Recent anglicisms in Romanian language

In the years after the fall of the communist regime in 1989, when Romania opened to the West,
the influence of English on the Romanian language rose to an unprecedented level. Nowadays,
English words can be found in all Romanian newspapers and journals, can be heard on any
Romanian TV channel, and are frequently used as shop or business names (Parlog 2002);
English has even become the language of Romanian graffiti. The phenomenon has been most
recently charted in the three volumes on European Anglicisms edited by Manfred Grlach (2001;
2002a; 2002b).
A previous article on English loanwords in Romanian, published twenty years ago (Parlog
1983), was based on a corpus in which only eighteen nouns referred to human beings. The
current corpus, collected since 1990 from several newspapers and magazines of different
orientation, contains more than six times as many (see Annex). 1 With some exceptions, they
denote human agents or members of a profession and many do not represent random usage but
seem to occur regularly. Their gradual adaptation to Romanian is governed by formal and
semantic criteria. From a formal point of view, borrowed names of human agents ending in a
consonant or a semivowel may become either masculine or neuter in Romanian and the
difference becomes obvious only in the plural forms; from a semantic point of view, however,
such nouns usually become masculine while the neuter is reserved for nouns with non-animate
referents.

Many of the borrowed English words are used unmodified, without any change in their formal
structure e.g.: o pozitie de outsider ["a position of outsider"];2 angajeaz brand manager,
creative director, account manager, art director, account executive, copywriter, designer
["wanted . . . " ] ; locuri de muncpentru baby-sitter ["jobs as baby-sitter"]; and A.N., hostess de
night-club ["A.N., night-club hostess"].
Sometimes the words are placed between inverted comas, which suggests that they are
regarded as foreignisms or quotations, and there is, sometimes, a kind of translation which is not
necessarily correct e.g.: exis-tenta oamenilor strzii (a acelor "homeless") ["the existence of
street people (of those 'homeless [people]')]; englezescul "headhunters", expresia "vn-tori de
capete", este folosit ["the English word 'headhunters', a phrase meaning 'headhunters', is used"];
denumirea de politolog. Termenul in englez e "political scientist" ["the word 'politolog'. The
English term is 'political scientist'"]; gazetar de talent, s-i zicem "free-lancer" ["a talented
journalist, let's call him a 'free-lancer'"].
Sometimes there are no translations or inverted commas, as in al su "daddy" iubit ["his
beloved 'daddy"'], acest "newcomer" feminin ["this feminine 'newcomer'"]; dog-walker, cei
care plimb cinii ["dog-walker, those who walk dogs"]; avnd drept idoli hackers (sprgtori
de programe) ["having hackers (hackers) as idols"].
The gender of Romanian nouns is marked and can be established by means of determiners in
the singular and in the plural.
The determiners for masculine nouns are un ["one"] - doi ["two"] (e.g., un doctor ["one
doctor"] - doi doctori ["two doctors"]);
for feminine nouns they are o ["one"] - dou ["two"] (e.g., ofemeie ["one woman"] - dou
femei ["two women"]); whereas

neuter nouns have un ["one"] - dou ["two"] (e.g., un studiu ["one study"] - dou studii ["two
studies"]). The determiners may also be demonstrative adjectives indicating nearness: acest
(masculine, singular) -acesti (masculine, plural), aceast (feminine, singular) - aceste (feminine,
plural), acest (neuter, singular) - and aceste (neuter, plural).
English nouns are adapted to Romanian genders by means of such determiners whose form is
suggestive of the gender of the English noun. Here are some examples: acest "newcomer"
(demonstrative adjective, singular, masculine); aceast redutabil business woman ["this
formidable business woman"] (demonstrative adjective, singular, feminine + variable adjective,
singular, feminine); acesti new-comers ["these new-comers"] (demonstrative adjective, plural,
masculine); asemenea altor dou first ladies ["like two other first ladies"] (numeral, feminine);
dot btrni dons ai Oxfordului ["two old dons at Oxford"] (numeral, masculine).
The gender of the borrowed word may be suggested by both modifying adjectives and by
nouns (be they modifiers or heads).
Just like Romanian nouns, Romanian variable adjectives also indicate gender. The English
adjective "good" may, for instance, correspond to: bun (masculine and neuter, singular); buna
(feminine, singular, nominative and accusative); buni (masculine, plural); bune (neuter, plural,
and feminine, singular, genitive and dative).
In al su "daddy" iubit ["his beloved daddy"], the adjective, iubit, is in the singular, masculine
form; therefore, daddy is regarded as masculine. In perfectionarea metodelor diverilor killers
["the improvement of the methods of various killers"], the modifier, diversilor, is an adjective
used with the definite article, plural, masculine, genitive, which automatically makes killer a
masculine noun. The adjective, viitoarea, in viitoarea first lady a Ger-maniei ["Germany's future
first lady"] is used with the definite article, singular, feminine, which makes the first lady a
feminine noun. The same features with the same outcome are found in the adjective clasica, in
clasica self-made woman ["the classic self-made-woman"].
Sometimes the modifier is a noun marked for gender: e.g., au preferat in locul englezoaicelor
baby-sitters ... ["they preferred to English baby-sitters

Worlds of Words -A tribute to Arne Zettersten [sic]..."](noun used with the definite article, plural,
feminine, genitive); "call-boys" licentiati ["call-boys with a diploma"] (noun, plural,
masculine); cintareata rapper de mare success ["the successful rap singer/rapper"] (noun used
with the definite article, singular, feminine gender).
Many borrowed nouns for humans are used with a plural non-articulated masculine ending, a
non-syllabic [i], which palatalizes the final consonant: Inscrierea la cursul de broken ["The
enrolment for the courses training brokers"]; serie despre gruprile de rockeri ["s/he writes
about the groups of rockers"]; bikeri din toat lumea ["bikers from all over the world"]. If the
noun ends in a consonant other than [x\, which is sounded in final position in Romanian, [i] may
be separated from it by a hyphen; however, it may also be attached directly: e.g., plutoane de
vesnic zimbitori yes-man-i ["hordes of always smiling yes-men"]; remarcabili inti de toate ca
yesmani ["remarkable first of all as yesmen"]; La Davos au fost prezenti ... 1000 de 'mari boss-i'
["1000 big bosses were present at Davos"].
There are nouns whose singular-plural opposition is marked not only by the palatalization of
the final consonant, but also by final consonant alternations. The most frequent alternations are
[t]-[ts] as in Romanian pirat-pirati ["pirate"-"pirates"], [d]-[z] as in bard-barzi ["bard"-"bards"],
[s]-[f] as in as-ai ["ace"-"aces"]. Such alternations are also found in Romanian Anglicisms:
internaut - internauti, bodyguard - bodyguarzi, homles - homlesi, exemplified in e.g. internauti
au putut savura detalii ["internauts were able to enjoy the details"]; o armata de bodiguarzi ["an
army of bodyguards"]; sint homlesi boschetari ["they are homeless people living in bushes"].

Interestingly, there are no plural, non-articulated, feminine nouns in my corpus. Zafiu (2003: 19)
reports the pair hosteri - hostessuri; hoster has been created for the masculine gender in analogy
with other professions denoted by nouns ending in -er and assimilated to the masculine, while
hostessuri, the plural of hostess, denoting a feminine profession, is formed with the inflection
-uri, typical of the plural, non-articulated neuter gender.
The English borrowings are often preceded by Romanian indefinite articles. They are un
(Nominative, Accusative), unui (Genitive, Dative) for the masculine animate singular nouns, o
(Nominative, Accusative), unei (Genitive, Dative) for the feminine singular nouns. They are
illustrated in these examples: trimite dup gratii un hacker ["puts a hacker behind bars"]; el este
un performer ["he is a performer"]; C. a bdtut un bodyguard ["C. has beaten a bodyguard"]; un
"drag queen" este un brbat travestit ["a drag queen is a transvestite"]; in fata unui native
speaker ["in front of a native speaker"]; confesiunea unui gay ["a gay's confession"]; imaginea
unui outsider ["the image of an outsider"]; sunt dansatoare, o gipsy, spune Shirley ["I am a
dancer, a gipsy"]; o neo-yuppie ["a neo-yuppie"]; avansuri fcute de o hostess ["advances made
by a hostess"]; o jazz-dancer american ["an American jazz-dancer']. Other nouns in my corpus
which are accompanied by one of the Romanian indefinite articles indicative of gender are: un
baby-sitter, un boss, un fan, un gamer, un manager, un new-historicist, un outsider, un play-boy,
un scholar, un self-made-man, un superstar; o spice girl, o party girl.
The Romanian definite article is enclitic, i.e. forming a unit with the noun. It is often attached
to words borrowed from English. The distribution of its forms depends on the ending of the
noun, on gender, number, and case (cf. Avram 1986: 66).
In the singular, the definite article has five distinct forms: -/, -le, -a, -lui, -(e)i. They are used
as follows:

- in the nominative and the accusative, -I, -le, -a are used for the masculine gender, (e.g.,
scriitorul "the writer", fratele "the brother", and popa, "the priest"); -a for the feminine gender
(e.g., mama "the mother", vulpea "the fox"); -I, -le for the neuter (e.g., teatrul "the theatre",
dealul "the hill", and numele, "the name");- in the genitive and the dative, -lui [luj] and - / (a
syllabic [i]) for the masculine (e.g., scriitorului "the writer's" or "to the writer", fratelui "the
brother's" or "to the brother", and popii "the priest's" or "to the priest"); - (e)i for the feminine
(e.g., mamei 'the mother's" or "to the mother", vulpii "the fox's" or "to the fox"); -lui for the
neuter (e.g., teatrului "of the theatre" or "to the theatre", numelui "of the name" or "to the
name").
The plural forms are -i, -le, -lor.
- in the nominative and the accusative, -i (a syllabic [i]) for the masculine gender (e.g.,
scriitorii, "the writers", fratii, "the brothers"); -le for the feminine gender (e.g., mamele, "the
mothers", vulpile, "the foxes"); and -le for the neuter (e.g., teatrele, "the theatres", numele, "the
names", dealurile "the hills");
- in the genitive and the dative it is -lor for all genders (e.g., masculine: scriitorilor, "the
writers'" or "to the writers", fratilor, "the brothers'" or "to the brothers", feminine: mamelor, "the
mothers'" or "to the mothers", vulpilor, "of the foxes" or "to the foxes"; neuter: teatrelor, "of the
theatres" or "to the theatres", numelor, "of the names" or "to the names").
The definite articles most frequently attached to the Anglicisms in my corpus mark them as
masculine, e.g.:
- singular, nominative: killerul industriei nationale de apdrare ["the killer of the national
defence industry"]; la Varis rapperul nu s-ar fi bucurat de succes ["the rapper would not have
enjoyed success in Paris"];
- singular, accusative: s ne referim la pleiboiul cu pulover ["let us refer to the playboy in the
pullover"];
- singular number, genitive: piciorul goal-keeperului ["the goalkeeper's foot"]; mitul easyriderului american ["the myth of the American easy-rider"];

- singular, dative: investitia apartine dealerului autorizat ["the investment belongs to the
licensed dealer"]; rockstarului ii este teama ["the rockstar is afraid"]; piesa ii apartine
rockerului ["the musical piece belongs to the rocker"];
- plural, nominative: trainerii vor fi dou personalitti ["the trainers will be two
personalities"]; thrasherii autohtoni continu ... ["the local thrashers continue to . . . " ] ; sunt
bikerii anului 2000 ["they are the bikers of the year 2000"];
- plural, genitive: campionatul mondial al bodyguarzilor ["the world championship of
bodyguards"]; registrul national al auditorilor ["the national register of auditors"]; lumea rock
starurilor ["the world of rock stars'];
- plural, dative case: 'welfaritiloi/ li se vor lua amprentele ["persons living on welfare will have
their fingerprints taken"].
Sometimes the definite article is separated from English nouns by a hyphen which indicates
that users still regard it as a non-native word: e.g., n-a intors masina cum arfi vrut 'boss'-ul"
["he didn't turn the car around as the boss would have liked"]; o simpl marionet a kingmaker-ului ["a simple puppet of the king-maker's"]; home worker-ii intmpin probleme ["the
home workers face problems"]; miscarea de emancipare a gay-lor ["the gays' movement of
emancipation"]; totalitate a VIP-urilor ["the total of VIP's"].
Only two nouns are used with the definite article of the feminine gender: bos, derived from
boss, and outsidern, from outsider (cf. Romanian elev ["schoolboy"] - elev ["schoolgirl"]). The
former occurs in a so-called Hebraism (Brunot 1922: 621), with the feminine article -a,
nominative case: se strduieste s inteleag ... care e bosa bosilor ["s/he does her/his best to
understand who is the boss of bosses"]; the latter is used in the dative, singular: Nobelul a fost
atribuit ... outsiderei W.Sz. ["The Nobel Prize was awarded to the outsider W.Sz."].
Several nouns call for attention.

The words baby-sitter, top-model (both usually denoting women), (super/rock/mega) star, and
VIP are exceptions from the normal tendency for [+ animate] loanwords to become masculine in
Romanian.
The gender of baby-sitter is not quite clear yet: it may belong to any of the three genders. In my
corpus the word occurs in an unmodified, non-articulated, singular form (e.g., Locuri de munc
pentru baby-sitter ["Jobs for baby-sitter"] as well as in contexts that suggest that it can be
interpreted as either feminine or masculine. This goes for Apelati la 'Agentia Gabriela' pentru afi
angajat baby-sitter ["turn to 'Gabriela Agency7 in order to be hired as a baby-sitter"], where the
participle angajat has a feminine ending, or Rockerul a angajat un karatist pe post de babysitter ["the rocker hired a karate fighter as a baby-sitter"], where un karatist is masculine.
Sometimes, baby-sitter is preceded by the indefinite article, typical of masculine and neuter
nouns (e.g., a angajat un baby-sitter ["he hired a baby-sitter"], but it may also take a plural
masculine, non-articulated form: Facilitm angajarea de ... baby-sitteri ["we facilitate the hiring
of baby-sitters"]. My corpus does not comprise examples that would clearly support the
appurtenance of the word to the feminine or the neuter gender, but if I came across a feminine: o
baby-sitter() - dou babysittere or a neuter: un baby-sitter - dou babysittere, I would find them
perfectly acceptable.

Top-model usually denotes a profession for women, for instance, in Fe-meie de afaceri i topmodel ["business woman and top-model"]; and in ieri top-model, azi cow-girl ["yesterday a topmodel, today a cow-girl"]. However, the word would take the indefinite article un (un topmodel) and the singular definite article -I, attached either to the noun itself (e.g., top-modelul
ceh ["the Czech top-model"] or to its modifier (e.g., celebrul top-model ["the famous topmodel"]. Articulated or not, the plural forms definitely mark it as neuter: tinere top-modele cu
sanse reale ["young top- models with a real chance"]; concurs de selectie a top-modelelor
["competition for the selection of top-models"].
Star is usually neuter and the plural has the -uri ending (staruri) typical of the neuter. Star and
superstar are registered in Grlach (2001); however, the latter can also be used as a feminine
noun: e.g., Este o foarte apreciat superstar ['She is a highly appreciated superstar'] (cf. Avram
1986: 34).
In Grlach 2001, the noun VIP could belong to any of the three genders in Romanian.
However, my examples attest only the neuter: Au participat peste 300 de VTP-uri ["there were
over 300 VIPs present"]; Tehnici de com-portare cu VJP-urile ["techniques of behaviour with
the VIPs"]; and limuzine de lux ale ...VIP-urilor ["luxury limousines belonging to the VIPs"].
Some Anglicisms are derived with the suffixes -ist and -it.
The ist noun-forming suffix is borrowed from French (< Latin, < Greek) and is found in
English and Romanian - as well as in other languages. That is why 'importing' words with this
ending is easy (e.g., Romanian cartist < English chartist; Romanian diarist < Italian diarista ?,
French diariste ?, English diarist ?). Lobbyist, which was registered in Romanian as early as
1978 (Marcu and Maneca), is nowadays often spelled without the suffix vowel, which reflects its
pronunciation with one [i] rather than two: lobbyst [lob'ist]. Assimilated to the masculine gender,
the noun has a plural form with a non-syllabic [i] whose addition triggers the consonant
alternation [s]-[fj, e.g., neobositi lobby-iti ["tireless lobbyists"]. It may take the plural definite
article in the genitive or the dative, e.g., umbra lobby-stilor ["the shadow of the lobbyists"], and
it has served as the root for the formation of its feminine counterpart with the suffix -, e.g., Se
indrgostete de o lobby st ["He falls in love with a lobbyist"].
This suffix is still productive and several masculine nouns have been introduced in Romanian
from English words: offsetist ("person specialized in offset printing"), short-storist ("writer of
short stories"), welfarist ("per-

son who lives on welfare"), and xeroxist ("person who works with a copier"). In my examples,
offsetist and welfarist are used in the plural, with the [s]-[f] consonant alternation, and the
feminine counterpart of xeroxist is created by adding the suffix -a. to the masculine form:
Angajm tipografi offsetiti ["wanted: typographers specialized in offset printing"]; Cel mai
cunoscut short-storist al generatiei 80 ["the best known short-story writer of the 80s"];
Welfaristilor li se vor lua amprentele digitale ["persons living on welfare will have their
fingerprints taken"]; Angajm xeroxist ["we hire a woman who knows how to operate a
copier"].
The suffix -it forms Romanian feminine nouns from masculine ones: e.g., actor - actrit
("actor" - "actress"), doctor - doctorit ["male doctor" - "female doctor"]. There are three nouns
in my corpus with this suffix: barmanit, rockerit, and fnit. Barmanit and rockerit are
recorded in Grlach (2001). They occur in e.g.: Angajeaz fete ca barmanite (plural, feminine)
["hires girls as barmaids"] and Seamn cu o rockerit ["looks like a female rock singer"].
Derived from fan, the third noun, fnit, is first recorded by Zafiu (2000:7) and has a parallel
form with -, fana, the plural of which is fane, e.g. Nu te-ai incurcat cu fanele? ["Haven't you
got involved with your female fans?"].
Through back-formation, from racketeer, Romanian has created the masculine raket, with the
plural raketi, with the same meaning as the English word: e.g., Trei raketi moldoveni ["three
Moldavian racketeers"]; Rachetii din Brasov ["the racketeers of Brasov"].
Finally, borrowed words also lend themselves to composition: two nouns in my corpus are
created by combining one foreign and one Romanian element, which are hyphenated in writing:
O cyber-vrjitoare pred vrjitoria ["a cyber-witch teaches witchcraft"]; Copii pe care ii
transforma in baby-soldati ["children transformed into baby-soldiers"]. Although cyber has a
multiple etymology, I believe that it is used because of English influence in the text in which it
appears as a compound-forming element:

cyber-religie ["cyber-religion"], cyber-religios ["cyber-religious"], cyber-ritual ["cyber-rituai"],

cyber-spatiu ["cyber-space"], cyberpunk ["cyberpunk"].
The assimilation of Anglicisms in modern Romanian which has been discussed in this article
is a slow process; it is manifest in the gradual acceptance of Romanian inflections for gender,
number, case, of definite and indefinite articles, and in the words' participation in word
formation. In spite of these signs of integration, I think that many of them will ultimately
disappear. It is, however, a linguist's obligation to register and describe them.

2. Lexical borrowing from English.

One of the aspects of globalization is language contact due to communication.

Globalization presupposes higher intensity of contact between the languages. In turn, theoutcome
of language contact is language change. I will focus on one of the majorphenomena in language
change lexical borrowing.
The process of lexical borrowing is controlled by two equally important aspects that
support or hinder borrowing. The first one is the extralinguistic aspect of lexical borrowing
which leans on the essence of the language contact situation. The Bulgarian-English language
contact situation is intensive and it offers fruitful soil for the developing of lexical borrowing in
Bulgarian. Together with the extralinguistic aspect, the intralinguisticaspect of lexical borrowing,
i.e. the receptor language and its system are ready to accept theforeign words, and thus the two
aspects form a unity which will, inevitably, weaken if somecrevices appear in them.
I will proceed with the concrete factors with the help of which the phenomenon known as
lexical borrowing is possible.
2.1.

Factors for lexical borrowing

The most common factor for borrowing is a mere linguistic necessity. The adventof
new phenomena, concepts, ideas stimulate the speakers to use borrowed words to denotethese

unfamiliar new objects and phenomena which have entered Bulgarian society and forwhich a
native equivalent does not exist. One of the domains, fully depended on the Englishterminology,
is the IT technology. The sports and music domains are also interspersed withEnglish terms
, , , for they have been invented n British orAmerican soil. In any
case, borrowing these terms, which have already turned intointernationalisms, does not imply
that English is superior to the other languages and theother languages such as Spanish, German,
and Bulgarian are inferior. Conversely, everylanguage is developing in such a way as to fulfill its
communicative needs and increase itsword stock. This process of filling in communicative needs
is called lexical gap filling.
Prestige is the second factor that stimulates the phenomenon of lexical borrowing.It is
beyond any doubt that the English language is a prestigious language for being
globallywidespread and having so far-reaching influence. In the first subsection I have
mentionedthe prerequisites for its being a global language which contribute to heightening the
interestin it. In the preface to the Dictionary of the New Words and Meanings in the
BulgarianLanguage it is noted that the majority of lexical borrowings in Bulgarian are names
oftechnical, sports, musical, social and political phenomena originated in Britain or the
USAwhich have turned into internationalisms (Pernishka, 2003:7).
The prestige factor triggers another factor that deserves consideration the strivingof
the Bulgarians for Westernization (Borislavov, 2009). Another reason is the abrupttransition
from the communist system to democracy and market economy. The desire tolook like a
Western-oriented society, founded on seemingly solid foundations of democracy, result in an
overuse of Anglicisms. Such an overuse also stems from deep psychologicalmotives such as
fashion and snobbery (, 1979: 228). Some snobbery is typical of foreign language
beginners who have an ambition to show some knowledge, in this case, of English. On the one
hand, the words used by a certain person are characteristic only ofhis/her idiolect and do not
belong to the pool of English borrowings in the language. It is of importance how frequently a
foreign word is used by the majority of the language community in order to acquire the label
borrowing. Thus, finding its place among theother English borrowings, the word becomes
widely spread in Bulgarian society with atendency to becoming a well-established loanword such
as . On the other hand, some people generally prefer foreign-sounding words such as

 and tothe native ones and simply because they

sound modern, no matterwhether they are aware of the difference in meaning or register between
the borrowings andtheir native synomyns. In turn, such words become fashionable.
These factors and tendencies in employing words of English origin instead of thenative
ones are present in journalese. I will concentrate once again on them when examining journalese.

2.2.

Hierarchies of borrowability

Hierarchies of borrowability present the synchronic aspect of lexical borrowing. Such

a hierarchy presents a sequence of lexical elements borrowed from one language intoanother. I
will refer to a distinguished linguist William Dwight Whitney, who was thefirst to state that
some linguistic elements are borrowed more freely than others. WilliamWhitney was a Sanskrit
specialist, who in 1881 noted that nouns are mostly borrowedelements of language, followed by
other parts of speech, then suffixes, inflections, andindividual sounds"(Field, 2002:35). The
offered idea of hierarchy of borrowability issupported by irrefutable evidence and a reliable
analysis of great amount of texts. Whitney does not confine his field of interest only to the living
languages. What he does is broaden his scope of research by investigating hierarchy of
borrowability in Sanskrit. He presents the sequence in which all the borrowed linguistic elements
appear and he devices a paradigm applicable to almost all languages in terms of hierarchy of
borrowability. Here is his paradigm:
nouns > other parts of speech>suffixes> inflections>individual sounds
Another linguist suggests a similar hierarchy. Haugen built up a hierarchy
ofborrowability based on a data collection from American Norwegian and American Swedish
(Haugen, 1950:224):
nouns>verbs>adjectives>adverbs, prepositions, interjections

These hierarchies present borrowing patterns specific to a particular contact situation. As

Field points out content items are more easily borrowed from grammatical items and
grammatical items more frequently than inflexional affixes (Field, 2002:35). Fromthe hierarchies
above, we can arrive at the conclusion that nouns are the most frequently borrowed part of
speech. Whitney does not divide the other parts of speech to make hishierarchy more specific
and to make clear which part of speech comes next; whereas, Haugen puts the verbs immediately
after the nouns andthe adjectives after the verbs. Haugens hierarchy is more sophisticated with
respect to which part of speech follows thenouns. On no occasion, however, should we overlook
Whitneys hierarchy, because it washe who introduced such a hierarchy for borrowing patterns!
In chapter III, I will determine the frequency of the borrowed items employed innews
articles. Then, I will build a hierarchy of borrowability applicable to the present-day BulgarianEnglish contact situation reflected in the Bulgarian journalists word choice.

2.3.

Thematic classification

Loanwords which have entered Bulgarian can be semantically grouped according tothe domain
which they penetrated into. Thus, Andrei Danchev differentiates between 13 areas: Social and
Political Life: , ,
Finance, Economy and Trade:
Maritime Terms: , , ,
Military Terms: , p
Traveling and Tourism: , , Foods and Drinks: ,
Clothing:
Sports: , , , ,
Pop Music and Entertainment: , ,,
Culture and Arts: , , ,
Animals and Plants: ,,
Measures: , , (Danchev, 1986:9,10). According to the frequency of the English
borrowings included in the Dictionary of New Words and Meanings in Bulgarian, 2003, the

terminology used in the Computer and Information Technologies and the Internet domain
(20,6%) constitutes the largest group. If we consider the fact that all therecent borrowings
registered in this dictionarynumber over 1000 and around 83% of themare English borrowings,
over from the overall number of the English borrowings consistsof terminology characteristic
of the IT domain. This confirms the fact that IT domain istotally dependent on the English
terminology, on the one hand, andon the other, points to the incredible speed with which Bulgaria
has opened to the new technologies and attempts to keep pace with them. One thing that the data
on the English borrowing in Bulgarian cited in the Dictionary show is that the lexical borrowings
from English out number the borrowings from other languages, which comes to show what a
huge influence English hashad on Bulgarian over the past decade.
Bearing in mind Danchevs classification and thematic division of the loanwords in
Bulgarian, I will also divide the loanwords found in the news articles according to the news
genre they belong to. Later on, I will make a table in which I will show the percentage ofthe
loanwords found in these articles. On the basis of the information in the table, I will design a
chart which will present the percentage of loanwords used in every single news genre.

2.4.

Treatments of lexical borrowing

2.4.1. Traditional treatment

The traditional treatment still dominates the field of lexical borrowing. According toit, loanwords
are new lexical units for the receptor language. The newly appeared word hasits own graphemic
and phonemic structure characteristic of the source language and alien tothe recipient language.
This is the case also with the English borrowings which enter Bulgarian. The English phonemic
system dramatically differs from ours - English differsfrom Bulgarian as regards its diphthongs,
the opposition between long and short vowels and consonants which do not exist or are quite
different from the Bulgarian ones. This phonemicaspect together with the opaque and
unmotivated meaning of the loanword at the verybeginning represent a very strong argument that
supports the traditional view that foreignwords, actually, penetrate the recipient language.
According to the traditional view aloanword is identical with its source word because of their

formal and often, semantic, closeness. Apart from these factors, there is one more factor that
contributes to thecompleteness of this theoretical treatment the meaning of the term to
borrow. This term has preserved the metaphorical secondary meaning to use an idea
(invention, etc.) originated by another (COD 1995:150). Modern cognitive linguists believe
thatmetaphorically extended meanings are due to the essentially associative nature of
humanthinking.
But it should be pointed out here that the source language is not deprived of any ofits
words borrowed by other languages. The receptor language also has not even theslightest
intention to give back or return the borrowed words. In addition to theadaptations on all
levels (phonological, morphological, derivational and lexico-semantic) that the loanword is
subject to, the loanword along with the word formation patterns startsproducing new derived
words. In fact, the traditional treatment offers quite an extremeviewpoint on lexical borrowing
describing it as a process of an intrusion of foreign wordsinto the receptor language. Such a
statement is contrary to facts and the threat of foreignin truders is unrealistic. That is why I am
turning to a more appropriate and insightful treatment the alternative treatment.

2.4.2. Alternative treatment

Nevena Alexieva is one of the proponents of an alternative treatment of lexical

borrowing. The linguist inveighs against the traditional treatment of borrowings whichimposes
the idea of borrowings as foreign words, foreign intruders in the receptor language
(, 2007:41). Moreover, Nevena Alexieva defends the standpoint thatonce having
entered the borrowing language; the so-called foreign words start their newlife as lexical
copies. The recipient language uses its own phonemic, graphemic, grammatical and lexical
resources to imitate the foreign item. The point here is therecognition of the active role that the
recipient language plays in this process. This activerole is supported by the conceptual character
of human thinking which constantly demands new linguistic expressions. Thus, bearing in mind
the undeniable role of the recipientlanguage, I also tip the balance towards the alternative
approach to borrowings, which nolonger presents borrowings as actual foreign words, but as

lexical copies of the respectivesource language. After all the term Anglicism means a lexical
copy of the Englishetymon. What is more, the lexical copies fit the recipient language grammar
rules and supplement word formation by providing non-motivated new lexemes. Thus, this
process leads to the creation of further new meanings along with new derived words.
Another significant view of the alternative treatment is expressed by the British linguist
T. Hope. He explored in detail lexical borrowings in the Romance languages and arrived at a
very important insight into lexical borrowings true nature. Hope points to the fact that During
the act of transfer the most important factor governing the reception of a loanword is its loss of
morphological and semantic transparency (Hope, 1971:611). So this factor leads to the creation
of close lexical copies of the source words which cannot be expected to convey the structural and
semantic relationships of their models in the source language. The borrowing which enters a new
linguistic system loses its previous motivation and starts adapting to the structural and semantic
relations in the host language. Thus the loanword becomes motivated by the receptor language's
socio-cultural situation which it has entered. If the prototype of the loanword is a compound
word or a derivation (, , ). Few Bulgarians will think of the loanword
painkill er asconsisting of two separate independent nouns, as is the case with English painkiller.
Therefore, once having entered the new language, the loanwords start their own life independent
of their etymons life and gradually find their place in the structural and semantic networks of the
recipient language. The alternative method of lexical borrowing which I sketched above is the
one that I support and rely on. This treatment is far more realistic and close to the nature of
lexical borrowing. I fully accept and firmly support the idea of close lexical copies of the
etymons which enter the semantic and structural networks of the host language and start
complyingwith the host languages grammar rules. That is why the organization of my corpora of
anglicisms is based on this alternative model. The anglicisms included are copies of theetymons,
which have entered our language mainly with only one of the whole range ofmeanings of their
etymons, the majority of them follow the grammar rules of Bulgarian andproduce different
derived forms as well.
In the following subsection, I will deal with the adaptation on the lexico-semanticlevel
which the loanwords undergo, leaving aside the phonological, morphological and the
derivational level, which I mentioned above.

2.5.

Lexico-semantic adaptation

The process of integration of English loan words presupposes their lexico-semantic

adaptation which depends on the nature of the semantic structure of both the recipient andsource
languages (Molhova, 1979:235). In a contact situation, lexical copies usually enter the recipient
language with only one meaning, leaving the rest of the models meanings in the source
language. Such a word, borrowed from one language into another, may remain semantically
unchanged when it is used to designate new objects, ideas, phenomena, and activities, as is the
case with the sports language and the language of IT. Thus, this lexicalcopy enters the receptor
language as gap filler. Convenient gap fillers can be divided into two groups: the first group
comprises loan words which designate, as I said, new phenomena, activities and ideas resulting
from the rise of development in all domains. Fo rthese loan words, native counterparts do not
exist and they are infiltrated into the recipient language to improve its communicative or
referential functions. The second group of so-called gap fillers comprises loan words for which
Bulgarian equivalents exist but they are, in most cases, long-winded native phrasal expressions
( the days of rest). The major point here is that the need for such gap fillers is obvious
as they help to achieve language economy. Thus, gap fillers such as instead of a phrase
meaning the days of restand instead of a phrasal expression to mean a degree of
popularity are already an integral part of the Bulgarian word stock.
Borrowed words may undergo some transformations of meaning depending on how
they are interpreted and used by the native speakers of the receptor language" (Kolarova,
2005:10). The meaning with which the borrowed word initially entered therecipient language can
undergo different semantic changes due to the active role of the native speakers and the receptor
language, as well. It is important to note that the moment the loan word enters the receptor
language with a certain sense, the rest of its models senses cease to exist. Thus, the loan word
starts it independent development, which is different from that of the etymon in its native
environment. Breaking its relations with its etymon, the loan starts building up new semantic
relations in the recipient language. It enters the complicated network of synonyms, antonyms and

homonyms that bears the characteristics of another semantic structure. The loan, thus, should get
adapted to it and find its due place (, 1979:236). Maria Kolarova also points out that
borrowed words are forced to establish their own semantic identity (Kolarova, 2005:10). Later
on, the borrowed word starts acquiring new meanings which, as I previously said, typically do
not exist in the whole range of meanings of the etymon.
To briefly outline the main semantic changes which the borrowed word is subject to, I
will refer to Nevena Alexievas 5-prong division of the lexico-semantic adaptation ofthe loan
words the semantic reduction, semantic narrowing, semantic widening, increaseof loan word
meanings and loan clippings (Alexieva, 2008:42-51).
Semantic reduction denotes a reduction in the range of lexical meanings of a polysemous
English word. An example of this lexical phenomenon is the loanword it has retained only
one of the 3 meanings of its etymongoal.
Semantic narrowing is a semantic change from a general meaning of the English
source word to a specific one in the host language. Here is an example the generalmeaning of
the English word killer a person, animal or, thing that kills (COD 1995) wasnarrowed down to
a hired, ruthless, killer when the loan entered Bulgarian.
The phenomenon of semantic widening is opposite to semantic narrowing. It implies
that an individual meaning of an Anglicism is widened in comparison with the corresponding
sense of its etymon. Here I will mention the example provided by the loanword in
Bulgarian. It has developed, independently of English, the sense of afight, conflict. This
meaning gained ground as an extension of the original meaning of theloan an action movie.
The loan is a conspicuous example of how two semantic developments cantake
place in parallel. On the one hand, we observe a semantic widening of an individualloan
meaning; on the other hand, the increasing of the loanwords semantic range, as well.
Loan clippings comprise anglicisms both lexically and structurally different from their English
etymons. Here are some examples: , , , . These pseudo-loans
turned into internationalisms, whose English counter parts are parking- lot, holding-company,

action movie, basketball. All the English etymons are compounds which in the process of
borrowing end up in the host language as loan clippings.
2.6.

Forms of linguistic borrowing

In her article in "English in Europe" (2002: 256-257) Nevena Alexieva differentiates

among three forms of linguistic borrowing - borrowing (or loan proper), calquing (or loan
translation) and pseudo-loans.
According to her, borrowings are to be divided into three types:
items which are unadapted and hence not felt too be part of Bulgarian. These include
foreignisms, quotation words, ad hoc loans (typically in media language);
words which still look foreign in form or are insufficiently adapted phonologically and
morphologically;
fully integrated items.
Some of the words borrowed from English and employed in the newspaper discourse
are sufficiently adapted phonologically and morphologically and usually producederived forms,
such as , , (); , (),
; , (), , . Others do not share that
possibility to produce different derived forms:
(E weekend) is the end of a week, especially the period of time between
Friday evening and Monday morning, e.g.
- !
(E killer) is a hired person that kills, e.g. ?
(E image) is the general or public perception of a company, public figure, etc.,
especially as achieved by careful calculation aimed at creating widespread goodwill,
e.g. , (E
business) is an occupation, profession, or trade, e.g.
. Although such loanwords do not produce
derived forms, they usually combine with other nouns thus creating the attributive model N+N,
e.g. ,
, "" , . Such N+N formations have become
more and more frequently used in the Bulgarian language, especially in journalese. The reason

why such words have not developed new derived forms probably is rooted in the fact that they
have entered Bulgarianas a certain part of speech, in this case, as nouns and people have not felt
the need to coinnew derived forms. A second reason for this derivational deficit could be the
increasingnumber of N+N formations which are found to be concise, informative, convenient,
andcontribute to language economy. Thus formations such as -, -, later on
in my thesis. Another form of linguistic borrowing which comes to fill in some lexical gaps and
to satisfy the terminological needs is calquing, the so-called loan-translation.
Calquing is a phenomenon in which the recipient language copies the meaning ofthe
simple word, compound word or phrase and employs native lexical material to renderthis
meaning. Calquing consists of four major groups:
translation of the etymon (e.g. E hot news > Bg , E round table >
Bg ).Sometimes there can exist the so-called semi-calques, i.e. just one part
of it is translated, (e.g. E attached file > Bg ). Sometimes loan proper
and calques coexist (e.g. Efr ees tyle > Bg / );
rendering provides looser equivalents for a part of the foreign item or changes the order
of the components as required in Bulgarian structure (e.g. Ebr ain drain > Bg
);
creations formally independent equivalents, prompted by foreign items (e.g.
E cornflakes > );
semantic loans an existing item in Bulgarian, whether native or previously borrowed,
takes over one meaning of the partial foreign equivalent (e.g. in IT: E memory >
Bg ).
The third type of linguistic borrowing is pseudo-loans. This form of linguistic
borrowing conveys the assumption that a receptor language uses borrowed items to produce new
linguistic units, which only formally resemble English words. The author breaks the pseudoloans into 3 subgroups:

lexical pseudo-loans, which are made with combinations of English morphemic material

(e.g. own goal);

morphological pseudo-loans are shortenings of items which range fromsimple words
(e.g.< criminal),

through

compounds

ending); to phrases (e.g. cocktail party);

(e.g.<happy

semantic pseudo-loans, where the anglicism develops a meaning which does not exist in

its etymon (e.g. platform shoes from the plural of tank)

3. Lexical borrowing from English.

One of the aspects of globalization is language contact due to communication.

Globalization presupposes higher intensity of contact between the languages. In turn, theoutcome
of language contact is language change. I will focus on one of the majorphenomena in language
change lexical borrowing.
The process of lexical borrowing is controlled by two equally important aspects that
support or hinder borrowing. The first one is the extralinguistic aspect of lexical borrowing
which leans on the essence of the language contact situation. The Bulgarian-English language
contact situation is intensive and it offers fruitful soil for the developing of lexical borrowing in
Bulgarian. Together with the extralinguistic aspect, the intralinguisticaspect of lexical borrowing,
i.e. the receptor language and its system are ready to accept theforeign words, and thus the two
aspects form a unity which will, inevitably, weaken if somecrevices appear in them.
I will proceed with the concrete factors with the help of which the phenomenon known as
lexical borrowing is possible.
3.1.

Factors for lexical borrowing

The most common factor for borrowing is a mere linguistic necessity. The adventof
new phenomena, concepts, ideas stimulate the speakers to use borrowed words to denotethese
unfamiliar new objects and phenomena which have entered Bulgarian society and forwhich a
native equivalent does not exist. One of the domains, fully depended on the Englishterminology,
is the IT technology. The sports and music domains are also interspersed withEnglish terms
, , , for they have been invented n British orAmerican soil. In any
case, borrowing these terms, which have already turned intointernationalisms, does not imply
that English is superior to the other languages and theother languages such as Spanish, German,
and Bulgarian are inferior. Conversely, everylanguage is developing in such a way as to fulfill its

communicative needs and increase itsword stock. This process of filling in communicative needs
is called lexical gap filling.
Prestige is the second factor that stimulates the phenomenon of lexical borrowing.It is
beyond any doubt that the English language is a prestigious language for being
globallywidespread and having so far-reaching influence. In the first subsection I have
mentionedthe prerequisites for its being a global language which contribute to heightening the
interestin it. In the preface to the Dictionary of the New Words and Meanings in the
BulgarianLanguage it is noted that the majority of lexical borrowings in Bulgarian are names
oftechnical, sports, musical, social and political phenomena originated in Britain or the
USAwhich have turned into internationalisms (Pernishka, 2003:7).
The prestige factor triggers another factor that deserves consideration the strivingof
the Bulgarians for Westernization (Borislavov, 2009). Another reason is the abrupttransition
from the communist system to democracy and market economy. The desire tolook like a
Western-oriented society, founded on seemingly solid foundations of democracy, result in an
overuse of Anglicisms. Such an overuse also stems from deep psychologicalmotives such as
fashion and snobbery (, 1979: 228). Some snobbery is typical of foreign language
beginners who have an ambition to show some knowledge, in this case, of English. On the one
hand, the words used by a certain person are characteristic only ofhis/her idiolect and do not
belong to the pool of English borrowings in the language. It is of importance how frequently a
foreign word is used by the majority of the language community in order to acquire the label
borrowing. Thus, finding its place among theother English borrowings, the word becomes
widely spread in Bulgarian society with atendency to becoming a well-established loanword such
as . On the other hand, some people generally prefer foreign-sounding words such as
and tothe native ones and simply because they
sound modern, no matterwhether they are aware of the difference in meaning or register between
the borrowings andtheir native synomyns. In turn, such words become fashionable.
These factors and tendencies in employing words of English origin instead of thenative
ones are present in journalese. I will concentrate once again on them when examining journalese.

3.2.

Hierarchies of borrowability

Hierarchies of borrowability present the synchronic aspect of lexical borrowing. Such

a hierarchy presents a sequence of lexical elements borrowed from one language intoanother. I
will refer to a distinguished linguist William Dwight Whitney, who was thefirst to state that
some linguistic elements are borrowed more freely than others. WilliamWhitney was a Sanskrit
specialist, who in 1881 noted that nouns are mostly borrowedelements of language, followed by
other parts of speech, then suffixes, inflections, andindividual sounds"(Field, 2002:35). The
offered idea of hierarchy of borrowability issupported by irrefutable evidence and a reliable
analysis of great amount of texts. Whitney does not confine his field of interest only to the living
languages. What he does is broaden his scope of research by investigating hierarchy of
borrowability in Sanskrit. He presents the sequence in which all the borrowed linguistic elements
appear and he devices a paradigm applicable to almost all languages in terms of hierarchy of
borrowability. Here is his paradigm:
nouns > other parts of speech>suffixes> inflections>individual sounds
Another linguist suggests a similar hierarchy. Haugen built up a hierarchy
ofborrowability based on a data collection from American Norwegian and American Swedish
(Haugen, 1950:224):
nouns>verbs>adjectives>adverbs, prepositions, interjections
These hierarchies present borrowing patterns specific to a particular contact situation. As
Field points out content items are more easily borrowed from grammatical items and
grammatical items more frequently than inflexional affixes (Field, 2002:35). Fromthe hierarchies
above, we can arrive at the conclusion that nouns are the most frequently borrowed part of
speech. Whitney does not divide the other parts of speech to make hishierarchy more specific
and to make clear which part of speech comes next; whereas, Haugen puts the verbs immediately
after the nouns andthe adjectives after the verbs. Haugens hierarchy is more sophisticated with

respect to which part of speech follows thenouns. On no occasion, however, should we overlook
Whitneys hierarchy, because it washe who introduced such a hierarchy for borrowing patterns!
In chapter III, I will determine the frequency of the borrowed items employed innews
articles. Then, I will build a hierarchy of borrowability applicable to the present-day BulgarianEnglish contact situation reflected in the Bulgarian journalists word choice.

3.3.

Thematic classification

Loanwords which have entered Bulgarian can be semantically grouped according tothe domain
which they penetrated into. Thus, Andrei Danchev differentiates between 13 areas: Social and
Political Life: , ,
Finance, Economy and Trade:
Maritime Terms: , , ,
Military Terms: , p
Traveling and Tourism: , , Foods and Drinks: ,
Clothing:
Sports: , , , ,
Pop Music and Entertainment: , ,,
Culture and Arts: , , ,
Animals and Plants: ,,
Measures: , , (Danchev, 1986:9,10). According to the frequency of the English
borrowings included in the Dictionary of New Words and Meanings in Bulgarian, 2003, the
terminology used in the Computer and Information Technologies and the Internet domain
(20,6%) constitutes the largest group. If we consider the fact that all therecent borrowings
registered in this dictionarynumber over 1000 and around 83% of themare English borrowings,
over from the overall number of the English borrowings consistsof terminology characteristic
of the IT domain. This confirms the fact that IT domain istotally dependent on the English
terminology, on the one hand, andon the other, points to the incredible speed with which Bulgaria
has opened to the new technologies and attempts to keep pace with them. One thing that the data

on the English borrowing in Bulgarian cited in the Dictionary show is that the lexical borrowings
from English out number the borrowings from other languages, which comes to show what a
huge influence English hashad on Bulgarian over the past decade.
Bearing in mind Danchevs classification and thematic division of the loanwords in
Bulgarian, I will also divide the loanwords found in the news articles according to the news
genre they belong to. Later on, I will make a table in which I will show the percentage ofthe
loanwords found in these articles. On the basis of the information in the table, I will design a
chart which will present the percentage of loanwords used in every single news genre.

3.4.

Treatments of lexical borrowing

3.4.1. Traditional treatment

The traditional treatment still dominates the field of lexical borrowing. According toit, loanwords
are new lexical units for the receptor language. The newly appeared word hasits own graphemic
and phonemic structure characteristic of the source language and alien tothe recipient language.
This is the case also with the English borrowings which enter Bulgarian. The English phonemic
system dramatically differs from ours - English differsfrom Bulgarian as regards its diphthongs,
the opposition between long and short vowels and consonants which do not exist or are quite
different from the Bulgarian ones. This phonemicaspect together with the opaque and
unmotivated meaning of the loanword at the verybeginning represent a very strong argument that
supports the traditional view that foreignwords, actually, penetrate the recipient language.
According to the traditional view aloanword is identical with its source word because of their
formal and often, semantic, closeness. Apart from these factors, there is one more factor that
contributes to thecompleteness of this theoretical treatment the meaning of the term to
borrow. This term has preserved the metaphorical secondary meaning to use an idea
(invention, etc.) originated by another (COD 1995:150). Modern cognitive linguists believe
thatmetaphorically extended meanings are due to the essentially associative nature of
humanthinking.

But it should be pointed out here that the source language is not deprived of any ofits
words borrowed by other languages. The receptor language also has not even theslightest
intention to give back or return the borrowed words. In addition to theadaptations on all
levels (phonological, morphological, derivational and lexico-semantic) that the loanword is
subject to, the loanword along with the word formation patterns startsproducing new derived
words. In fact, the traditional treatment offers quite an extremeviewpoint on lexical borrowing
describing it as a process of an intrusion of foreign wordsinto the receptor language. Such a
statement is contrary to facts and the threat of foreignin truders is unrealistic. That is why I am
turning to a more appropriate and insightful treatment the alternative treatment.

3.4.2. Alternative treatment

Nevena Alexieva is one of the proponents of an alternative treatment of lexical

borrowing. The linguist inveighs against the traditional treatment of borrowings whichimposes
the idea of borrowings as foreign words, foreign intruders in the receptor language
(, 2007:41). Moreover, Nevena Alexieva defends the standpoint thatonce having
entered the borrowing language; the so-called foreign words start their newlife as lexical
copies. The recipient language uses its own phonemic, graphemic, grammatical and lexical
resources to imitate the foreign item. The point here is therecognition of the active role that the
recipient language plays in this process. This activerole is supported by the conceptual character
of human thinking which constantly demands new linguistic expressions. Thus, bearing in mind
the undeniable role of the recipientlanguage, I also tip the balance towards the alternative
approach to borrowings, which nolonger presents borrowings as actual foreign words, but as
lexical copies of the respectivesource language. After all the term Anglicism means a lexical
copy of the Englishetymon. What is more, the lexical copies fit the recipient language grammar
rules and supplement word formation by providing non-motivated new lexemes. Thus, this
process leads to the creation of further new meanings along with new derived words.
Another significant view of the alternative treatment is expressed by the British linguist
T. Hope. He explored in detail lexical borrowings in the Romance languages and arrived at a

very important insight into lexical borrowings true nature. Hope points to the fact that During
the act of transfer the most important factor governing the reception of a loanword is its loss of
morphological and semantic transparency (Hope, 1971:611). So this factor leads to the creation
of close lexical copies of the source words which cannot be expected to convey the structural and
semantic relationships of their models in the source language. The borrowing which enters a new
linguistic system loses its previous motivation and starts adapting to the structural and semantic
relations in the host language. Thus the loanword becomes motivated by the receptor language's
socio-cultural situation which it has entered. If the prototype of the loanword is a compound
word or a derivation (, , ). Few Bulgarians will think of the loanword
painkill er asconsisting of two separate independent nouns, as is the case with English painkiller.
Therefore, once having entered the new language, the loanwords start their own life independent
of their etymons life and gradually find their place in the structural and semantic networks of the
recipient language. The alternative method of lexical borrowing which I sketched above is the
one that I support and rely on. This treatment is far more realistic and close to the nature of
lexical borrowing. I fully accept and firmly support the idea of close lexical copies of the
etymons which enter the semantic and structural networks of the host language and start
complyingwith the host languages grammar rules. That is why the organization of my corpora of
anglicisms is based on this alternative model. The anglicisms included are copies of theetymons,
which have entered our language mainly with only one of the whole range ofmeanings of their
etymons, the majority of them follow the grammar rules of Bulgarian andproduce different
derived forms as well.
In the following subsection, I will deal with the adaptation on the lexico-semanticlevel
which the loanwords undergo, leaving aside the phonological, morphological and the
derivational level, which I mentioned above.

3.5.

Lexico-semantic adaptation

The process of integration of English loan words presupposes their lexico-semantic

adaptation which depends on the nature of the semantic structure of both the recipient andsource

languages (Molhova, 1979:235). In a contact situation, lexical copies usually enter the recipient
language with only one meaning, leaving the rest of the models meanings in the source
language. Such a word, borrowed from one language into another, may remain semantically
unchanged when it is used to designate new objects, ideas, phenomena, and activities, as is the
case with the sports language and the language of IT. Thus, this lexicalcopy enters the receptor
language as gap filler. Convenient gap fillers can be divided into two groups: the first group
comprises loan words which designate, as I said, new phenomena, activities and ideas resulting
from the rise of development in all domains. Fo rthese loan words, native counterparts do not
exist and they are infiltrated into the recipient language to improve its communicative or
referential functions. The second group of so-called gap fillers comprises loan words for which
Bulgarian equivalents exist but they are, in most cases, long-winded native phrasal expressions
( the days of rest). The major point here is that the need for such gap fillers is obvious
as they help to achieve language economy. Thus, gap fillers such as instead of a phrase
meaning the days of restand instead of a phrasal expression to mean a degree of
popularity are already an integral part of the Bulgarian word stock.
Borrowed words may undergo some transformations of meaning depending on how
they are interpreted and used by the native speakers of the receptor language" (Kolarova,
2005:10). The meaning with which the borrowed word initially entered therecipient language can
undergo different semantic changes due to the active role of the native speakers and the receptor
language, as well. It is important to note that the moment the loan word enters the receptor
language with a certain sense, the rest of its models senses cease to exist. Thus, the loan word
starts it independent development, which is different from that of the etymon in its native
environment. Breaking its relations with its etymon, the loan starts building up new semantic
relations in the recipient language. It enters the complicated network of synonyms, antonyms and
homonyms that bears the characteristics of another semantic structure. The loan, thus, should get
adapted to it and find its due place (, 1979:236). Maria Kolarova also points out that
borrowed words are forced to establish their own semantic identity (Kolarova, 2005:10). Later
on, the borrowed word starts acquiring new meanings which, as I previously said, typically do
not exist in the whole range of meanings of the etymon.

To briefly outline the main semantic changes which the borrowed word is subject to, I
will refer to Nevena Alexievas 5-prong division of the lexico-semantic adaptation ofthe loan
words the semantic reduction, semantic narrowing, semantic widening, increaseof loan word
meanings and loan clippings (Alexieva, 2008:42-51).
Semantic reduction denotes a reduction in the range of lexical meanings of a polysemous
English word. An example of this lexical phenomenon is the loanword it has retained only
one of the 3 meanings of its etymongoal.
Semantic narrowing is a semantic change from a general meaning of the English
source word to a specific one in the host language. Here is an example the generalmeaning of
the English word killer a person, animal or, thing that kills (COD 1995) wasnarrowed down to
a hired, ruthless, killer when the loan entered Bulgarian.
The phenomenon of semantic widening is opposite to semantic narrowing. It implies
that an individual meaning of an Anglicism is widened in comparison with the corresponding
sense of its etymon. Here I will mention the example provided by the loanword in
Bulgarian. It has developed, independently of English, the sense of afight, conflict. This
meaning gained ground as an extension of the original meaning of theloan an action movie.
The loan is a conspicuous example of how two semantic developments cantake
place in parallel. On the one hand, we observe a semantic widening of an individualloan
meaning; on the other hand, the increasing of the loanwords semantic range, as well.
Loan clippings comprise anglicisms both lexically and structurally different from their English
etymons. Here are some examples: , , , . These pseudo-loans
turned into internationalisms, whose English counter parts are parking- lot, holding-company,
action movie, basketball. All the English etymons are compounds which in the process of
borrowing end up in the host language as loan clippings.
3.6.

Forms of linguistic borrowing

In her article in "English in Europe" (2002: 256-257) Nevena Alexieva differentiates

among three forms of linguistic borrowing - borrowing (or loan proper), calquing (or loan
translation) and pseudo-loans.
According to her, borrowings are to be divided into three types:
items which are unadapted and hence not felt too be part of Bulgarian. These include
foreignisms, quotation words, ad hoc loans (typically in media language);
words which still look foreign in form or are insufficiently adapted phonologically and
morphologically;
fully integrated items.
Some of the words borrowed from English and employed in the newspaper discourse
are sufficiently adapted phonologically and morphologically and usually producederived forms,
such as , , (); , (),
; , (), , . Others do not share that
possibility to produce different derived forms:
(E weekend) is the end of a week, especially the period of time between
Friday evening and Monday morning, e.g.
- !
(E killer) is a hired person that kills, e.g. ?
(E image) is the general or public perception of a company, public figure, etc.,
especially as achieved by careful calculation aimed at creating widespread goodwill,
e.g. , (E
business) is an occupation, profession, or trade, e.g.
. Although such loanwords do not produce
derived forms, they usually combine with other nouns thus creating the attributive model N+N,
e.g. ,
, "" , . Such N+N formations have become
more and more frequently used in the Bulgarian language, especially in journalese. The reason
why such words have not developed new derived forms probably is rooted in the fact that they
have entered Bulgarianas a certain part of speech, in this case, as nouns and people have not felt
the need to coinnew derived forms. A second reason for this derivational deficit could be the
increasingnumber of N+N formations which are found to be concise, informative, convenient,
andcontribute to language economy. Thus formations such as -, -, later on

in my thesis. Another form of linguistic borrowing which comes to fill in some lexical gaps and
to satisfy the terminological needs is calquing, the so-called loan-translation.
Calquing is a phenomenon in which the recipient language copies the meaning ofthe
simple word, compound word or phrase and employs native lexical material to renderthis
meaning. Calquing consists of four major groups:
translation of the etymon (e.g. E hot news > Bg , E round table >
Bg ).Sometimes there can exist the so-called semi-calques, i.e. just one part
of it is translated, (e.g. E attached file > Bg ). Sometimes loan proper
and calques coexist (e.g. Efr ees tyle > Bg / );
rendering provides looser equivalents for a part of the foreign item or changes the order
of the components as required in Bulgarian structure (e.g. Ebr ain drain > Bg
);
creations formally independent equivalents, prompted by foreign items (e.g.
E cornflakes > );
semantic loans an existing item in Bulgarian, whether native or previously borrowed,
takes over one meaning of the partial foreign equivalent (e.g. in IT: E memory >
Bg ).
The third type of linguistic borrowing is pseudo-loans. This form of linguistic
borrowing conveys the assumption that a receptor language uses borrowed items to produce new
linguistic units, which only formally resemble English words. The author breaks the pseudoloans into 3 subgroups:

lexical pseudo-loans, which are made with combinations of English morphemic material

(e.g. own goal);

morphological pseudo-loans are shortenings of items which range fromsimple words
(e.g.< criminal),

through

compounds

(e.g.<happy

ending); to phrases (e.g. cocktail party);

semantic pseudo-loans, where the anglicism develops a meaning which does not exist in
its etymon (e.g. platform shoes from the plural of tank)