Abstract
The era of globalization has led to frequent communication among people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, carried out usually in English, the modern lingua franca. English has influenced the languages of the world, which have started to borrow words in order to keep up with progress and internationalization. Anglicisms are used in almost every field, education being one of them. This paper highlights the presence of Anglicisms in the field of education, and focuses on a multilingual dictionary of education, from which it gathers a corpus in three different languages: Romanian, German, and French. The study aims to identify the Anglicisms employed in the educational field in the three languages aforementioned, and to analyze them comparatively, pointing out the similarities and differences among the languages in question.
Introduction
The present–day society is multinational, multicultural, and globalized. People travel from one part of the globe to the other for different purposes, such as leisure, business, or education. As a consequence, people interact a lot, and, thus, also their personal, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. Linguistically, one of the effects achieved by such a contact is the transfer of words from one language to another. Usually, such a transfer is unidirectional, that is, one language borrows words from another. Sometimes, however, the transfer can be bidirectional, that is, the two languages that are in contact borrow words from each other, as it happens in the case of the language varieties spoken by ethnic minority groups existing in a particular country.
Borrowing words from other languages can be triggered by several factors. Some are extralinguistic and have to do with geographical vicinity and cohabitation of populations (Mladin, 2004), technological and scientific progress (Hristea, 1984), or cultural, socio–economic, political, and religious relations between nations (Șimon, 2016). Others are linguistic and relate to bilingualism (Greavu, 2010) or the prestige of the languages from which the borrowing takes place (Haspelmath, 2009).
Linguistic borrowing has been studied throughout the years by many researchers, gaining a longstanding tradition (Zenner & Kristiansen, 2014). They have proposed different taxonomies (Betz, 1936; Haugen, 1950), and have focused on numerous topics, such as the relation between borrowing and code–switching (Matras, 2009; Muysken, 2000), the nativisation of the word borrowed (Arroyo & Tricker, 2000; Torres Cacoullos & Aaron, 2003) or new onomasiological, methodological, and phraseological approaches (Zenner & Kristiansen, 2014), to mention just a few. The studies have looked at individual languages, such as Romanian (Chirimbu & Banciu, 2014; Pârlog, 2004), German (Onysko, 2007), and French (Saugera, 2017) or at multiple languages simultaneously (Görlach, 2001; Haspelmath & Tadmor, 2009; Poplack, 2018).
The term borrowing refers to a word “taken from one language and transferred into another” (Şimon & Suciu, 2014, p. 6), as a result of language contact (Carţiş, 2008; Haugen, 1950). This can be direct, that is, taking place within a common territory and involving the mix of population and a long cohabitation, or indirect, that is, not involving territorial boundaries, but rather cultural dissemination and economic and political relations (Mladin, 2004; Sala, 1997). The language that lends is the donor, the source or the original one, while the one that borrows is the recipient, target, or replica language—terms coined by specialists in the domain (e.g., Fasold & Connor-Linton, 2006; Furiassi et al., 2012). The word borrowed is either integrated as such in the recipient language or it undergoes modifications at the phonetic, semantic, and/or morphological levels. It can enter the language as new, can replace native words and coexist with them, according to Haspelmath (2009). Representing a “normal and desirable phenomenon in the evolution of a language” (Buzea, 2017, p. 165), linguistic borrowings have numerous aims, such as to enrich the language, to fill in existing lexical blanks, to uniformize and internationalize terminologies (Mladin, 2004) or to keep up with the changing world and designate new and extralinguistic realities (Buzea, 2017; Ivan, 2013; Kriston, 2015; Rus, 2005).
Borrowings have been classified from various perspectives. One of them takes into account the contribution they make to the recipient language. They can refer either to new concepts and objects (denotative borrowings) or have certain advantages compared to the local term (connotative or stylistic borrowings). This type of borrowings are called cultural borrowings or necessary loans. Borrowings can also duplicate words existing in the recipient language, sometimes due to prestige, fashion or snobbery; in this case, they are called core borrowings or luxury loans (Buzea, 2017; Danesi & Rocci, 2009; Furiassi et al., 2012; Greavu, 2010; Myers-Scotton, 2002; Pușcariu, 1976; Rus, 2005). Some researchers do not agree with this classification, as importance should be given to the necessity of borrowing in particular texts and contexts, and not to its necessity in a particular language (Avram, 1997). As such, if a certain text and context require a word to be borrowed from another language in order to make sense, it does not seem to matter anymore whether the borrowing refers to new concepts or is just fashionable. In addition, the difference is not always clear cut, as Haspelmath (2009) emphasizes. Linguistic borrowings may also occur due to therapeutic reasons, such as avoiding homonymy or words considered taboo (Haspelmath, 2009).
A classification made from another perspective points to the form of the borrowings and the way they behave in the recipient language. They can be loanwords, when they keep the same form and meaning as in the donor language, loanblends, when they combine a part of the donor language word with another of the recipient language word, and loanshifts, when they take only the meaning from the donor language (Haugen, 1950; Şimon, 2016). Other researchers classify them as direct and indirect (by means of a third language) loans, popular and erudite loans, oral, and written loans (Mladin, 2004) and lexical, semantic, hybrid formations, and pseudo–borrowings (Fischer, 2008).
Linguistic borrowings have, therefore, been defined, classified and observed throughout the years, once different cultures and languages came into contact as a result of social development. Several languages have had a major role as donors and have imposed their linguistic hegemony, influencing other languages with which they came into contact. Some of the most important are Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Chinese, Persian, Arabic, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, English, and Russian (Matras, 2009; Thomason, 2001). A few of them are still influential nowadays. The hegemony is though held by English and its variants, the most representative being American English (Kovács, 2008). Globalization has contributed to the spread of English all over the world and to its status of lingua franca (Crystal, 2003). As stated by Ivan (2013, p. 210), the process of globalization is “a way of cooperation and integration of nations, economic and political systems, cultures and civilizations in a network of planetary collaboration.” This collaboration needs a “common communication instrument” (Ivan, 2013, p. 210), in order to guarantee a good functioning, a role taken over by English, maybe due to its prestige and geographical extent. The process of borrowing from English is typical of today’s evolution of some languages, particularly as a consequence of the fact that the borrowing language has accepted English as a lingua franca.
Anglicisms
The words borrowed from English are known as Anglicisms. The term is defined by English monolingual dictionaries as “a word or phrase that is peculiar to British English” or “a word or phrase borrowed from English into a foreign language” (English Oxford Living Dictionaries, 2020), and by American monolingual dictionaries as “a characteristic feature of English occurring in another language” or “adherence or attachment to English customs or ideas” (Merriam Webster, 2020). Foreign monolingual dictionaries consider an Anglicism to be an “English typical expression; word unnecessarily borrowed from English by another language and not integrated into it” (Dexonline, 2020), a “transfer from English into another language of some English–specific linguistic characteristics” (Duden Online-Wörterbuch, 2020), or a “word, syntactical turn or meaning of the English language introduced in another language” (Larousse, 2020). Throughout the years, many scholars (Avram, 1997; Badea, 2009; Ciobanu 2004; Fischer, 2008; Kovács, 2008; Kriston, 2015; Onysko, 2007; Stoichițoiu-Ichim, 2005) have attempted to define the term as comprehensively as possible, thus putting their own imprint on the concept clarification. For the purpose of this paper, the definition proposed by Badea (2009) has been considered most appropriate. Following Stoichițoiu-Ichim (2005, 2006), Badea (2009, p. 241) defined the term from a broader perspective, highlighting that “an Anglicism is a word borrowed from British or American English, which designates a word or concept typical to the English culture,” its use in the foreign language being either necessary or not. Moreover, as acknowledged by other scholars (Avram, 1997; Kriston, 2015), the concept refers to any linguistic unit and its pronunciation, and not merely to a single word.
The influence of English does not take place only at the European level, but also at the global one (Ivan, 2013; Postolache, 2015; Rus, 2005). After the Second World War, Anglo–American terms have been borrowed by numerous languages of the world (Postolache, 2015; Rus, 2005). The English influence “manifests on most of the languages spoken in the states that are an active part of this process [of globalization], and takes place in various degrees of extention and intensity according to each language, culture, mentality and civilization” (Ivan, 2013, p. 211).
Some languages, such as Romanian, are more open to change and novelty (Buzea, 2017; Ivan, 2013; Stoian, 2015), maybe due to their periods of transition, history, and cultural diversity. Others, like French, are more reluctant to external influences (Ivan, 2013), probably due to traditional, imperialist and competitive reasons. There are also languages, like German for example, which have adopted many words from English, maybe due to their necessity in various domains of use and their prestige and, at the same time, have lead purist and nationalist campaigns against it, adopting even legislative measures (Fischer, 2008; Kovács, 2008; Onysko, 2007; Şerban, 2012; Wilss, 1999). All in all, the borrowing of English and American terms to describe cultural realities is seen as “a sign of internationalisation” and modernization, while their rejection as a “manifestation of self–isolation and cultural provincialism” (Greavu, 2010, p. 98).
The impact one language has upon the other is mirrored mainly in the vocabulary (Kolodkina & Juinn Bing, 2008; Mladin, 2004; Postolache, 2015). The vocabulary of many languages across the world has been enlarged by English words in numerous specialized domains, such as media, science, technology, computers, medicine, and economy, and, at the same time, in everyday language. Borrowing from English is considered a means of enriching the language by some (Ivan, 2013), as languages need to evolve, renew and upgrade, and dangerous by others (Firică, 2017), as English may threaten the actual identity of the recipient language or become a barrier in the communication of those not familiar with it. The advantages seem to be precision, brevity, and internationalization (Kovács, 2008; Rus, 2005), while the disadvantages refer to the lack of correct adaptation or creation of pleonasms, hypercorrect forms, and illiterate variants (Buzatu, 2007; Rus, 2005).
The majority of Anglicisms are used in their original form, since they designate new changing realities which cannot be assimilated by language as quickly as they happen. This seems to be the reason why Anglicisms are not usually lexically, phonetically, and/or graphically adapted to the recipient languages (Ilinca & Tomescu, 2013). According to certain specialists (Ivan, 2013; Osiac, 2009), this makes them xenisms, or even, barbarisms. Their adaptation or inadaptation may be due to various reasons, such as the moment of borrowing, the speakers’ fluency in English, or the recipient language’s phonetic, inflectional, sematic, and writing systems (Buzea, 2017; Rus, 2005). Moreover, dictionaries do not provide much help, as they apparently cannot keep up with all the changes happening in languages, clarify them and coin new words, if necessary (Osiac, 2009).
The classification of linguistic borrowings mentioned previously can be applied also to Anglicisms, as they are a particular type of borrowing. Thus, some Anglicisms are considered necessary, while others unnecessary (Rus, 2005, p. 267). Anglicisms are further classified by different researchers as direct, when their orthography is visibly English, and indirect, when elements from the recipient language are used (Furiassi et al., 2012), old and new (Avram, 1997), having unique etymology and multiple etymologies (Avram, 1997; Hristea, 1984) or genuine and false, in which case they resemble and seem English, but are not found in English dictionaries (Furiassi, 2003; Hristea, 1984).
Study
As already mentioned, Anglicisms occur in many fields, being though more predominant in cuisine, sports, sciences, social life, economy, advertising, entertainment, and transport, in both oral and written languages (Zafiu, 2001). This can be observed in the existing research conducted on the topic and in the recently published specialized dictionaries (Buzea, 2017; Pungă, 2018; Stoian & Şimon, 2018; Şimon et al., 2018a; Şimon & Stoian, 2018).
One of the fields influenced by the English language is education (David & Tălmăcian, 2013; Ivan, 2013; Pungă, 2018). Education has changed during the years and has become more international than ever, favoring “the mobility of the pupils, students, teaching, administrative and management staff” (Şimon et al., 2018b). Nowadays, people can have “an international learning, teaching or training experience, taking place in the real or virtual world, as long as they meet some requirements” (Şimon et al., 2018c), one of them being fluency in an international language, such as English. At the same time, the materials promoted by educational institutions are also written in international languages. In this context, the contact between languages takes place frequently, and education seems to be a prolific field for linguistic borrowings, including Anglicisms.
Aim
The present article has focused on a new dictionary on the market, A Multilingual Dictionary of Education: English – German – French – Romanian (Şimon et al., 2018c), which contains around 2,000 terms and expressions used in the field of education and its related subfields, for example, distance learning, educational technology, educational leadership, critical pedagogy, educational psychology, curriculum, and instruction. In order to build the dictionary, the authors have consulted an extensive field-related bibliography and webography, namely around 150 articles, books and dictionaries, and have selected the relevant items. Moreover, four external scientific reviewers, experts in the linguistic and educational fields, have validated the authors’ choices.
The study has been carried out on a trilingual corpus gathered from the aforementioned dictionary, comprising the Anglicisms expressed by nouns, as these are easier to borrow and tend to be less adapted (Haspelmath, 2009; Şimon, 2016; Şimon & Suciu, 2014). The Anglicisms considered appear in the dictionary either in isolation or as part of an expression used in the field of education. Taking into account the ongoing process of globalization and the role assigned to English as a lingua franca, the research question formulated in the present study is: “To what extent does English pervade Romanian, German and French in the field of education in a time when even education is global and exchange programs between countries are the rule of the day?” To answer this question the following objectives have been set:
O1. To observe the presence of Anglicisms in the field of education in the three languages making up the corpus, relating it to the results presented by other similar studies (David & Tălmăcian, 2013; Ivan, 2013; Pungă, 2018).
O2. To analyze the findings comparatively, pointing out the similarities and differences between the three languages focused on, that is, Romanian, German, and French, since languages differ in their acceptance of borrowings (Buzea, 2017; Fischer, 2008; Ivan, 2013; Kovács, 2008; Onysko, 2007; Stoian, 2015; Şerban, 2012; Wilss, 1999).
The present study has not classified the identified Anglicisms according to the existing theories, as the differences are not clear cut (Avram, 1997; Badea, 2009; Ciobanu, 2004; Fischer, 2008; Kovács, 2008; Kriston, 2015; Onysko, 2007; Stoichițoiu-Ichim, 2005). Neither has it taken sides on whether Anglicisms are a threat to the languages in question or just a means of linguistic enrichment and renewal (Buzatu, 2007; Firică, 2017; Greavu, 2010; Ivan, 2013; Kovács, 2008; Rus, 2005).
Corpus and Methodology
The Anglicisms extracted from the multilingual dictionary of education mentioned in 3.1. have been identified in three different languages, namely in Romanian by the first two authors of this study, in French and German by the third and fourth author, respectively. In order to validate the inclusion of a particular term in the category of Anglicisms, that is, words borrowed from British or American English used in their original form in the recipient language, this has been looked up and verified in relevant dictionaries in the particular languages taken into account (Academia Română, 2010, 2016; Dexonline, 2020; DOOM, 2007; Duden, 2015; Duden Online-Wörterbuch, 2020; Larousse, 2020; Le Petit Robert, 2017; Marcu, 2015; Online Etymology Dictionary, 2020; Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé, 2020; Wiktionnaire, 2020; Wörterbuch Wortbedeutung.info, 2020). As aforementioned, all the Anglicisms identified in the dictionary have been considered for building the corpus, no matter if they are nouns used in isolation or in expressions. Moreover, if the Anglicism appeared both alone and as part of an expression, it has been taken into account only once.
The following Anglicisms have been identified in Romanian in the multilingual dictionary:
(1) after–school, audit, background, brainstorming, brainwriting, campus, coach, coaching, e–learning, feedback, grant, item, know–how, leadership, management, marketing, mass–media, master, media, m–learning, peer–review, quiz, scaffolding, software, standard, test.
The Anglicisms found in German are:
(2) After–School, Bachelor, Brainstorming, Brainwriting, Campus, Coach, Essay, Feedback, Grant, Interview, Item, Leadership, Logo, Management, Marketing, Mass–Media, Master, Peer–Review, Quiz, Scaffolding, Software, Standard, Team, Test, Website.
Finally, in French, the Anglicisms included in the dictionary are:
(3) brainstorming, brainwriting, campus, coach, coaching, e–learning, feedback, interview, item, leader, leadership, marketing, master, quiz, standard, test.
Results
In relation to the first objective of the research, the results have shown that, in the case of Romanian, of the 2,000 terms and expressions used in the field of education and included in the multilingual dictionary analyzed, 26 have been borrowed as such from English. In other words, 1.3% of the terms and expressions used in Romanian in the field of education have come from English. In German, 25 Anglicisms have been found, and, in French, 16, that is, 1.25% and 0.8%, respectively, as indicated in Chart 1. The number of Anglicisms encountered is not as high as indicated by previous studies in the field (David & Tălmăcian, 2013; Ivan, 2013; Pungă, 2018).
Anglicisms used in the field of education in Romanian, German, and French.
Originating field of study of the trilingual corpus.
Turning to the second objective of the research, both similitudes and differences have been encountered. Considering the similitudes existing between the three languages, the following Anglicisms are common: brainstorming, brainwriting, campus, coach, feedback, item, leadership, marketing, master, quiz, standard, and test, as can be seen in (1), (2), (3) above and Table 1 below. This shows that almost 50% of the Romanian and German corpora and 75% of the French corpus are identical. Between the Romanian and the German corpora, there are even more similarities, as they add to the list of common borrowings: after–school, grant, management, mass–media, peer–review, scaffolding and software, that is, approximately 27%. Romanian and French share two Anglicisms, namely coaching and e-learning, that is, almost 8% and 12.5% of the two corpora taken separately. Finally, German and French share the Anglicism interview, in other words, 4% in the first case and 6.25% in the second case.
Originating Field of Study of the Trilingual Corpus.
The differences that exist between the three languages in terms of the Anglicisms are highlighted next. Approximately 19% of the corpus in Romanian is different from the other two languages, as indicated by the following terms: audit, background, know–how, media and m–learning. In German, 20% of the Anglicisms are not found in the other languages, that is, Bachelor, Essay, Logo, Team, and Website. French, instead, has only one borrowing different from Romanian and German, the Anglicism leader, that is, approximately 6% of its entire corpus.
An interesting observation is the fact that not all the Anglicisms used in the field of education that make up the present trilingual corpus belong strictly to this particular field, but they are rather used in the field in various expressions. Apart from the education-related Anglicisms found, that is, after-school, brainstorming, brainwriting, campus, coach, coaching, e–learning, item, know–how, master, m–learning, peer–review, quiz, scaffolding, team, test, the others have originated in different fields of study as can be noticed in (4) to (13) and Table 1 below:
(4) arts: background,
(5) communication: interview, mass-media, media,
(6) engineering: feedback,
(7) finance: grant,
(8) information technology: software, website,
(9) literature: essay,
(10) management: leader, leadership, management
(11) marketing: marketing,
(12) military: standard, and
(13) semiotics: logo.
In other words, in Romanian, 58% of the Anglicisms found belong to the field of education and 42% to other fields. Similarly, in German, 52% are from education and 48% from different fields. French, in turn, has 62.5% education-related Anglicisms and 32.5% from other fields than education.
These findings show that English has not influenced the language of education of Romanian, German, and French to the same extent to which this is used to foster global education and international educational exchanges (Fang, 2019). Even if it is used as a lingua franca for communication, the actual number of education terms borrowed from English are few.
Conclusion
The present study has focused on language contact in today’s society. One of its consequences, linguistic borrowing, has been discussed from the point of view of Anglicisms, understood as a linguistic unit borrowed from British and American English designating something particular of its culture and maintaining its initial form. The corpus consists of Anglicisms used in the field of education and has been collected from a new multilingual dictionary on the market. The languages considered have been Romanian, German, and French.
The findings have shown that Romanian and German have borrowed more Anglicisms than French, a result that is not surprising since legislative measures have been taken in France, in the second part of the 20th century, to protect the language from the borrowing of foreign words (Wilss, 1999). Similarities regarding the actual borrowings exist more between Romanian and German than between Romanian and French or German and French. There are also Anglicisms that are present in only one of the languages, and not in the other two. From this perspective, the number of Anglicisms that are used only in Romanian or German is larger than the one used exclusively in French. An interesting finding is the fact that a little less than the half of the Anglicisms used in the field of education has originated in other fields of study.
Even if not significant in number, the Anglicisms used in the field of education sustain the research discussed in the theoretical part of the present article, indicating that Romanian and German are more open to change and linguistic borrowing from English, while French is more traditional and reluctant. Nevertheless, the number of Anglicisms is not as high as predicted by the studies consulted that have emphasized the tendency of languages to borrow words from other languages, nowadays particularly from English viewed as a lingua franca, a language exerting huge influence on all the languages it comes into contact with. This may be due to the fact that education represents a well–established field, existing since ancient times, many of the terms being coined long before the hegemony of English. At the same time, it may indicate that education, even if international and multicultural, retains a national specificity.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors would like to thank Politehnica University of Timişoara, Romania, for supporting their work by the research grant PCD–TC–2017 (16183/21.11.2017, code 30, Competition 2017 PCD–TC).
