A Linguistic Analysis of Word-Borrowing in French - Paper Example

Presently, various languages are open to the influence of the English language and adapting to the change is different for the various languages. Infiltrating English language into other languages started in the 17th and 18th century and since then, a relationship was built between English and various European languages as influenced by various political, cultural and economic contacts with the respective mother countries (Camilo and Martin, 2015, p.34). The process involving linguistic borrowing from English led to a contributing of other intermediate languages since a number of English words have been integrated in speaking French.

Word-borrowing is a complicated and complex process. While developing the many languages, there comes in handy, various extra linguistic and intra linguistic factors and some of these are the coordination that aim coordination among the languages and borrowing. Word-borrowing leads to loss of some characteristics of the original language after transfer of words. The words then accept the various features of the language they enter and some of them even change to an extent of assuming recognition.

The current French language is characterized by an established rich source of the languages of other people. There was an interrelation with one another in terms of dynasties and some even set up relations with each other, leading to development of relations. Some of the interactions come in as struggles and wars, fair trade, culture and more and hence, words are transferred from one language into the other one. The people who speak French are always in close relation and attitude with other people and through it, many words are passed into the French language. Through the process of transfer, the lexis of the French language is enriched and the process continues to happen.

Language borrowing is important in the French language. The present world is not characterized by a single language but a vocabulary that consists of the individual words. The reason that makes the French language an already developed language is because it is not a single language. Present development allows people to economically, socially, politically and scientifically connect with one another. Thorough the connection, natives are able to learn French and the process of attaining the new language leads to creation of a platform for getting the languages close to one another and hence, result in borrowing words.

Various theories that determine the results of word-borrowing exist and particularly in terms of influence of the languages and the impacts on one another. Language contacts can also be used to describe the process of language borrowing and the results of the language contacts may come after the liquidation of the many languages (Camilo and Martin, 2015, p.32). Language contact can happen at the language of a present population that can be mastered by the settlers. Language contacts discriminates the main language from the language of the settlers of an area.

There is a place in the society in regards to the realm of linguistic research. It is undebated that the English language has had an impact on the many European languages and this has been made possible in the late years. French and Italian have had a similar influence on the more common languages of Europe although the development of the various nations with English as either their native or second language embrace English and hence, lead to language borrowing indirectly. The society is the determinant in terms of man and language (Durkin, 2015, p.22). Contacts that exist for settlers in different areas and those belonging to different cultures have resulted to contact between languages. Furthermore, frontiers between nations are more of a hurdle than boundaries between languages and hence, the domination of loanwords. Word-borrowing can assure intercultural contacts, inter-linguistic contacts or even language change.

Word-borrowing in the French context has represented cultural exchanges amongst a people. Loanwords can also be treated as the subject matter or linguistic disciplines including lexicography and semantics. The borrowed words in French can also be treated as a critical part of interest for sociolinguists especially if they focus on contacts among various language societies.

In Neology, one can perceive word-borrowing as a wider phenomenon as processes of creation of new words is entailed. Each natural language can be subject to neologism creation either thorough the production of the own resources of words or through importation from other linguistic systems. In French, neologism is common as the destiny of borrowed words is mostly uncertain as it could be accepted as part of the French language or totally disappear from receiving a linguistic system. Various ways can be used to establish loanword classification and such may vary in regards to the classification criterion. Reasons may also exist as to why the French language is borrowed. Loanwords can be divided into two; denotive and connotative borrowed words.

The French denotative words are those that are taken over from other languages such as English to establish a new name to products and concepts created overseas. These denotative words are implemented together with items stood up for so that the lexical gap can be filled. On the other hand, connotative words in French come in as a result of the reputation of the country that speaks French. Some nations can be perceived as role-models in terms of civilization. Connotative words can, therefore, be termed as loanwords of luxury and that testifies to the bond that speakers of a language establish with the main language such as English.

French loanwords can also be classified in regards to the main language. Yet English remains to be an acceptable language at present, main others such as Spanish, German, Latin and French have been productive in different times in history. Besides loanwords are foreign words, based on the mode of integration into the French language. It is not all foreign words that are loanwords (Rozakis, 2003, p.19) in French but some foreign words are mainly captured as a result of the grammatical rules of the French language. It is easy to identify foreign words in a language as the original form of the words is embraced. Loanwords can be termed as those taken over from a borrowed language and integrated in a particular way into the French language.

Word-borrowing can be classified on the basis of the linguistic level of a language, either morphological, lexical, semantic or phonological (Ulijn, 2015, p.3). The lexical level of the French language, however is the most changing in comparison to the semantic and other levels. The lexical system of a language such as the French language is commonly and mainly prone to acceptance of neologism (Rozi, 2010, p.5). The phonological structure of the French language can be termed as the most stable component of a language. Words can be borrowed from a particular language and used in another without considering the proximity. Commonly, when the speakers of the French language become dominant in another field, some other groups can adopt words in the field from the same language. A lot of linguistic elements can be borrowed from English as the main language.

In lexical terms, fascination among the native French and Italian speakers with English words has been common (Rozi, 2010, p.6). Importation of words from the French language in the last late years may indicate the tendency to reshape and adapt French and other national identities to the standardizing elements of globalization. Importation of English words may also correspond to the importation if the culture but the fact that the EU encompasses the countries importing words for their languages makes the process unofficial.

Using English words in French can be perceived by the French speakers as a liberating experience. The war against the franglais is an issue that nags France to date. Protection of the French language is mainly led by various coordinated institutions of intersecting works and is better organized than the Italian variant. There are varying levels of the English language influence on the French language. Italian and French texts show different methods of assimilating English aspects. The French language is often used to render a particular concept as Italians incorporate imported words in theirs of their originality. The effect on integration of words used in English in the French dialect is commonly obvious especially in journalistic aspects including technological fields and the entertainment industry.

Many English loanword examples are found in French newspaper texts. However, only a few examples exist in which the English loanword has been expressed by translating the Italian texts and through un-adapted ways. One of such an example is il turismo fai-da-te, le trucs do-it-yourself. Another of a similar example is i social network; les resaux sociaux. Just as un-adapted loanwords are used, the grammatical gender ascribed in the English dialect does have a difference that exist between the two languages; French and English.

Some words have also co-existed with their native synonymous expressions as an integral part for many years. One of such an example is the compound adjective babyretraite as used in French since it first appeared in a French news story regarding Italian retirement reforms. By the look of the word, the first glance may dictate that the word hailed from the English dialect because of the word baby in it. However, there is no such an expression in the English dialect.

In regards to the huge amount of English words that have been borrowed for the French language, the impact that the English loanwords have on the French dialect is at least ubiquitous (Durkin, 2015, p.12). The use of borrowed words in the French language can also affect the level at which entrenchment of the words appears. Through the acceptance of foreign elements of a language in the native language, the language users tend to assume certain traits of the foreign language just as the community speaks. In France, purging a language of foreign or un-adapted words can be used. All new words in the French dialect are at least uncertain for the future. Many new loanwords especially those with new concepts could be relevant especially for just a particular time and may also expire as soon as the fashion related fades from the conscience of the language users. It is possible to ascertain that it can be of high benefit for the constative analysis if there can be established studies on cross-linguistics as based on an analogous corpus.

Borrowing can be said to be a sociolinguistic process that does not always get an appreciation by every member of a speech community and in some nations such as France, the people keep their language pure after borrowing English words. English wording is, however, prohibited by the France law. Every other language is used to borrowing words from other languages. English, being the source language for many other languages has borrowed so many lexical items (Ulijn, 2015, p.8) from the French people where property would enter English from French. The better early loanwords into English were the French whereas the later ones came in from the central French and words from the source language enters various part of the French dialect such as administration, military and religion.

Coinage exists for every language, French being one of them. French embraces native words and as soon as a new word is needed, they tend to come up with it without getting a concept from a source language. French has always had a social and cultural prestige wit...