UNIVERSIDAD TÉCNICA PARTICULAR DE LOJA
La Universidad Católica de Loja
ESCUELA DE CIENCIAS DE LA EDUCACIÓN
MENCIÓN INGLÉS
MODALIDAD ABIERTA Y A DISTANCIA
A DESCRIPTIVE ANALYSIS OF ANGLICISMS USED IN
ECUADORIAN NEWSPAPERS
Research done in order to achieve the Bachelor’s Degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language
AUTHOR:
Ribadeneira Sylva María Cecilia
DIRECTOR:
Dra. María Arias Córdova
CENTRO UNIVERSITARIO QUITO
i CERTIFICATION
Dr. María Arias Córdova
CERTIFIES THAT:
This research work has been thoroughly revised by the graduation committee. Therefore, authorizes the presentation of this thesis, which complies with all the norms and internal requirements of the Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja.
Loja, July 15th, 2010
ii CONTRATO DE CESIÓN DE DERCHOS DE TESIS DE GRADO
Yo, María Cecilia Ribadeneira Sylva, declaro ser autora del presente trabajo y eximo expresamente a la Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja y a sus representantes legales de posibles reclamos o acciones legales.
Adicionalmente declaro conocer y aceptar la disposición del Art. 67 del Estatuto Orgánico de la Universidad Técnica Particular de Loja que en su parte pertinente textualmente dice: “formar parte del patrimonio de la Universidad la propiedad intelectual de investigaciones, trabajos científicos o técnicos y tesis de grado que se realicen a través, o que el apoyo financiero, académico o institucional (operativo) de la Universidad”.
iii AUTHORSHIP
The thoughts, ideas, opinions and the information obtained through this research are the only responsibility of the Author.
iv DEDICATION
This thesis is dedicated firstly to my son, Luis Enrique, the love of my life, who is my entire inspiration and the most beautiful reason to complete this career.
I would like also to dedicate this work to my lovely husband, Alfonso, without his help I would have never achieved this goal in my life for all his love and his patience.
Also, I want to thank my beloved parents, Enrique y María, who have raised me to be the person I am today.
Thank you all for being with me along the way.
v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to the teachers at UTPL for their knowledgeable direction during these years of study.
My sincere thanks to Dra. María Arias, for her guidance during the research process.
vi TABLE OF CONTENTS
CERTIFICATION………i
CONTRATO DE CESIÓN DE DERECHOS DE TESIS DE GRADO ………..ii
AUTHORSHIP ……….iii
DEDICATION ………..iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………..v
Abstract ………...1
Introduction .……….3
Methodology ……….……….7
Results ………..………..9
Discussion, Theoretical Background……….43
Results Description, Analysis, and Interpretation.………86
Conclusions ………..………..120
Bibliography ………..123
1 Abstract
The topic of this research is “A descriptive analysis of
anglicisms used in Ecuadorian newspapers”. The research was
done in Quito. Three newspapers were selected for field research,
“El Comercio”, “Ultimas Noticias” and the tabloid “El Extra”.
Special attention was paid to the three general objectives:
• To become aware of the variation in language usage in
newspapers regarding the expressions containing anglicisms.
• To identify the social factors for language change in our
country, emphasizing the influence of English.
• To become conscious of the unnecessary use of expressions
borrowed from foreign languages.
Also, three variables were proposed in the area of
investigation: A National Newspaper, a Local newspaper and a
Tabloid.
A thorough reading was made during seven days from the
three mentioned variables to find the anglicisms used, and their
frequency. This was made in order to understand and appreciate
this study, which I believe will help those literate linguists who
schoolwork our language in order to improve it everyday.
In my opinion, this work has relevant importance, due to the
fact that little research has been done upon this issue. It has been
2 because besides reading and examining about anglicisms adopted
in Spanish and several other languages in order to complete this
paper efficiently, I had to investigate, interview, analyze, deliberate
and arrive into conclusions.
This study will decide whether the anglicisms included in our
daily papers improve or deteriorate our language, by studying the
repetitions and treatment given by writers to every anglicism
found; reasons why it has been included a sample of the context
3 Introduction
Nowadays it has become impossible for us to avoid English
words. When watching TV, surfing on the internet or listening to
the radio we always come across with some terms that do not have
Spanish origin, most of the time they have English origin, but what
provokes the use or the borrowing of certain words and its
inclusion to our language?
As well as our native indians experienced the invasion of
Spaniards, thus, adopting Spanish terms into their native
language due to the lack of equivalent words to refer to new things
introduced such as guns and rifles, even imported food; we also
have suffered the invasion of certain effects coming from new
technology, food and customs such as holidays, therefore,
acquiring English terms with the exact definition, sometimes
enriching our language and others deteriorating it by replacing
existing Spanish terms.
Furthermore, upon the broad presence of the media that has
led us to increasingly exchange our lexicon, this paper is aimed to
present a Descriptive Analysis of Anglicisms Used in Ecuadorian
Newspapers, in order to comply with what was requested by
4 contains an exhaustive research of anglicisms used in samples of
seven days from the major newspapers circulating in Ecuador.
Unfortunately, similar researches about this topic are few,
leaving this subject mostly to our discretion and study. In a
research made by P. Zurita (2005): “Economic anglicisms:
adaptation to the Spanish linguistic system”, I found a
comprehensive analysis and a detailed glossary of the most
habitual terms derived from interference in English and Spanish in
the economic field. Other papers talk about adaptation of English
terms into German, French, Hindi, etc. But I was not able to find
any researches or essays related to Anglicisms used in Ecuadorian
Newspapers.
This work, therefore, represents a valuable tool as the topic
under discussion has not been deeply analysed or investigated. It
also includes information that can be used to start a profound
study of the vocabulary used by mass media to determine the
enrichment or weakening of our language when using anglicisms.
It was necessary to use few, accessible and affordable
resources to complete this study fundamentally: Seven-day
samples of El Comercio, Últimas Noticias newspapers, and El
Extra tabloid, several titles borrowed from San Francisco
University, and Central University. Additionally, this study
5 teachers, Language teachers, and a Journalist, also tools like a
desktop with uninterrupted internet in order to reach an analysis.
The study was motivated mainly by my wish to be awarded a
Bachelor’s Degree in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. In
spite of all that, I was not able to avoid limitations, due to
insufficient information about the topic and time availability.
This work was analyzed against every Specific Objective set for
this Theses:
- To determine the level of influence of the English language on
the linguistic expressions used in Ecuadorian newspapers.
Definitively English influences Ecuadorian newspapers writer’s
language, either to better explain their ideas, or to reach the part of
the population they wanted to address, sometimes enriching
Spanish, others deteriorating it with meaningless phrases.
- To identify syntactic and lexical anglicisms more commonly
used in newspaper material in Ecuador.
Lexical borrowing is also demonstrated by Imported,
substituted, transferred or reproduced terms.
- To make a deep analysis of the anglicisms found in Ecuadorian
newspapers regarding etymological, syntactic-semantic and
morphological aspects.
These studies were possible due to valuable resources such as
6 included in this analysis, plus an opinion about several
adaptations to our Language.
- To determine the written sections of Ecuadorian newspapers in
which anglicisms are mostly used.
- To discover the level of acceptance Ecuadorians have on the use
of anglicisms in newspapers.
Regarding all the opinions collected from several professionals,
plus the analysis made, reflect a sustained outlook to the fact that
Anglicisms are part of our live language, they affect it either
positively or negatively, depending on the term they are replacing,
and that Ecuadorian newspapers are increasingly using English
terminology in their daily editions. In my opinion this happens to
7 Methodology
To reach the analysis subject of this study, every anglicism
found was tabulated under every variable, then under one of their
five sub-variables, representing the most important sections of the
papers. Upon this tabulation, some of these adopted terms were
evaluated linguistically, comparatively, and sociologically, in order
to attain the conclusions.
The steps I followed to collect all this data were:
Firstly, all the newspapers bought on a daily basis were fully
read, article by article, underlining all the words believed to be
anglicisms, including accepted and not accepted by the Real
Academia Española de la Lengua.
Secondly, a list of those words was made and they were
looked up in the RAE dictionary, downloaded from the internet. If
the word was found in this dictionary clearly stating: “from
English”, that meant that the word came from the English
language and constitutes an accepted Anglicism.
If I was not sure that the word was an anglicism, or it was
not in the RAE dictionary, it was looked up in an English
Dictionary. If the word was in the English dictionary, it meant that
it also constituted a word imported from the English language, but
8 Having all the doubts explained, I started transferring word
by word into the formatted tables provided by the University by
date, variable, and newspaper, completing Charts 1 through 15.
In order to complete Charts No. 16, 17, and 18, I added up
the number of repetitions of every word in the same newspaper for
all the 7 days of information collected by Newspaper and by
variable, and copied the number of repetitions into every chart.
Finally, to complete Chart No. 19, I copied and pasted all the
words into one big file in order to sort them out alphabetically and
have all the repetitions together. I tabulated them, added all the
repetitions and completed the chart.
The anglicisms and their repetitions as stated in these
charts, which constitute the subject of our research, were found in
newspapers circulating in the city of Quito. El Comercio and El
Extra which have a daily editions were bought straight from
October 26th to November 1st, but due to the Ecuadorian national
holiday of November 2nd and 3rd and also because Ultimas Noticias
does not have a editions on Saturdays and Sundays, the local
newspaper was bought from October 26th to 30th, and from
November 4th to 5th.
9 Results
I, hereby, include the results of the field investigation
performed in seven days of a National newspaper such as “El
Comercio” and the Tabloid “El Extra”, from October 26th to
November 1st, and the Local newspaper “Ultimas Noticias” from
October 26th to the 30th, and from November 4th to the 5th, due to
All Saints Day holiday where this newspaper did not circulate.
All the pages, including spotted commercial advertisements,
were read. The adapted terms found were ascertained against the
DRAE or Merriam-Webster’s Dictionaries to make sure they are
anglicisms.
These newspapers constitute the variables of our study, and
the sub-variables are: News, Advertisements, Reports, Social
pages, and Sports pages, representing all the newspapers sections
that were part of this investigation.
To avoid monotony in the lecture of the Tables, I have hidden
all the repetitions of the anglicisms found after a thorough reading
of all these newspapers and tabloid, but the number resulting at
the end of every table is the real number of repetitions found per
variable, to procure a meticulous study and not a mere sampling.
43 Discussion
Theoretical Background
In order to analyse the object of this work, I will hereby
present some investigation and research done about sensitive
headings required to understand this topic.
Language
Language constitutes the central object of study in
linguistics, but the term covers several rather different concepts
which need to be carefully distinguished;
According to Tetel (1990) and her analysis of language to
begin with, of course, we need to distinguish between an individual
language—such as English or Swedish—and language in general.
She remarks that most linguists believe that all individual
languages mandatorily have important properties in common;
otherwise, linguistics would be an unrewarding discipline, and
every individual language is therefore a combination of these
universal properties with a number of accidental and often
idiosyncratic features. For some experienced linguists, the
universal properties are the ones of greatest interest, but the only
way we can arrive to these properties is by examining individual
44 In order to comply with this requirement, we can number a
list of different strategies, such as the one suggested by Noam
Chomsky who hoped to identify deep principles in few languages
calling this Universal Grammar. Others, though, disregard this
approach as narrow and misleading, and prefer to proceed
studying large number of different languages structurally and
looking for both generalizations and interesting diversity.
A quick definition of language by the Education and Career
Information Portal from UniXL, which I totally agree with, is: “A
language is considered to be a system of communicating with other
people using sounds, symbols and words in expressing a meaning,
idea or thought. This language can be used in many forms,
primarily through oral and written communications as well as
using expressions through body language.” Language is, in their
opinion, intimately tied to a man’s feelings and activity. It is
bound up with nationality, religion, and the feeling of self. It is
used for work, worship, and play by everyone, either poor or rich,
savage or civilized.
Lots of sciences such as Linguistics, psychology,
anthropology, education, geopolitics, to mention a few; have to deal
with language systematically. To teachers and linguists, it is the
central subject of study, with the linguist concentrating on its
45 This Information Portal also gives the definition of Human
Language in which they primarily denote the difference between
one language and another; due to the difference between countries,
cultures, environment and other elements that have helped evolve
to an own and unique style of language.
According to Lado (1964), language has not developed as a
gift; it is part of the culture of people and the most important way
by which members of a society communicate. Language would be
then a component of culture and a central network through which
the other elements are expressed. He states that the cultural
differences between societies difficult the learning of a second
language; and that language attaches specific words and phrases
to the most frequent and most important cultural meanings.
Therefore, all the English speaking countries have their own
peculiarities, words and accents, so American English would not
be the same as British English and neither would be the same as
Australian English; or Canadian French would not be the same as
French from France.
Linguistics
We are now going to describe Linguistics according to several
authors who have studied the subject and whose expertise will lead
us to a better comprehension and explanation of its concept and
46 Lado (1964), defines linguistics as: “The science that
describes and classifies languages. The linguist identifies and
describes the units and patterns of the sound system, the words
and morphemes, and the phrases and sentences, that is, the
structure of a language. The native speakers of a language are not
aware of the structure of their language. Through folk traditions
handed down to them, they may have the notion that this or that
commonly used form is incorrect. They know that words have to
be learned, but they forget that sounds intonation, stress, and
sentence patterns have to learn also.”
He divides linguistics into phonology for the sound system,
morphology for the patterns and parts of words, and syntax for the
patterns of phrases and sentences. But we link Pragmatics and
Semantics to his sub-divisions, which will be described below in
this paper.
To help understand Linguistics and its branches, it is
specified by The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as “The study
of human speech including the units, nature, structure, and
modification of language.” These elements constitute the general
divisions in which Linguistics complexify, in colloquial terms that
any reader would understand.
Moncayo (1972), in a copied document originally in Spanish,
47 scientific and accurate analysis of a language. That is to say, that
linguistics does not tell us how to teach a language; however, its
scientific analysis gives us a precise and accurate description of
what language is a much more advanced concept from the one
given by traditional grammar. Moncayo (1972), also says that this
analysis helps us to build a solid base for the teaching material
design and a very reasoned explanation for its use, and provides us
with a defined, economic and systematic catalogue of the learning
difficulties students find when they are trying to master a foreign
language.
To complement Moncayo’s idea, Lado (1964) remarks that it
is not enough to speak a language to be qualified to teach it. Even
the native speaker cannot model the language or guide the
students unless he can isolate and demonstrate its various
elements. They must know the description of the structure of the
language, and the facts of the language of the students in order to
understand the particular problems they will have in leaning the
target language; therefore the teacher must familiarize himself with
the major changes that the language has undergone in its history.
Branches
Linguistics, then, in its wide concept distinguishes several
branches which I will try to summarize to the best of my abilities
48
Phonology
The first branch to be described is Phonology, as proposed by
Lado (1964), as the scientific explanation of a language, their
sub-phonemic variants (allophones), and their patterns of occurrence in
sequences.
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia Online defines Phonology as:
Phonology: (from Ancient Greek: φωνή, phōnē, "voice, sound"
and λόγος, lógos, "word, speech, subject of discussion") is the
systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken
human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use.
Just as a language has syntax and vocabulary, it also has
phonology in the sense of a sound system. When describing the
formal area of study, the term typically describes linguistic
analysis either beneath the word (e.g., syllable, onset and
rhyme, phoneme, articulate gesture, articulative feature, mora,
etc.) or to units at all levels of language that are thought to
structure sound for conveying linguistic meaning. It is viewed
as the subfield of linguistics that deals with the sound systems
of languages. Whereas phonetics is about the physical
production, acoustic transmission and perception of the sounds
of speech, phonology describes the way sounds function within
a given language or across languages to encode meaning. The
49 the 20th century as a cover term uniting phonemics and
phonetics. Current phonology can interface with disciplines
such as psycholinguistics and speech perception, resulting in
specific areas like articulative or laboratory phonology.
Description that fully characterizes the aim of this science,
which is devoted to the explanation of the sounds a language
produces, beginning with the minimal expression to the most
difficult articulative elements to be clearly understood and
differentiated between words.
Morphology
As defined by several linguists, Morphology is the study of
the internal morphological structure of words, in contrast with
syntax, which is the study of the patterns in which words combine
with each other. It is the special kind of structure whose patterns
are directly relevant to either syntax or semantics because of its
closeness to the meaning of words.
Wiśniewski, Kamil (2007), in the tlumaczenia-angielski.info
web page visited in order to identify the correct meaning of
Morphology; names it as the division of linguistics that deals with
the study of words, their internal structure and some of their
significances. It also tells us how the speakers of a certain
language understand difficult words and create new ones.
50 of words (or the way words are spoken), it is also associated with
lexical studies as the patterns studied by this subject that we
apply to produce new words.
This author sustains that Morphology identifies morphemes,
which are the smallest part of expression associated with a unit of
meaning, and its several types; listed as follows:
1. bases or roots, which are associated with the core meaning,
e.g. book;
2. Inflectional morphemes that attach to bases without
changing the class of words, etc. e.g. book, a noun, plus s,
resulting in books, still a noun; and,
3. Derivational morphemes that change the core meaning and
often the class of the word, e.g. book, a noun plus ish, a
derivational morpheme, produces an adjective, bookish.
Morphology identifies and classifies the morphemes and
describes the types of combinations that build words in the
language. Their sample with the word house itself tells us that
include one morpheme, and due to its own properties and self
understanding it can be called Free Morpheme. If we added an S
to House to make it plural, the S itself does not carry a singular
meaning; therefore it would be called Bound Morpheme also
referred to as affixes, among which there are prefixes, infixes, and
51 What is more, the S attached to house, which is a free
morpheme, can be called Stem that is what a bound morpheme is
attached to.
Additionally, free morphemes can be categorized in two:
Lexical Morphemes, which are the words that carry their own
significance, such as verbs, adjectives, nouns, etc. Since there is
no problem in attaching new units to this group of words they act
as open class of words. On the other hand, they call Functional
morphemes to the closed class of words such as articles,
prepositions, pronouns, which do not carry any meaning by
themselves, however they comply with a grammatical purpose.
Semantics
The meaning of semantics should not be a rhetorical
question, if we answered this question we would summarize it as
the study of how persons respond to words and other symbols, or
the attitude toward language, reality, and human behaviour.
As John C. Condon Jr. (1970) shares his idea of Semantics as the
study of meanings, there are, however, many approaches to
meaning, and not all are relevant to this book. One may trace the
historical development of language (etymology or philology) or
study language families, dialect, or grammar (aspects of
52 words in order to understand current usage. Although clearly
related, these approaches are not central to our interest.
In this century, regarding Condon, the study of meaning has
expanded to include not only the symbol-referent relationship
(traditional “semantics”) but also the behaviour that results from
our language habits. This broader, more frankly ambitious
approach is called General Semantics, a term coined by count
Alfred Korzybski (1877-1950), and supported by Condon. He
believed that language not only influenced our thinking, but all of
human behaviour. The effect, he felt, was part of our nervous
systems. Thus, if our language habits were immature or deformed,
our behaviour would also be less than mature. The newer
emphasis in general semantics continues to be on behaviour, for it
can no longer be limited the meaning of a word to a mere
dictionary definition. A more sophisticated approach to language,
and this is what semantics is all about, can afford very little.
The assumption that whatever words might be considered,
they are definitely something very different from the things they
represent. Semantics, which is the study of words and things,
usually begins with that assumption of duality. The distinction
has usually been stated in the negative: “the word is not the
thing”. Linguists and psycholinguists are developing descriptions
53 scientist currently have pursued the investigation of things.
Studying the relationship between the two special fields of the
semanticists. Thus the semanticist is interested not only in “words”
as different from “things” but even more in the persistent
responses to symbols as opposed to possible reactions to
something in the nonverbal world.
Semantics has been described, hereby, as the science of
meaning, but still could be described more simply as being the part
of linguistics that deals with the theory of meaning. With such
differentiation is implied that to enter the field of semantics it is
not necessary to be a scientific in an absolute sense, but merely
reflective.
Indeed, it is only at our mature stage that we become
self-conscious about language and communication, and for this reason
also with semantics. As students we may feel that we are among
intelligent people, because we take now very seriously the noises
made by people around us, even the sound of our own voice.
Syntax
Through this science and its study of sentences, we can see
how words are put together to make sentences with sense.
Bernard (1993), studied Syntax first of all giving its
Etymological meaning: this word has a Greek origin, Syn that
54 meant the action of coordinate, fix, and organize. With the
progress of grammatical studies, it forced the Greeks to build their
own terminology for such actions, as the grammarians did, in
order to express different facts. Therefore, on one hand they used
it to designate the union or coordination of words in the sentence,
on the other hand, they used it to refer to the union of letters in
the word and separation of syllables. Finally, Apolonio Discolo,
grammarian and researcher of the Greek language was who used
the word “Syntax” in the modern style given to this term.
Syntax, then is the sentence’s general theory, considering
the phenomena verified when words form part of a sentence. It is
advisable, noting that to some extent it is artificial to separate the
syntax of the morphology, since most of the morphological
phenomena are conditioned by the function that words perform in
the sentence.
Within communication there are elements in the intellectual
order that are not present when words are studied individually.
Truth is that each term, besides its lexicological content, it
increases with others that we can call psychological. The study of
problems arisen by the combination of words in the action of
expressing thoughts is subject of Syntax. To add up, syntax not
55 constructions formed with words and through which we can
exteriorize what they mean to us.
Needless to say, the essence of language is not present in its
elements but in its architecture. So the speaking analysis has to
be done by great elocutive masses. We cannot speak without
words, neither can we communicate with “only” words; to make it
happen we need the construction that organizes the phrase, the
sentence, the clause, the tense in a word, the functions; the link
and cohesion of words to form a simple sentence, and also the
bonding and coordination of simple sentences to make compound
sentences or tenses.
With this definition, Syntax is divided in two: One that deals
the link between two or more words to form a simple sentence, and
its named “syntax of a simple sentence” and the other that deals
the link between two or more sentences to form the tenses, and it
is called “syntax of compound sentence”. Syntax has also been
divided in regular and figurative. Regular syntax demands from
sentence to have what we call direct or descendent construction, it
means that every term should be in a determined place according
to the corresponding order. In the descending construction, words
are ordered to complete and clarify the meaning of the previous
word. Figurative syntax however, ignores the direct construction
56 strength and elegance to the expression. Syntax has three
principles: the consistency, the regime and the construction.
Interpreting what George (1974) states about Syntax, taken
from the Spanish translated version and put into English to the
best of my abilities, I can say that it is the integration of certain
rules through which we can manipulate the sign sets or languages.
In syntax, he remarks, the linguist describes the patterns of
arrangement of words in phrases and sentences and the matters of
agreement among words. The fact that the word order of the
sentence, be it a question or an affirmation is part of syntax. It is
also a matter of syntax that the adjective precedes the noun in
English but follows it in Spanish. Similarly, it is a matter of syntax
that in different languages nouns take different articles masculine
or feminine for the same one.
Lado (1964) on the other hand, defines Syntax as “The
patterns of construction of morphemes and words into phrases
and sentences in a language.”
Syntax helps us then, according to knowledgeable
grammarians, to study the correct organization of a sentence, to
57
Pragmatics
Watzlawick, Helmick and Jackson (1967) suggest that the
study of human communication can be subdivided into the same
three areas of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics for the study of
semiotic (the general theory of signs and languages). Applied to
the framework or human communication, then the first of these
three areas can be said to cover the problems of transmitting
information and is, therefore, the primary domain of the
information theorists. Their concern lies with the problems of
coding, channels, capacity, noise, redundancy, and other
statistical properties of language. These problems are primarily
syntactical ones, and he is not interested in the meaning of
message symbols. Meaning is the main concern of semantics,
while it is perfectly possible to transmit strings of symbols with
syntactical accuracy, they would remain meaningless unless
sender and receiver had agreed beforehand on their significance.
In this sense, all shared information presupposes semantic
convention.
To summarize, communication affects behaviour, and this is
its pragmatic aspect. As long as a clear conceptual separation is
thus possible of the three areas, they are nevertheless
interdependent. They metaphorically state the meaning of
58 mathematical logic, semantics is philosophy or philosophy of
science, and pragmatics is psychology, but these fields are not
really all distinct”
Mainly pragmatics deals with the behavioural effects of
communication. In this connection it should be made clear from
the outset that the two terms communication and behaviour are
used virtually synonymously. For the data of pragmatics are not
only words, their configurations, and meanings, which are the data
of syntactics and semantics, but their nonverbal concomitants and
body language as well. Even more, we would add to personal
behavioural actions the communicational clues inherent in the
context in which communication occurs. Consequently, from this
perspective of pragmatics, all behaviour, not only speech, is
communication, and all communication affects behaviour.
Morphological Procedures
Derivational morphology by A Dictionary of Grammatical
Terms in Linguistics by R. L. Trask (1993) is: “n. (also lexical
morphology ) that branch of morphology dealing with word
formation, particularly (but not exclusively) with derivation (sense
1). Cf. inflectional morphology”.
It corresponds to the branch of morphology that belongs to
word formation, i.e. concerning to the lexical relations among
59 which deals with inflectional variation on a single lexeme. For
example, derivational morphology is responsible for pairs like the
following:
• derive - derivation
• derivation - derivational
• morpheme - morphology
• tidy - untidy
We can handle derivational morphology by linking all related
lexemes and then generalising across these links. For example,
there is a general pattern in English for forming 'actor' nouns out
of verbs, giving pairs like TEACH - TEACHER, DRIVE - DRIVER
and so on. If we call this link `actor-nominalization' (e.g. TEACHER
is the actor-nominalization of TEACH)
Compounding is a branch of Morphology that gives us
explanations of how words are formed and linked together. In
composition we can study and learn the correct formation of
lexemes whose stems consist of the stems of two other lexemes;
Book-case to cite an example.
Wikipedia teaches us this process of morphology as the
process of forming a word by linking two or more existing terms:
newspaper, babysit, video game, etc. Compounding or
Word-compounding is the ability and device of language to create new
60 compound, compounding or word-compounding happens if a
person links two or more words together to make one word out of
them. The significance of the words are interrelated so the new
word comes out with a totally different meaning from the words
taken. Colloquial or everyday examples of compounds are fireman
and hardware.
With regards to the Guide to Grammar and Writing and
Principles of Composition’s point of view about Composition, in
English, words, especially adjectives and nouns, are combined into
compound structures in a variety of ways. When they are already
composed, they mutate over the years. Eventually, words are
joined by a hyphen, e.g. fire-fly, and then over the time they are
joined together to form only one word to read firefly.
They advise us that the only sure way to know how to spell
compounds in English: use an authoritative dictionary.
There are three types of compound words:
• the closed form, in which the words are melded together, such
as firefly, secondhand, softball, childlike, crosstown, redhead,
keyboard, makeup, notebook;
• the hyphenated form, such as daughter-in-law, master-at-arms,
over-the-counter, six-pack, six-year-old, mass-produced;
• And the open form, such as post office, real estate, middle class,
61 How a word modified by an adjective — "a little school," "the
yellow butter" — is different from a compound word — " a high
school," "the peanut butter" — is an interesting and philosophical
question. It clearly has something to do with the degree to which
the preceding word changes the essential character of the noun,
the degree to which the modifier and the noun are inseparable. If
you were diagramming a sentence with a compound word, you
would probably keep the words together, on the same horizontal
line.
Modifying compounds are regularly hyphenated to prevent
confusion. The New York Public Library's Writer's Guide points out
that an old-furniture salesman clearly deals in old furniture, but
an old furniture salesman would be an old man. We would not
have such ambiguity, however, about a used car dealer. Since
compounded modifiers precede a noun, they are often hyphenated:
part-time teacher, fifty-yard-wide field, fire-resistant curtains,
high-speed chase. When those same modifying words come after
the noun, however, they are not hyphenated: a field fifty yards
wide, curtains that are fire resistant, etc. The second-rate opera
company gave a performance that was first rate.
Comparative and superlative forms of adjectives are
hyphenated when compounded with other modifiers: the
62 the most talented youngster. Adverbs, words ending in -ly, are not
hyphenated when compounded with other modifiers: a highly rated
bank, a partially refunded ticket, publicly held securities.
Sometimes hyphenated modifiers lose their hyphens when
they become compound nouns: A clear decision-making process
was evident in their decision making. The bluish grey was slowly
disappearing from the bluish-grey sky. This is not always so,
however: a rise apartment building is also known as a
high-rise.
When modifying a person with his or her age, the
compounded phrase is hyphenated: my six-year-old son.
Nevertheless, when the age comes after the person, we don't use a
hyphen. My son is six years old. He is, therefore, a six-year-old.
Composition then, withholds several characteristics which
makes it easier to understand the formation of words, and to keep
the language accurately spoken/written and/or taught.
Parasynthesis We call Parasynthesis a type of word
formation in which a phrase is combined with an affix, as in
red-haired, or with a suffix as in love-ly. Or, we can experience the
simultaneous attachment of a prefix and a suffix which is called
parasynthetic word-formation. I have tried to summarize to the
most accurate definition, due to the fact that there are lots of
63 of this Morphology branch is detailed, which indeed is a derivation
from a compound or syntactic sequence.
Trask (1993) in his Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in
Linguistics describes the unexplored territory of parasynthesis in
English. No importance has been given to this word-building
process, linguists being worried with prefixation and suffixation,
but dealing with them separately. The general features of each and
every affix are preserved. Consequently, the prefix usually
expresses some kind of attitude while the suffix has the function of
describing people, things, actions, etc as well as of denoting
abstraction.
It’s been highlighted by Trask (1993) that the affixation can
be simultaneous and this is called Parasynthetic derivation of a
suffix and a prefix: both affixes are independent, semantically and
functionally. Parasynthesis he states, is a very productive process
specially regarding denominal and deadjectival verb-formation.
Historical Linguistics
Hanna (2009), remarks that this science studies not only the
history of languages, but the study of changes in languages
through the time and how they are related one to another, in her
Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Rather than boring, historical
64 She maintains that historical linguistic’s main job is learning
how languages are related. This happens generally when they can
be shown to be related by having a large number of words in
common that were not borrowed (cognates). Languages often
borrow words from each other, but these are usually not too
difficult to tell apart from other words. When a related group of
languages has been studied in enough detail, it is possible to know
almost exactly how most words, sounds, and grammar rules have
changed in the languages.
Trying to solve the question about the origin or languages,
the first ideas about language were set only by guesses, taking into
consideration the similarities between two languages, or listening
to nearby languages.
To start with the narration of this history, one of the earliest
observations about language was the one made by the Romans.
They noticed that Latin and Greek were similar. However, they
incorrectly assumed that Latin came from Greek, but they both
really came from Indo-European.
There were lots of people looking at languages in the middle
ages. However, most of them were trying to show Hebrew giving
rise to all of the world's languages, specifically European
languages. This never really worked, since Hebrew is not directly
65 When Europeans started travelling to India about 300 years
ago, they noticed that Sanskrit, the ancient literary language of
India, was similar to Greek, Latin, and other languages of Europe.
In the late 18th century, it was first correctly theorized that
Sanskrit and the languages of Europe had all come from the same
language, but that that language was no longer living. This was the
beginning of Indo-European. Since then, many languages from all
over the world have been studied, and we are starting to get a good
idea of how all the world's languages may be related.
Bynon (1981) in her book (in Spanish) implies that to detail
the way in which a language has evolved during a certain period of
time, we need a theoretical frame or model inside which facts can
be explained and established. A model like that would ideally be
capable to explain all the changes there have been in a language,
minimizing them into a set of rules integrated systematically.
Every particular phenomenon should be considered, thus,
explained, to be established within the terms of these rules. For
that reason we can denote that the lineal evolution of the language
through the time is due to the fact that the contact among societies
and cultures produces a mutual influence, so loans and particular
characteristics from certain areas that have been adopted are now
66 languages are homogeneous and isolated among themselves in
space.
A language changes in fact in the course of time, and that
can be demonstrated when written documents are taken to test in
the same language, but different periods of time. And, once those
spelling and stylistic conventions have been taken into account, we
can suppose that those texts are representative samples of a
spoken language, as it was in the moment they were put in written,
structured according to the synchronic rules of such time. This
means that we can abstract the grammatical structure of the
language in each period of time from the documents, and in the
same way the grammar can be established and compared. The
differences in their successive structures can be interpreted as
representative in the historical development of the language.
To have a better impression of all what has been stated
above, and what we can expect regarding the linguistic change, we
need to observe a few examples of languages that have been
written during long periods of time, as we have series of dateable
documents whose succession can determine the way such
languages have been altered. The best example is the prayer Our
Father, as it deals with the texts that in human history has
67 To finalize, Bynon (1981), says that the theoretical
justification to consider that some languages are related, that is,
that they reflect one only mother tongue, is on these two
observations: on one side there are some restrictions about nature
and the stages where linguistic change can happen; and on the
other hand, the relationship of form and significance of the
language, that in most of the cases is arbitrary.
Language Change
Research performed by living linguistic communities is what
constitutes the greatest contribution to the understanding of real
linguistic change, Bynon (1981). This sociolinguistic research has
established the fact that some speaking differences among the
members of a community can be systematically compared with
specific social factors. The first large-scale study developed which
could demonstrate this correlation was performed in New York in
the early 60’s by William Labov; who took the advantage of basing
his Lower East Side Manhattan survey on the results of a
psychological survey that had been made from a fortuitous sample
in the area.
Within this survey, the results fortunately and significantly,
verified that not all the aspects of a language are subject to
variation in a determined time. Therefore, in New York City the
68 inconsistencies in the speech of individuals appear limited to
certain areas of the linguistic system, such as phonological
variations. Labov then established that the variations in
pronunciation of the same exact word depend in the social class of
the speaker and the speech style used. Labov researches show
that despite the substantial differences in a social group’s speech,
there is a uniform system of values and norms that is in force for
the whole community; that is to say, that the alternative
pronunciation is given social value and is also shared by all the
members of the society.
The quality of being diverse and not comparable in kind of a
language, is itself a regular resource of change and, at least
phonologically, most part of the linguistic change has a social
motivation. Outside the phonological level, a little has been done.
In the case of lexical substitution, it has been proven that dialect
words that have no cognate in standard language get lost, and that
dialects represent a lexical innovation resource. Nevertheless, if we
consider that this exchange results from a contact situation as a
linguistic innovation resource, there is no reason for it to be limited
to the same language varieties. To conclude, they remark that,
indeed, the language contact is not, in any case, the only
innovative factor in the linguistic change, but analogy and
69 The fundamental assertion that neo-grammarian
phonological change is, regarding analogy, completely independent
from the grammatical structure what implies the consequence that
the two structures may have a gap among each other over the
time. This means that the rules that join phonological and
grammatical structures can demand a readjustment and a new
definition for every new state of the language.
Language Vice
The Literary Terms index from Cyber English (2008), and the
study presented by Amazon (2009) concentrate on this issue upon
addressing the systematic study of verbal communication is
important to examine not only on those items that need to enhance
our language, such as learning new and better vocabulary,
knowledge of figures of speech or dialect differences around
languages, but also to identify the problems in the same language,
holding back the exchange of experiences. As speakers, our
responsibility increases significantly, since our implementation of
verbal discourse becomes, eventually, a model for the listeners, at
school, at work, through radio, television, and even written media.
Therefore, we must be careful in the use of appropriate language,
without this we lose the freshness and modernity we require for
70 From this point of view we understand as Language Vices the
factors that alter the normal flow of the verbal communicative
experience. Slightly giving up the conceptual clarity of Rhetoric,
we could say that vices are unrhetorical. Sometimes due to
simplicity or negligence, rhetoric has been defined as the “art of
embellishing the language”.
Indeed, it is the function of this discipline to embellish verbal
communication, but neither is the language the sole purpose of
rhetorical study (all and each of the different languages is relevant
to rhetoric), nor is the sole purpose of beautifying the rhetorical
task, because the enrichment of the speech can both beautify or
spoil the contents, that ultimately lead to the widely investigated
rhetorical figures.
We then conceive rhetoric as the discipline of
communication, which studies and develops creative poetic
resources of persuasion. That is, rhetoric searches for the
conviction of our communicational counterpart by adapting the
speech to the contextual needs and expectations of the receiver as
part of a subculture, with relatively predictable behavioural
parameters.
Clearly the same content can be worked, combining the
numerous best known figures, but in this transition towards
71 defects of language, careless constructions, defective expressions,
negligent management of language or simple ignorance. And that is
because the boundaries between rhetoric and vices is so fragile
that sometimes it is hard to distinguish them, due to the firm
intention to give speech sense by the context it’s in. Thus, there
are nine language defects or vices identified by their frequency.
They are not the only ones, but the most common ones.
By its nature, the language vices are divided into three groups:
• Pragmatic
• Syntactic; and
• Semantic
Pragmatic Vices are those mistakes that occur upon speech,
that is, they happen by using a linguistic way beyond convention.
The grammatical pattern can be correct and the meaning can be
accurate, therefore syntactic and semantic levels are covered; but
due to old or made up patterns, communication gets blocked.
They are the following:
• Archaisms: This classification corresponds to all the words
which use has been discontinued or is not longer in use in
current speech or writing. They generally have been replaced
by conventionalized new words, or they could have also
72 These vices are different among countries, regions or cities.
Examples: heretofore, hereunto, thereof.
• Neologisms: They are newly coined words, expression, or
usage of language. This is a regular process which also has
variations that deform the language when a word beyond
conventionality is made up, with few possibilities of accurately
belong to the system. These words could be jokes or
exaggeratedly local (from certain region). Examples: google,
plus-size.
Syntactic Vices are those problems that mostly affect linguistic
communication, since they do not comply with grammatical
structure. These words cause difficulties with temporality,
spatiality and the rhythm or overall harmony of the structure. They
are the following:
Catachresis: The inappropriate use of one word for another, or an
extreme, strained, or mixed metaphor, often used deliberately,
thus we can say that solecism is a fault of syntax, or in the relation
of words to each other. Example: "Honey, you are a regular nuclear
meltdown. You'd better cool off."
Solecism: When a phrase has too many or missing words that
present a grammatical mistake. Example: She can't hardly sleep.
Monotony: This is the absence of adequate vocabulary to be used
73 intonation, or inflection in speech, or tedious sameness or
repetitiousness. Examples: “like” when used if speaker does not
have enough vocabulary, also “Mmh”, and “I mean”.
Pleonasm: It is the use of superfluous or redundant words, often
enriching the thought. Example: No one, rich or poor, will be
accepted.
Cacophony: It is the harsh joining of sounds. Example: We want
no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked
will. (W. Churchill).
Semantic Vices: These are those unclear words that, without
altering the syntactic and pragmatic orders, include strange terms
similar to the natural ones. And they are: Amphibology is an
ambiguous grammatical structure in a sentence. Example: They
are flying planes.
Barbarisms: This term has two concepts, one that refers to
barbarian as foreign, and other that turns the term in a savage
synonym. We understand it as a mistake in the form of a word or
image resulting from the violation of a standard custom.
Barbarisms are common in modern art such as Picasso’s
Demoiselles d’Avignon, falling into a fault in morphology.
Therefore, we have two types of barbarisms:
Adopted or imported barbarisms are words taken from other
74 expression barbarisms and degenerative expressions. Examples:
Debut, premier, and in degenerative expressions the use of “assist”
for attend.
The above definitions were taken from the “A Glossary of
Rhetorical Terms with Examples” by J. Francis and Ross Scaife.
Anglicisms
Anglicisms, regarding Wapedia (2009), is a word borrowed
from English into another language. Speakers of the English
language usually consider an anglicism to be unacceptable or
undesirable (as a contamination form of language). "Anglicism" also
illustrates English syntax, grammar, meaning and structure used
in another language with varying degrees of corruption. In
Spanish, the implementation of English words is extremely
common in the fields of business and information technology,
although it is usually not accepted by language purists.
To complement the above definition, Wikipedia considers
that Anglicisms can also appear due to the lack of appropriate
words to translate a specific or local term or lexis, and that they
are very common in teen’s speech, because of the influence from
regional and foreign media on their way to speak. (Taken from the
UTPL Study Guide).
Please refer to the previous studies section, where I have
75 adaptation to the Spanish language, and some explanations about
their use.
Foreign Language Interference
Ellis (1997) defines interference as ‘transfer’, which he says
is the influence that the native language of the learner applies over
the acquisition of a second language. He remarks that interference
is ruled by perceptions of students about what is transferable and
by their stage of development in learning a second language. When
students are learning a second language, they build their own
temporary rules with the use of their mother tongue knowledge,
but only when they believe it will help them in the learning task or
when they have become sufficiently proficient in the target
language for transfer to be possible.
Ellis highlights the need to distinguish between errors and
mistakes and makes an important distinction between the two,
this, due to the interference of the native language, and what
students can fall into. He says that errors reflect gaps in the
learner’s knowledge; they occur because the learner does not know
what is correct. Mistakes reflect occasional lapses in performance;
they occur because, in a particular instance, the learner is unable
to perform what he or she knows, they can be also called Slips.
Spratt, Pulverness, and Williams establish in their TKT Book
76 There are two main reasons why learners make errors. The first
one is the influence their first language has in their second
language, and this corresponds to interference or transfer.
Learners this way may use sound patterns, lexis or grammatical
structures from their own language in English. The second
reason is because they unconsciously work out and organise
language, but this process is not yet complete, and this kind of
error is called a developmental error. Errors, they conclude, are
natural part of learning. They usually show that learners are
learning and that their internal mental processes are working
on and experimenting with language. Developmental errors and
errors of interference can disappear by themselves, without
correction, as the learner learns more language.
Newspaper
Newspaper is a printed publication that is distributed
periodically or on a regular basis, and includes articles and/or
news about different matters. (Diccionario Enciclopédico Salvat).
Newspaper turns into a printed sheet or set of sheets of paper
issued at stated periods to express intelligence of current affairs,
promoting ideas, etc., a public production that circulates news,
ads, procedures, declarations, etc.
Usually, the first page of a newspaper introduces people into
77 present a short description or index containing page numbers
guiding the reader about the contents; it is common to also find
weather forecasts, sports news on the latest results, etc.
Newspapers persistently seek for more readers and to help catch
the attention of these readers many attempt to dress up their
paper. Whereas some papers continue basic and plain, others add
colour and size to font in a try to appeal to readers. The
adjustment of fonts highlighted in bold to draw the eyes of a reader
in that direction provides each article its own title instead of simply
a guide in to the article itself. Negative effects could also result
from the intention of adding life to the paper. Readers may become
hatred with the constant several page articles.
Tabloid
Which is an Anglicism, “tabloide” in Spanish, is a newspaper
with fewer dimensions than the ordinary ones, and uses
informative photoengraving that often contains sensational
contents. (Diccionario Enciclopédico Salvat).
In a Billy Ingram article about the history of the National
Enquirer, which is a tabloid, there is a brief description of how
Tabloids made the charts. Tabloids began to appear around 1952
according to the writer, when the Italian publisher Generoso Pope,
Jr. bought the New York’s paper the National Enquirer and rose
78 the tabloid format paper to the peculiar and hideous. The
Enquirer's circulation quickly rose to a million copies a week in the
fifties thanks to their revolutionary distribution system that
reached into neighbourhood grocery stores all over America, due to
features like “I Cut out Her Heart and Stomped on It!" and "I Ate
My Baby!" The mentioned tabloid was a newsprint adaptation of
popular scandal magazines like Confidential, which, in 1952, was
beginning to feel the ill effects from celebrity lawsuits over
unfounded stories they published which affected also their
credibility. This matter was becoming an issue for the tabloid
industry as well - the public generally knew by then that the
tabloids made up stories, or based articles on the flimsiest
evidence to get a sensational headline. When customers bought up
the papers, they would find themselves tricked again by another
phony headline; sales slumped as a result.
According to this article, the term “tabloid” describes two
tendencies. The first is about stories with vivid and impressive
images attached to them. Secondly, sensational topics are the foci
of attention. Frequently, they are amusing or enjoyable stories, like
gossips or personal stories. There is no denying that news will be
more appealing if it contains stories or events that concern hot
79 Tabloid then appears in the early 50’s and with the intention
of raising sales and income to their owners, they approached a new
style in news and paper presentation, publishing lots of appealing
stories to make the readers direct their attention to this type of
contents.
Previous Studies
Paloma Zurita (2005), from the University of Cadiz in her
paper “Economic Anglicisms: adaptation to the Spanish linguistic
system” presents a semantic analysis of the changes in terms,
through the different linguistic mechanisms of languages
adaptation involved. Therefore, she states, “language contact and
the ensuing changes of meaning constitute a very rich area of
linguistic inquiry that has produced an extensive bibliography on
the subject, as there seems to be a general concern among
language specialists about the linguistic consequences the
incorporation of so many anglicisms into the Spanish language
may imply.
Zurita (2005) reports several studies made on the
incorporation of so many anglicisms into the Spanish language
such as the ones made by Pratt (1980) and Lorenzo’s in 1996
about a research in benchmarketing based on the influence of
English over Spanish by compiling the most common anglicisms
80 other approaches highlighted in this paper is one written by
Gimeno in 2003 stating different lexical types regarding to category
changes, collocations and term calques, focusing on social
multilingualism, to name a few.
In her analysis of the adaptation of English words to the
Spanish language system, she found that the most frequently
asserted linguistic instruments used to translate the meaning of a
word or expression into the target language, in this case, Spanish
such as:
Borrowing, which is be used to refer to the adoption of a
foreign word or expression, whose incorporation into Spanish has
or not been attested in a Spanish language dictionary depending
on their acceptance by the Real Academia de la Lengua Española.
A frequent example is the word fútbol, an English borrowing whose
Spanish spelling reflects the English phonetics.
Calque, on the other hand, is the incorporation of a foreign
word into another language whose meaning has been directly
translated; to give the same example “balompié” would be the
translation of fútbol; and Equivalences are text units that do not
always coincide with their language system correspondences,
which are themselves system units. Consequently, there are words
that, even though not belonging to each other into their own
