; a pile or mass of earth, clouds; a row of similar things, a bench’. However, German later borrowed the other meaning of ‘a bank’ from English, and today also means ‘a place where people and organization can invest and borrow money; a sloping raised land along the sides of a river; a pile or mass of earth, clouds; a row of similar things.'(Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 2008: 104)

Morphemic borrowings

e.g. ‘Critics say the job was always earmarked for a Liberal Democrat, irrespective of their qualifications.’ (Online 10)

Irrespective = ir + respective – from L._ ir (not). (Online 16)

e.g. ‘A cut in the basic rate of tax, a hugely unpopular move he later admitted was a mistake.’ (Online 8)

Unpopular = un + popular – from O.E. _un (not) (Online 16)

Overall, political articles are full of different types of borrowings. Almost every second word may be considered to be as a borrowing. There are great quantities of phonetic and morphemic borrowings in political articles. Translation loan or calque may appear in colloquial language or literal language rather than in political one.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, all words, which are used in a definite language, form its lexicon. Besides it own words, every language has borrowings in its vocabulary. The main purpose of borrowings is to enrich vocabulary of particular language and to make notion more precise.

Drawing conclusion is completely based on the results of the analysis of theory on borrowings and the analysis of political articles. On the basis of data collected from political articles, most of words are borrowed indirectly. When analysing the results of the theory and political discourse, the research proved that, the types of borrowing which are mostly presented in political articles are phonetic and morphemic borrowings. The results point to an interesting trend that most of borrowings come from Latin and French languages.

The hypothesis of the research has been proved, because in political discourse most of words are borrowed in indirect way and most of them has Latin or French origin.

THESES

Most of words are borrowed indirectly.

There are four main types of borrowings: phonetic, translation loan or calque, semantic and morphemic borrowings.

The types of borrowing which are mostly presented in political articles are phonetic and morphemic borrowings.

Most of borrowings come from Latin and French languages.

Translation loan or calque may appear in colloquial language or literal language rather than in political one.

The main purpose of borrowings is to enrich vocabulary of particular language and to make notion more precise.