The alien and (or) one’s own: modern hidden calques (based on the collocation Kak po Mne [as for me])

Abstract

This article addresses the problem of identifying hidden borrowings in the Russian language of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The authors pay particular attention to expressions that convey meanings whose semiotic 'form' utilises linguistic elements pre-existing in the recipient language. The mechanism of embedding a semantic calque into an already existing model of signification is illustrated using the example of the collocation kak po mne and its interaction with the original Russian marker of personal opinion po mne, which has a long history of use. A corpus study and contextual semantic and comparative analysis led the authors to conclude that the collocation kak po mne is a calque of the Anglo-Americanism 'as for me / as to me', competing with another form of hidden borrowing — po mne [for me / to me]. Coexisting in the recipient language with the native expression po mne, the hidden semantic calque appears as its structural-semantic variant with an intensifier. The article also presents survey data from native Russian speakers, who predominantly classify kak po mne as a vulgarism or colloquialism. This categorisation persists despite the widespread use of the expression by educated individuals across various functional domains, including media, literary translations and film dubbing.

Keywords

• hidden borrowings
• anglo-americanisms
• kak po mne
• discursive words
• markers of personal opinion
• stylistic status
• speech fashion
• translation