A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF REASONS AND INFLUENCE OF BORROWING OF ENGLISH LOANWORDS IN RUSSIAN AND CHINESE

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF REASONS AND INFLUENCE OF BORROWING OF ENGLISH LOANWORDS IN RUSSIAN AND CHINESE

Anzhelika Sembekova

PhD student, School of Chinese language and Literature, Shaanxi Normal University,

China, Xian

ABSTRACT

With the development of the world economy and the situation of world economic integration, the exchange between countries is gradually processing, so the language friction of the countries is also increasing, which also promotes the emergence of loanwords. Language is used as a means of expressing forms of change and social development. The emergence of loanwords, whether in China or Russia, is basically due to the phenomenon of language contact. The emergence of more loanwords has attracted the attention and research of local and foreign scholars.

Keywords: English loanwords, modern Chinese, modern Russian, borrowings.

Reasons for the involvement of English loanwords.

To analyze the reasons for English loanwords entering, we need to start with the function of English loanwords. From a functional point of view, English loanwords can be divided into four aspects: language, cultural, social and psychological function.

First of all, in terms of language function, English loanwords meet the needs of the native lexical system and vocabulary. After some local development, it can participate in the word formation of its own vocabulary as a morpheme, and it can quickly add a new word-making environment. For example, the English word "mini", has evolved into many new words in both Russian and Chinese, such as "mini marathon" and "mini CD".

Secondly, from the perspective of cultural function, it promotes the multi-level exchanges between local and foreign cultures. Many foreign words are entering our lives because new technologies and things are introduced from overseas, and people’s concepts needs to be updated every day. At the same time, when these foreign words come into contact with us, they act as messengers to convey foreign cultures and increase the acceptance of people into the foreign cultures brought by the West.

From the perspective of social function, English loanwords can make a clear distinction between social identity and social level of people of various social classes. In terms of age, young people are more likely accepting new foreign words with an open mind. However, how to accept a foreign words differs depending on gender, culture, occupation, family and educational background.

Finally, from the perspective of psychological function, saying English loanwords can satisfy the users' desire for simplicity and novelty. Above all, people always will keep up with fashion. It is human nature to seek excitement and freshness. And the new that loanwords bring is aimed at just such a psychology. It spreads something new and brings a new form of language. The psychology of the quest for simplicity naturally wants language users to be able to simplify the language and in order to save effort when expressing the same meaning, people naturally choose to shorten the words. For example, "Olympic Games" is shortened to "Olympics".

1. Reasons why English loanwords intervene in Chinese.

According to records, the use of loanwords in Chinese has a history of more than 1,000 years. In the past ten years, with the progress of reforms and opening up, more and more loanwords have been used as carriers, and foreign cultures have been introduced into China. Reforms and opening up allowed China to go to the world, make the world understand China, and let the world culture enter China.

As Chinese society changes, new ideas, trends, and the latest technology will overflow, and new words come into being. And this also formed a big boom in combining Chinese and loanwords. A large number of loanwords come into being, which has also become the product of the integration and mutual promotion of Chinese and foreign cultures. For example, ice-cream(冰淇淋), tart(挞), guitar(吉他), sauna(桑拿), copy(拷贝), golf(高尔夫), Internet(互联网), etc., all these are English loanwords. The number of loanwords in Chinese is huge, and the proportion of words derived from English is high. It can be said that English loanwords are spreading rapidly and gradually popularizing in our daily life.

English loanwords in Chinese relate to various areas of life. Whether it is food, entertainment or science and technology. With the influx of foreign food, the loanwords in the field of food are gradually known to everyone. For example, our common "coffee"(咖啡),"cookies"(曲奇),"Coke"(可乐),"Sprite"(雪碧), "pizza"(披萨), "hot Dog"(热狗) , "salad"(沙拉) and"cocoa"(可可) which are popular all over the world.

With the development of foreign technological innovation and global science and technology, a large number of new products have gradually poured in China. And endless new products bring more various loanwords. For example, the most basic "genes"(基因), "software"(软件), or"e-mail"(伊妹儿), and high-tech "radar"(雷达).

Many loanwords have been localized. People have even forgotten its identity as a loanword. This also reflects the fact that English loanwords are accepted and used well in China. It was completely regarded as a part of Chinese language and culture. This is due to the special status of the English language in the world. On the other hand, it also reflects the inclusiveness of Chinese culture.

2. Reasons why English loanwords intervene in Russian.

Similar to Chinese, English loanwords have also emerged in Russian in recent decades. There was a wave of loanwords in Russian, and now English loanwords appear very often in Russian newspapers, magazines, and news media. This shows that a large number of English loanwords have been introduced into Russian. Most of these loanwords come from the mass media, so it widely used, and easily accepted and shared by people all over the world.

Under the influence of the deepening trend of globalization, the leading position of English-speaking countries in politics, economy, culture and others led to spread of English as a carrier around the world, which gradually became an international trend. As in China, English loanwords have gradually penetrated into Russian and have been gradually accepted by people. Quoting loanwords is a process of adaptation and transformation, as Russian itself is a language with complete language system and rich vocabulary. Surprisingly, with the introduction of loanwords over a long period of time, Russian will not lose its unique charm, but instead will be an important means of enriching Russian. Moreover, people generally have a kind of psychology in pursuit fashion, and linguistic fashion is also an expression of this psychology. In language practice, both news media and modern youth prefer fashionable loanwords to express their thoughts. For example, if you use English loanword rating (рейтинг) to replace the original Russian word популярность(popularity) or престиж(prestige), not only the original meaning of the word, but also the meaning of "reputation" and "ranking" can be represented. Therefore, loanwords are naturally preferred by people and are used frequently.

1.  Impact of English loanwords on Chinese

Edward Sapir, a well-known American linguist, once said that the word ‘borrowing’ is the simplest connection between the two languages. As long as there is a cultural loan, there are words to borrow. Loanwords borrowed from English represent the fusion and communication of the two cultures. Therefore, through the study of loanwords, we can see more cultural exchanges between the two countries, and we can see the cultural heritage and cultural meaning of a country. As a rapidly expanding international language, English has had a great influence on Chinese.

First of all, English loanwords have a great influence on the Chinese phonetic system. English is a multi-syllable language. Chinese, on the other hand, is a multi-tone language. When English loanwords are introduced, they retain the characteristics of Chinese and have tones. Phonetic conversion more closely matches the pronunciation characteristics of Chinese words. From another perspective, the introduction of English loanwords also promoted the development of Chinese tones. With the introduction of English loanwords, the tone of some Chinese characters has increased, the pronunciation of some Chinese characters has been increased, and some new elements have also been added. This has greatly contributed to the development of Chinese phonetics.

Secondly, English loanwords also have a great impact on the Chinese writing system. Chinese writing system is ideographic system. This involves the issue of literal meaning. When English loanwords enter Chinese, the Chinese system tries to better match the pronunciation and meaning of the words with the characteristics of the Chinese system. That is, it selects and transforms a Chinese character and maintains a certain connection with the meaning of the same word at the radical of that character. The meaning of a word can be easily inferred from its spelling. After the introduction of loanwords, phonograms, homographs and polyphonic characters became more common in the Chinese system. Words such as "coffee"(咖啡), "lemon"(柠檬), "t-shirt"(T恤) were coined.

Thirdly, loanwords also have a significant impact on the word formation system of Chinese. This influence is mainly manifested in syllable morphology, word formation and word meaning. At the same time, loanwords also affect the grammar of the Chinese system, and cause some changes in grammar of part of speech and borrowing of functions. For example, after the word "humor" was introduced as a noun, it acquired the meaning of an adjective, and it soon became popular and widespread in oral language.

Finally, English loanwords also have an impact on Chinese pragmatics. Pragmatics, as the name implies, refers to the way a language is represented. The most notable example is the "WC" that can be seen everywhere in major public places in China. This kind of expression is more elegant than writing "toilet" directly; it can enhance the vividness of language expression.

In a word, the introduction of English loanwords. It can not only expand the vocabulary of Chinese, but also improve the expression ability of Chinese to a certain extent. "B超" is used instead of b-mode ultrasound. This way of expression is concise and clear, and it is easier for people to accept. The introduction of English loanwords makes Chinese more inclusive and promotes communication and exchanges among various ethnic groups.

There are two sides to everything, and the negative impact of introducing English loanwords into Chinese is also obvious. Nowadays, it is said that more and more cultures and loanwords from the West are pouring to the Chinese system. Such an impact has led to the impact of the Chinese language system. There is a certain degree of confusion in the use of Chinese vocabulary, even causing confusion to users, in a certain point of view, the situation of Chinese to have difficulty remembering how to write Chinese characters is also inseparable from the introduction of loanwords. The development of the Internet has also led to the emergence of a large number of substandard loanwords, which also violates the serious rules of language.

In fact, many English loanwords have been integrated into our lives, and people can't even realize that they are English. Their grammatical intonation have gradually become the same as that of Chinese.

2. The influence of English loanwords intervening in Russian.

The history introducing of loanwords into the Russian language can even be dated back to the 10th century. Belinsky V. G. is a great Russian literature critic in the 19th century, who once pointed out that loanwords bring to Russia: foreign concepts, ideas and things. But in recent years, some unnecessary and meaningless English loanwords mixed into Russian. It has seriously affected the purity of the Russian language itself. From this, it is not difficult to see that the introduction of English future words into Russian itself has its two sides.

On the positive side, English loanwords enrich the vocabulary system of Russian itself. In this open social life, people communicate more and more frequently. The collision of civilizations naturally produces the collision of language systems. The introduction of English loanwords is the result of social development. In this way, it not only promotes international exchanges. It also helps to enrich the culture of the country. And its negative impact cannot be ignored either. Compared with the positive influence, the negative influence is not so obvious, but it always exists quietly, and influences the language subtly。

First of all, the borrowing of English loanwords, from another level, can also be said to be a kind of cultural invasion. As English loanwords gradually infiltrated into Russian, the problems mentioned by Belinsky V.G. gradually emerged. As English loanwords are gradually favored and widely used, English word formation gradually infiltrates into Russian, which weakens the Russian word formation and simplifies the standard Russian language. Such as ex-deputy (бывший депутат), superpower (сверхдержава). Another example is the word formation pattern of productive compound words, consisting of English loanwords and hyphens, which greatly blurs the grammatical concepts of adjective and noun postpositions, such as web (веб), online (онлайн), and internet (интернет): web page (веб-страница), online shopping (онлайн-шопинг), internet cafe (интернет-кафе). In this way, under the impact of English loanwords, Russian has lost its own characteristics.

Secondly, English loanwords bring not all positive vocabulary, and at the same time, international slang is also infiltrated into Russian. What is even scarier is that because of its simplicity, it is loved by more and more young people. From young youth circles to entire social groups, such as computer slang from English loanwords: gamer (геймер). Common slang words are cash (кэш), friend (фрэнд), ok (окей), cop (коп). Such words seriously threaten the purity of the Russian language.

Since the 1990s, there has been an "English word craze" in the development of the Russian language. Russians have different opinions on this. But how these English loanwords develop can only be tested by time. Therefore, we should face the influence of English loanwords on Russian objectively. Respect the fact that it exists, and do not give up the pace of researching it.

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