Globally Speaking : Motives for Adopting English Vocabulary in Other Languages

The volume examines the motives for lexical borrowing from English during the last century, the processes involved in the penetration of English vocabulary into new environments, and the extent of its integration into twelve languages representing several language families. Many of these absorbing languages are studied here for the first time. Contents List of Figures Contributors Introduction 1. The Hegemony of English and Determinants of Borrowing from Its Vocabulary 2. Icelandic: Phonosemantic Matching 3. French: Tradition versus Innovation as Reflected in English Borrowings 4. Dutch: Is It Threatened by English? 5. Hungarian: Trends and Determinants of English Borrowing in a Market Economy Newcomer 6. Russian: From Socialist Realism to Reality Show 7. Hebrew: Borrowing Ideology and Pragmatic Aspects in a Modern(ised) Language 8. Colloquial Arabic (in Israel): The Case of English Loan Words in a Minority Language with Diglossia 9. Amharic: Political and Social Effects on English Loan Words 10. Farsi: The Modernisation Process and the Advent of English 11. Indian Languages: Hidden English in Texts and Society 12. Chinese in Taiwan: Cooking a Linguistic Chop Suey and Embracing English 13. Japanese: The Dialectic Relationships Between ‘Westerness’ and ‘Japaneseness’ as Reflected in English Loan Words 14. Conclusion: Features of Borrowing from English in 12 Languages Bibliography Index "This volume accounts for the motives for contemporary lexical borrowing from English, using a comparative approach and a broad cross-cultural perspective. It investigates the processes involved in the penetration of English vocabulary into new environments and the extent of their integration into twelve languages representing several language families, including Icelandic, Dutch, French, Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, Persian, Japanese, Taiwan Chinese, and several languages spoken in southern India. Some of these languages are studied here in the context of borrowing for the first time ever. All in all, this volume suggests that the English lexical 'invasion', as it is often referred to, is a natural and inevitable process. It is driven by psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and socio-historical factors, of which the primary determinants of variability are associated with ethnic and linguistic diversity."--Jacket

This volume accounts for the motives for contemporary lexical borrowing from English, using a comparative approach and a broad cross-cultural perspective. It investigates the processes involved in the penetration of English vocabulary into new environments and the extent of their integration into twelve languages representing several language families, including Icelandic, Dutch, French, Russian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, Persian, Japanese, Taiwan Chinese, and several languages spoken in southern India. Some of these languages are studied here in the context of borrowing for the first time ever. All in all, this volume suggests that the English lexical 'invasion', as it is often referred to, is a natural and inevitable process. It is driven by psycholinguistic, sociolinguistic, and socio-historical factors, of which the primary determinants of variability are associated with ethnic and linguistic diversity.

Accounts for the motives for contemporary lexical borrowing from English, using a comparative approach and a cross-cultural perspective. This volume investigates the processes involved in the penetration of English vocabulary into new environments and the extent of their integration into twelve languages representing several language families