Anglicisms in RomanianAuthor:erban Gabriel___________________________________

TABLEOFCONTENTS

AbstractArgumentPaper Presentation1Prolegomena to English Borrowings in Romanian2History / Evolution3Reasons for Borrowing Anglicisms4Anglicisms and Related Terms (terminological issues)5Researches5.1. Sourses of research5.2. Linguistic approaches6The Spread of Anglicisms6.1. In Europe6.2. In Romania7Attitudes towards Anglicisms7.1. In Europe7.1.1. France and the French influence7.1.2. Germany7.1.3. Italy7.1.4. Other countries7.2. In Romania7.2.1. Romanian acceptance7.2.2. Romanian rejection8Adaptation8.1. General aspects8.1.1. Adaptation vs. adoption8.1.2. Linguistic aspects (types of changes)8.1.3. Stages of integration8.2. Orthographic adaptation8.2.1. Stages of orthographic adaptation8.2.2.Factors favouring the English spelling8.2.3. Types of orthographic adaptation8.2.3.1. Backward adaptation8.2.3.2.Double letters8.2.3.3.Words containing the lettersyandw8.2.3.4.Homonyms, homographs8.2.3.5.Compounds8.2.3.6.Abbreviations8.2.3.7. Proper names8.2.4. Tendencies and difficulties8.3. Morpho-sintactic adaptation8.3.1. Articles3.1.1. Enclitic articles3.1.2. Indefinite articles8.3.2. Plural endings8.3.3. Noun genders8.3.4. Special cases8.3.5. Adjectives8.3.6. Verbs8.4. Phonetic adaptation8.5. Semantic adaptation8.5.1. Stages of semantic assimilation8.5.2. Stages of semantic adaptation8.5.3. Semantic changes8.6. Derivation8.7. Minor processes8.8. Conclusions9Calques9.1. Semantic calques9.2. Structural calques9.3. Phraseological calques9.4. Referential approach9.5. Other cases10Accessibility11Necessity vs. Luxury12Domains13VariantsConclusionsBibliographyDictionariesAppendix 1(Compound borrowings)Appendix 2(Anglicisms from various domains)Appendix 3(Variants)

ABSTRACT

Anglicisms are found in all walks of life and learning them is therefore almost a prerequisite for the mastery of the Romanian language. English, as the main donor language for the international pool of words, has become a lingua franca,serving as an indispensable means of communication with the outside world. Its presence in the present-day Romanian language has become so influential that, undoubtedly, it deserves a lot of our interest and scrutiny. And this paper aims exactly at examining this overwhelming influence of this universal language by means of its ever pervading invaders,Anglicisms.Although more or less extensive research has been done to date on the nature of Anglicisms as well as on the way they are used or have been integrated in our language, a better understanding of their behaviour and impact can nevertheless be acquired only by having all the relevant theories and scholarly contributions on this topic collected in a comprehensive structure. And that is exactly what I have tried to create in this paper. In this respect, proper attention has been given to all areas that have a role in this complex process of borrowing, starting with the history of the presence of Anglicisms in Romanian, going through the various researches in the area and the estimations on the spread of these words not only in our language, but also in other European languages, insisting on the intricate process of adaptation, with all its many implications and peculiarities, and ending with a view on the attempts to regulate the presence of Anglicisms in Romanian. All these areas come in this paper supported by a large number of details and illustrative examples, as provided in the works of various researchers or in dictionaries.The final conclusions underline some of the most conspicuous elements as arisen from my analysis, such as the implications of the adaptation process and the general tendencies related to it, some of the most important difficulties that occur in the complicated process of borrowing, the impact Anglicisms have and/or is expected to have on the Romanian language in the future, as seen in the larger picture of the world we live in, or reason for understanding and accepting this phenomenon as a natural and implacable, irreversible process.

ARGUMENT

In Romania, Anglicisms have been under the scholars scrutiny for less than half a century. Yet, in spite of the rather numerous studies written in the recent years, none of them has covered this subject in all its facets and implications. Each scientific research has covered a more or less complex area of interest: either a specific domain (economics, IT or others), or peculiarities of the complex process of adaptation or adoption, or the impact and the spread of Anglicisms in various languages, each restricting its approach to that particular field.The study of lexical borrowings has a long tradition, going back at least to the historical comparative language studies of the 19th century and extending over all the fields of philology. Research on Anglicisms concentrates on several main areas. First of all, a number of empirical-descriptive studies should be mentioned, mostly based on print media as general text corpora, such as ManfredGrlachsAn Annotated Bibliography of European Anglicisms(Oxford, 2002).Then there is the lexicographical preoccupation with Anglicisms, with several dictionaries,ManfredGrlachsDictionary of European Anglicisms, A Usage Dictionary of Anglicisms in Sixteen European Languages(2001) being the most notorious, referred to by a large number of authors from all over Europe, as itprovides the first exhaustive and up-to-date account of British and American English words that have been imported into the main languages of Europe.Furthermore, there are some historical studies which deal with the increasing influence of English, accompanied by research on attitudes towards Anglicisms and on language policies. Among the authors with the most relevant contributions in this area I would mention Roswitha Fischer (2008), Monica Sim (2006), Arina Greavu (2010), Georgeta Ciobanu (1991, 1996), Mioara Avram (1997) and Adriana Stoichioiu-Ichim (2006). I would say that Georgeta Ciobanus contributions are particularly important, as sheanalyzed the influence of the English element on contemporary Romanian earlier than many other authors,trying to point out some peculiarities of the borrowing process, insisting on the nature of the borrowing process and its evolution,the integration of the English element in the Romanian lexis and the relationship with the international pool of Anglicisms.In the European Research ProjectThe English Element in the European Languagesdirected by Rudolf Filipovic, a project whose results were to prove the peculiarities of borrowing English elementsinto Romanian and other European languages, as well as those aspects aimed at outlining the universalia of borrowing English elements in all European languages. G. Ciobanu was the one who gave the Romanian contribution on the project.The results of her study, as well as those of F. Bncil and D. Chiorans studies, were included in the second and third volumes (Bncil, Chioran, 1982), (Ciobanu, 1991) and in the 41-42nd volumes (Ciobanu, 1996), and have been pursued afterwards at all language levels. Nevertheless, some of the examples and data supporting her findings are outdated now, especially those related to the presence of certain Anglicisms in dictionaries and some statistics. G. Ciobanus studies were soon followed by another valuable contrubution, much quoted by all analysts of this phenomenon, which isMioara AvramsAnglicismele n limba romn actual(1997).The Bulgarian Rumyana Lyutakova (Orthographical Adaptation of Anglicisms in Romanian and Bulgarian,2004) gave a minute description of theorthographic adaptation, in three stages, also of the morphosintactic and phonetic adaptation. Her study includes aspects rarely touched elsewhere: backward adaptation, acronyms or double letters. Constantin Maneas studies (2009, 2010) are also worth mentioning, in referrence with thethedegrees of assimilation in point of both form and semantics and of the technique of quotation as a first step in taking over recent loanwords. He alsoaims to spot some of the main sources of difficulty resisting the linguists and educationalists efforts to regulate the form of the Anglo-American terms that have entered the vocabulary of contemporary Romanian.As regards the difficulties related to the adaptation process, it must be said that all authors involved in researches related to Anglicisms have come with more or less personal contributions in a general attempt to decipher all the implications of this fuzzy process.A number of authors (Avram, 1997;Stoichioiu-Ichim, 2003;Lyutakova, 2004; Rus, 2005; Manea, 2010; Athu, 2011)render in their studies different norms (phonetic, orthographic, morphologic etc.) of the adaptation of English elements into Romanian language, mostly with reference to the way these elements appear in variants in some of the main Romanian dictionaries (DEX, 1998, MDN, 2002, DOOM, 1982 and 2005). As Lyutakova (2004) remarks in her study, the existence of variants proves that the adaptation process is not complete.The present paper aims not only at covering a specific limited area regarding Anglicisms and their presence and influence in Romanian; it has a more ambitious aim, which is to synthetize some of the most relevant studies and offer a global perspective on this increasingly powerful phenomenon which tends to affect our native language more and more each day. In my thesis I have only tried to point out some of the most qualified opinions in this area and to put them together as with the pieces of an intricate puzzle, in an attempt to offer the reader a clearer picture of this area which I consider of much linguistic interest nowadays.

PAPERPRESENTATION

The main purpose of this paper is to study the English borrowing in Romanian in all its linguistic aspects, trying to point out some peculiarities of the borrowing process and some of the main sources of difficulty which resist the linguists and educationalists efforts to regulate the form of the Anglo-American terms that have entered the vocabulary of contemporary Romanian.Following the introduction, I presented a shortHistory(or theEvolution) of the borrowing process, including other channels that helped this process and two cases of words whose evolution presented some peculiarities.The next chapter,Reasons for Borrowing, presents the most important factors that encourage the borrowing of English elements into Romanian. Among them, the communicative needs, prestige and the new cultural and technological realities prevail.In the chapter calledAnglicisms and Related Termssome of the main terms related to the subject of this paper are described in order to clarify some of the issues that are likely to generate confusion.The next chapter,Researches, gives a glimpse at the way scientists have treated the borrowing phenomenon in their research, focusing either on the study of general language terms or, more often, on the researching and inventoring of the technical/specialized vocabulary, with all the difficulties this strenuous effort entails.The Spread of Anglicismsaims at analyzing the impact the English element has had both on Romanian and, comparatively, on other European languages. All estimations and findings present the influx of Anglicisms as a pervasive phenomenon, with an increasing impact in the more recent years, especially in the Eastern countries (Romania included) after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.InAttitudes towards AnglicismsI tried to offer a short view as to what extent European peoples (Romanians included) accept English loans open-heartedly or not. As in many other fields, opinions towards this phenomenon are split, both at global level and at the national level. Most countries accept this intrusion with no significant opposition, while very few others (France and Germany being the most notable examples) have always made efforts to limit this influence. Romania's tolerance places us in the first category, in spite of some voices of criticism.The next chapter (Adaptation) is the most elaborate of my thesis. It is a thorough analysis of the complicated process of integration/adaptation of Anglicisms in Romanian, with its implications and peculiarities at all levels, be them orthographic, morpho-sintactic, phonetic or semantic. All these levels are accompanied by explanations and illustrative examples. Also the stages of adoption and some related tendencies and difficulties are described here. Obviously, the most prominent part is dedicated to the orthographic adaptation, with its many subdivisions and special cases. Adaptation is a highly complicated and complex process which requires a lot of attention. Therefore, this chapter is naturally the most important and carefully looked upon from this paper.Calquesare treated separately as they refer not to lexical borrowings but to the borrowing of translations. The main subdivisions here are the three types of calque analyzed in the approaches of various linguists: semantic calques, structural calques and phraseological calques, along with a referential approach offered by Stoichioiu-Ichim (2003), and some special cases, euphemisms among them. All these types offer different peculiarities, as described in this chapter.The way Anglicisms are rendered in written media is described in the next chapter calledAccessibility. As shown in this chapter, most authors who use such English terms in their writings often resort to various methods in order to help the Romanian reader understand the exact meaning of these terms. Some resort to graphical conventions (inverted commas, italics, bolds, etc.), others offer explanations or Romanian equivalents, in parallel. Then, there are lots of cases when the English terms are given without any explanation, as they are considered popular enough among readers.The chapter calledNecessity vs. Luxuryobviously treats Anglicisms from the perspective of whether they are considered necessary or not in the Romanian vocabulary. As shown here, the necessary borrowings can be of two types: denotative and connotative. The denotative borrowings do not have equivalents in Romanian because they denote recent realities that have appeared in various field in the more or less recent years, therefore they are often linked to specialized languages, while the other type of necessary borrowings, the connotative ones, double pre-existing Romanian words, having an effect of amplification on the stylistic meanings and being often called 'luxury borrowings'.InDomains,I presented some of the fields with the largest influx of Anglicisms. The importance of the English element is explained for some of these domains, sometimes accompanied by several translations and examples of use in Romanian texts.The chapter aboutVariantsoffers an analysis of the way Anglicisms are found in the Romanian dictionaries, as well as some of the main tendencies met in normative works. As often shown in the linguistic studies, the existence of variants is a proof that the adaptation of the English term is incomplete. The same type of proof is the fact that dictionaries like DOOM 2, DEX, DCR, MDN, DN, NODEX often disagree not only on the variants, but even on the inclusion or exclusion of some terms. Therefore, the existence of variants is seen as a phenomenon which seems impossible to ever disappear.The final chapter is obviously dedicated to my finalConclusions, as related to all the aspects described in the present paper.

The in-text citations are rendered according to thePublication manual of the American Psychological Association(5th ed.). Washington, DC. Author: American Psychological Association (2001), and the bibliography according toSTAS 8660-82.

1PROLEGOMENATOENGLISHBORROWINGS INROMANIAN

English, which mainly after 1066 imported thousands of words from French and Latin, is now by far the world's biggest lexical exporter, and the trade is growing as English continues to dominate various fields, ranging from pop music to electronic communication. Several countries have monitored the inflow of Anglicisms and some have even tried to block it. But language, as lexicographers have always found, respects neither boundary nor law.We can say that there is almost no field of activity in which such words have not penetrated; moreover, the tendency has become dominant.Under the circumstances, it is obvious that beside the nationallanguage, a lingua franca is often seen as an absolute necessity in any civilized country of this world. In this respect, English is seen as a foreign language, serving as a useful means of communication with the outside world, while the national language is used within one's own speech community.After 1989 social circumstances favoured increased contacts between Romaniaand many foreign countries, the English speaking world included; consequently,a large number of Anglicisms and Americanisms were borrowed viawritten and oral routes.Beside the natural need to use some terms coming from English (the influence of English being an international phenomenon due to the progress of some highly pervasive domains), the invasion of English borrowed words becomes a sort of trend among some social categories that frequently and deliberately employ English words, even though there are Romanian equivalents:job, party, look, hair-stylist,popcorn, hit,announcing a sort of linguistic fashion in the present-day written media.This trend of using, sometimes unnecessarily and abusively, English words instead of Romanian ones could be seen up to a point as a natural phenomenon, aswe actually live in a world of fakes, as Monica Sim (2006a) remarks. She also states that almost everything is being forged and copied: paintings, clothes, bags, music, sites, books, images, characters, even words and expressions. There are originals and copies as well. But it is even easier to fake and copy options, expectations, words, behaviour, to let yourself taken away by imitation, fake and not knowledge. It is handy, easy and trendy. Regardless the aim, be it necessity or trend, these borrowings show the way our vocabulary changes, as media represents the most eloquent and true reality.As for the written media, the presence ofagreat number of English borrowed words suggests the openly expressed wish of the journalist to be perceived as an accessible, entertaining, up-to-date writer, but sometimes the result turns to be just the opposite and the public discourse easily slips towards a familiarity that crosses theanimated, vivid language, often becoming impolite, even invective.

Many are the reasons facilitating the enrichment of our language with English-origin terms: the development of technology, of trade, and of the economy, to quote just a few. Economic, social and political factors play an important role in enriching a language by means of borrowings; in countries where such relationships are non-existent, words of foreign origin penetrate with more difficulty, if at all (Sim, 2006b). The boom in technology and industry smoothed the path towards the exchange of information between countries and, consequently, new terms are introduced in order to cover the new realities that are coming up in these domains at a fast pace.Similarly, trade and population migration represent another cause of change, and many words belonging to commerce and transportation have entered Romanian:voucher, trailer, discount. The Romanian native speakers need to borrow such terms because these can facilitate communication between Romanian business owners and European or world traders. Nowadays, it is almost impossible for business owners of different origins to get along, sign contracts and establish business partnerships without resorting to terms connected with economics and business, mainly of English origin, which spread all over Europe and became international terms. Newly coined terms appear, some translated, some adjusted, brands are turned into common nouns and used in daily speech, some of them have a short life and soon become obsolete (especially those belonging to daily speech), some others enter the common core vocabulary (standard language or specialized language).

2HISTORY / EVOLUTION

Due to its geographical position, Romanian has been influenced directly by various languages belonging to different genetic types, and this has turned Romanian into a generous receiver, able to assimilate words from various languages. The impact of various linguistic influences has favoured the openness of our language to borrow foreign words, English words included. In the case of Romanian, its lack of resistance to borrowings (developed throughout the centuries) has proved to be helpful, favouring the integration of English elements.Although chronologically the English language is the last one among the modern languages (e.g. Italian, French, Russian, German) to contribute to the enrichment of contemporary Romanian, the presence of some thousands of Anglicisms (at least 3,000) (Ciobanu, 1996) in the general Romanian vocabulary, and many more scientific terms, represents a corpus worth considering.The origin of neologisms in Romanian is diverse, but they mainly come from classical languages: Latin and Greek, from neo-Latin languages (French, Italian), and from Germanic languages, such as German and English, as well (Dumistrcel, 1980). Belonging to a language family other than Latin, the borrowings from English may have to cope with a difficult adaptation and/or acceptance process on the part of a great deal of speakers. Still, let us not forget that English itself has got a powerful Latin component (e.g.audit, bonus, item), and thus, some of these English loans do not harm our language, they only continue the old process of re-Latinisation of Romanian. Therefore, we do not have to worry about the seemingly too large English influence.The origins of the contact between English and Romanian culture, and within it the English influence on the Romanian language can be traced back to the sixteenth century, according to Arina Greavus research (2010). However, the major influence of English on Romanian started in the second half of the 19th century, with the intensification of the cultural and economic relations between the two countries, this influence being recorded in the lexicographic works of the time.Hristea (1984) shows that the neologisms that Romanian started to borrow from English in the 19th century came almost exclusively through the intermediacy of French, many of them belonging to the sports terminology:aut, baschet, base-ball, bowling, bridge, corner, dribbling, fault, fini, fotbal, hen, ofsaid, meci, outsider, polo, pressing, ring, rugby, scor, set, skeet, sportsman, start,ut, tenis, volei, etc.A very important wave of English borrowings in Romanian began at the turn of the 20th century and coincided with the intensification of economic and cultural contacts, being encouraged by Romanias industrial and economic development on West European models, many of them of British origin (Greavu, 2010). Thus, British technological methods, and with them English terminologies, were brought to the attention of specialists in oil drilling, mining, finance, steel production, shipbuilding, weaving, etc. To these industrial / economic elements, others were added such as military and political circumstances - Romanias joining the Triple Entente countries in 1916, or the fact that Queen Maria, the wife of Ferdinand I, king of Romania from 1914 to 1927, was a grandchild of Queen Victoria and born in England.The second half of the 20th century saw a further intensification of this influence, in spite of political, economic and cultural barriers existing between east and west Europe. The various, mainly political circumstances of the time, resulted in changing attitudes towards English. Thus, while the 1950s are thought to have been the years most intensely marked by xenophobia, more and more English words found their way into technical terminologies and the standard language in the 1970s, when Romania began to assume an air of independence, with Russian models being increasingly discarded. This period was marked by an inflow of translations of scientific and literary writings. Evidence of the increasing influence of the English language on Romanian is the recording of ever more Anglicisms in Romanian dictionaries starting with 1970. These dictionaries include works of a general nature such asDicionarul explicativ al limbii romne(DEX), dictionaries of neologisms (DN), and recordings of new words (Florica Dimitrescu, 1982, 1997:Dicionar de cuvinte recente- DCR1 and DCR2), as well as specialized dictionaries restricted to individual domains, e.g. computer science, finance and trade, marketing, sports and medicine.Finally, the contemporary period, i.e the end of the 20th century andthe beginning of the 21st century is characterized by what is usually referred to as an unprecedented English influence which manifests itself directly, without the intermediacy of other languages, mainly through second language teaching and the mass media, being supported by extra-linguistic factors such as fashion and prestige.Thepresent-day flood of Anglicisms to Romanian that characterizes this period makes it particularly interesting and worth studying from the linguistic perspective. Therefore, these recent Anglicisms constitute the main corpus of words under analysis in the present paper.

OTHER CHANNELS;TWO SPECIAL INSTANCESIt is interesting to notice that there are English loans that came into Romanian throughFrench,after French had adopted them first:biftectakes after fr.bifteck(DEX),rather than en.beefsteak[bi:fsteik] (DN),golaverajfrom fr., en.goal-average(DEX, DN, MDN);sandvi/sanvi/sandvici(DEX, DN: cf. Sandwich - an English lord) /senvi(DOOM2), as in the pronunciations of other French loans (champagneorchauffeur); alanger(DEX), from fr.challengeur, although DOOM2 recommends the English spellingchallengerand the English pronunciation (also accepted in DN). There are also updated French loans:trezorier(en.treasurer),cupon(en.coupon),retail(en.) anden detail(fr.),similaritate(en.similarity) andsimilitudine(fr.similitude),wholesaleandangro(fr.en-gross).TheRussianchannel also helped entrance of several English terms:conveierandscreper(DEX, DN, MDN),not with the English pronunciation ofconveyerandscraper.TheGermanchannel has led to incorrect spelling or pronounciation, with:start(DEX, DN: en. start, ger. Start), sprint(DEX: fr., en.), spray(DEX: en., fr.), probably by analogy withtrand(ger.Strand).

In theArticle on Linguisticsfrom Encyclopdia Britannicait is stated thatlanguages borrow words freely from one another, a process that usually takes place when some new object or institution is developed for which the borrowing language has no word of its own. The article mentions the case of the large number of words denotingfinancial institutionsand operations borrowed from Italian by the other western European languages at the time of the Renaissance, which testifies to the importance of the Italian bankers in that period. (The wordbankitself, in this sense, comes through French from the Italianbanca). Comparatively, words now pass from one language to another on a scale that is probably unprecedented, partly because of the enormous number of new inventions that have been made in the 20th century and partly because international communications are now so much more rapid and important. The vocabulary of modern science and technology is very largely international.As a representative case of the way in which a borrowed word can almost displace a native equivalent in a relatively short amount of time, Arina Greavu provides the example of the Anglicismretail,inan article written inRevista economic(2010). In 1998, according to her count, this word did not appear at all in the studied corpus ofCapitalmagazine, whilecu amnuntulwas used for 76 times, anden-detailfor 7 times. All three terms had a surge in 2000, probably as a result of the arrival of large supermarket chains in Romania, and after that momentretailclearly gained a lot of ground in front of the two native synonyms, and it probably continued its upward trend after 2005. This firm position held byretail, which is very likely to continue to gain ground in the future as well, is reinforced by a similar evolution inretaileranddetailist.Another example given by the same author isbusiness,whosefrequency in the studied period grew dramatically, from 27 occurrences in 1998 to 321 in 2005.Having the past, the present and the future of this borrowing process in mind, we may conclude that the penetration and usage of the English loanwords in Romanian vocabulary is a highly dynamic process, a complex phenomenon whose amplitude is, in my opinion, in spite of all the elaborate studies and statistical researches, impossible to predict for theyears to come.

3REASONSFORBORROWINGANGLICISMS

Thecontinuous progress of arts, technology, sciences brings along a great number of new words. Each new thing, object, must bear a name; for instance:virus, appendicitis, motoretc. And these new words are either borrowings from other languages or new creations from old words by means of all the internal means of enriching vocabulary: derivation, conversion, composition etc. It is interesting to notice that all these items were not registered in the dictionaries when they first appeared. Nowadays we can no longer communicate efficiently without them. Still, like most of the things in this world, there is a reverse of this process: all these new words that appear in a language must be carefully monitored so as not to suffocate the borrowing language.As regards the various elements that have contributed to this inflow of Anglicisms, two factors are in my opinion the strongest predictors of borrowing from English into contemporary Romanian: need and prestige. Thus, many of the words that have been borrowed in the last two decades for their informative function answer specific referential and communicative needs in various compartments of the Romanian society, e.g. economy, politics, culture, entertainment, science and technology.The dominant place English holds in the avant-garde of scientific advancement, as well as in business and other international relations, endows this language with certain connotations of modernity, fashion and prestige, which promote the borrowing of words not motivated by need, therefore these words are called luxury or unnecessary loans. Thisis the case with a lot of words borrowed after 1989, and a high degree of Anglomania justifies the use of very many terms in domains related to everyday life, such as music, sports, fashion etc.Many such words are simply taken over (they are not really borrowed) out of snobbery:fashion adviser- (newspapers, magazines and TV prefer to use the English term);high tech, whose Romanian translation is tehnologie de vrf, but it is preferred in the English form, and so on.It is generally agreed that borrowing American/British terms (such asfast food, pop music, management)to describe various cultural realitiesis considered a sign of internationalization of the Romanian vocabulary (Stoichioiu-Ichim, 2001), while rejecting them is a manifestation of self-isolation and cultural provincialism.

To sum up, all these aspects - progress, communicative needs, prestige, efficience, inexistence of terms, new cultural realities - can be seen as powerful factors that help promoting the borrowing of Anglicisms in Romanian, as in many other languages.

4ANGLICISMSANDRELATEDTERMS(TERMINOLOGICALISSUES)

In order to get a better understanding of the elements analysed in the following chapters, I consider useful to define some of the main terms related to the subject of this paper and clarify some of the issues that are likely to generate confusion as far as these terms are concerned.

ANGLICISMThe termAnglicismwas first used in the 17th century and refers toa linguistic feature ofEnglish used in another language (cf.OED). Or, according to Wikipedia, anAnglicism,as most often defined, is a word borrowed from English into another language.Anglicismalso describes English syntax, grammar, meaning, and structure used in another language with varying degrees of corruption.Today the term is commonly associated withthe increasing influx of English borrowings from WW II onwards, related to the international role of mainly the United States, and to English as a lingua franca. Opponents of Anglicisms often use the term derogatively. Roswitha Fischer (2008) righteously remarks that, thoughAnglicismis connected to the wordEnglandetymologically, it is generally not only used for Anglicisms from England, but also for English loans from all varieties of the English language. Sometimes, in order to specify the origin of an Anglicism, the termAmericanismis also used for borrowings originating from the United States, this then being a subordinate of the termAnglicism.

BORROWINGAccording to American Heritage Dictionary, aborrowingis especially a word or phrase borrowed from one language for use in another. Ora word adopted from another language and completely or partially naturalized.But what exactly is aborrowing? Roswitha Fischer (2008) explains in her thorough analysis of this term that, though phonological, morphological and syntactic borrowing also exists, the term is usually applied to words and their meanings.Borrowingdenotes the process as well as the object. As a process it typically refers to the importation of a word or its meaning from one language into another. As an object, it denotes the form and/or the meaning of the item that originally was not part of the vocabulary of the recipient language but was adopted from some other language and made part of the borrowing language's vocabulary.A second cause for the fuzziness of the termborrowingis its use for a subgroup of borrowing, namelylexicalborrowing, in contrast tosemanticborrowing. Lexical borrowings are also calledloan wordsorloans. Both the form and (parts of) the meaning of a foreign word become imported, not only the meaning as is the case with semantic borrowing. Some scholars also equate lexical borrowing withdirectorintegral borrowing, i.e. a borrowing whose form is transferred directly from the source language, and not via another language. The latter case is usually calledindirect borrowing.Then, semantic borrowing can be further subdivided intoloan meaningandloan formation. Loan meaning refers to the borrowing of a meaning through meaning extension of a word in the recipient language.Three further subcategories of semantic borrowing canbe subsumed under the termloan formation:loantranslation(calquing,loan shift), i.e. the (complete) translation of a borrowing (e.g. ro.relaii publice