The Influence of Modern English Loanwords on the Verbal Code of Russian Culture

Abstract

The aim of the article is to introduce the authors’ perspective on how English loanwords are changing the structure and the content of the verbal code of Russian culture and the Russian linguistic pictures of the world, as well as on how the latter might change the former. Having used the continuous sampling method, observation method, and synchronic-diachronic approach (lexical semantic analysis, comparative semantic analysis, morphological and quantitative analysis), the authors have allocated and analyzed 487 loanwords, which led to the introduction of three distinguished types of interaction between the verbal code of the Russian language and foreign loanwords. The first interaction type is the process whereby the loanwords adapt semantically to the rules of the host language and culture, which leads to the complete change of a loanword meaning or its modification (15 words). The second interaction type is connected with the loanwords bringing new concepts to a host language and indicating borrowed ideas and objects (270 words). The differentiation of these two interaction types is based on the results of a synchronic and diachronic study of the loanwords in Russian. The analyzed interaction types are linked to the changes in the host language’s verbal code. A concept of a “hybrid linguistic picture of the world” is being introduced as the one constituting the third interaction type (201 words). According to the authors, the hybrid linguistic picture of the world is developing at the current stage of the Russian language and is caused by the process of the morphological adaptation of English loanwords, which is manifested in the production of hybrid words and Russian words being actively substituted by English borrowings.

Keywords

• loanwords
• anglicisms
• verbal code
• hybrid linguistic picture of the world