Anglicising leisure: The multimodal presence of English in Spanish TV adverts

Abstract

This paper examines the presence of English in a corpus of commercials recorded from four Spanish TV channels with high audience shares between 2013 and 2015. We aim to contribute to the study of the dynamics of the usage of anglicisms in Spain. Drawing data from a wider sociolinguistic research project, our analysis will focus on the corpus of adverts related to three specific fields which have to do with recreational activities, namely, technology, entertainment, and food and drinks. In addition to the linguistic level, the audiovisual modes of communication will also be explored. This multimodal analysis will not only provide a record of the different types of lexical anglicisms employed, but will also reveal the significant role of the audiovisual mode in the transfer of linguistic material and socio-cultural values of the English-speaking world.Keywords: anglicisms, TV advertising, sociolinguistics, European Spanish.