Usage of anglicisms in the context of current language situation in Ukraine

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HSEE «Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi State Pedagogical University named after Hrihoriy Skovoroda»

Usage of anglicisms in the context of current language situation in Ukraine

Yuliia O. Molotkina

Postgraduate Student

Department of Document Science

Due to intensive globalization process, a huge amount of anglicisms appears in Ukrainian language. In recent years, this process has been reinforced by the development of Internet communications and social media. Borrowing is natural for every language in the world as it is the consequence of cultural contact between two language communities. However, these days language situation in Ukraine is characterized by the excessive usage of anglicisms. The process of borrowing English lexemes into Ukrainian language began in the XIX century but it was not so dynamic. Penetration of English loanwords intensified after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when the so-called «Iron Curtain» had fallen and Ukrainian community became more aware of the British and American culture. In the early 90-s of XX century, there were borrowed mostly English business lexemes, but by the end of XX-beginning of XXI century Ukrainian lexicon had an enormous amount of borrowed English lexemes, especially from the American slang. Excessive usage of anglicisms is one of the major concerns of modern Ukrainian linguists because they consider it as the threat to the purity of Ukrainian language. Language situation in Ukraine has always been difficult due to the strong influence of Russian language and excessive and often inappropriate usage of English loanwords makes it more complicated. This issue has not only linguistics but also social consequences. There fore, the problem of usage of anglicisms is relevant to the contemporary Ukrainian linguistics.

Analysis of previous researches and publications

Researches that are devoted to the reasons for borrowing and functioning of anglicisms play one of the leading roles in the modern Ukrainian linguistics.

Many linguists analyzed there a sons for penetration of loanwords into Ukrainian language. Such linguists like V. Symonok (Symonok, 2000: 226), L. Arkhypenko (Arkhypenko, 2005: 55-62) and others researched this problem.

S. Fedorets (Fedorets, 2005), L. Malevych (Malevych, 2010), M. Navalna (Navalna, 2011: 55-64) andothers studied functioning of borrowed lexemes in different terminological systems.

Many researchers study current language situation in Ukraine and Europe as well. For example, Tadeusz A. Olszanski studied peculiarities of language issue in Ukraine in the context of political and social relations between Ukraine and Russia (Olszanski, 2012). Strong English influence occurs not only in Ukrainian, but also in others European languages and many linguists study this problem. For instance, A. Kapush analyzed the language situation in Germany in the era of dominance of English (Kapush, 2016).

However, in our opinion, there is a lack of studies devoted to the analysis of the impact of usage of borrowed English lexemes on language and social situation in Ukraine.

The purpose of this article is to analyze sociolinguistic aspect of the usage of anglicisms in the context of current language situation in Ukraine.

In order to achieve the aim of this research it is necessary to set the following objectives:

describe general language situation in Ukraine;

analyze pros and cons of using borrowed English words;

analyze sociolinguistics aspect of usage of anglicisms and its influence on language situation in Ukraine.

Methods and techniques of research

In this research, we used the methods of comparison, analysis, synthesis and method of surveillance.

Throughout its history, Ukrainian language has always had purity issues. Due to historical, political and cultural factors, other languages had influenced Ukrainian language during all periods of its existence. The strongest impact on Ukrainian had Polish and Russian languages. Reasons for such influence lied in the fact that both these countries tried to perform language and cultural assimilation in order to strengthen their political power on the territory of Ukraine (by imposing policies of Polonization and Russification) (Antoniuk, Semko). This led to the appearance of big amount of different Polish and Russian borrowed words. In the end of XIX-at the beginning of XX centuries, many linguists were concerned about the effect of using Polish and Russian loanwords on the purity of Ukrainian language. For example, I. Nechui-Levytskyiac knowledge borrowings as a linguistic fact, but he criticized some Ukrainian writers for inappropriate usage of «unnecessary Polish words» (Nechui-Levytskyi, 1912: 13-14). B. Hrinchenko also shared ideas of purism and considered loanwords dangerous and even harmful for Ukrainian language (Arkhypenko, 2005: 13-14).

Some researches claim that these days there is a tendency of active usage of polonisms in modern Ukrainian discourse (Piddubna, 2015: 180). From the perspective of Ukrainian linguists, this indicates the attempt «to draw the attention of the society to the West, form some cultural and linguistic stereotypes and predict ways of language development» (Krekhno, 2012: 192). Therefore, we can assume that Polish still has considerable influence on Ukrainian language.

However today the problem of Russian language influence is far more complicated than with Polish. Since the very beginning of its independence Ukraine has been bilingual state and great part of its citizens have used exclusively Russian in speech and particularly in writing - though the Ukrainian constitution of 1996 declares that Ukrainian is the only state and official language (Olszanski, 2012: 5). This situation is the consequence of the fact that Ukraine had been one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union from its inception in 1922 to its breakup in 1991. In Soviet Union, the idea of language equality was nothing but formality. In fact, Russian language dominated in all areas of state and social life of every socialistic republic. As for Ukrainian, Soviet authorities performed policy of destruction and interference to its language system in order to ruin its uniqueness. Massive terror and repression against Ukrainian intelligentsia and village - as the main Ukrainian speaking community - led to the expansion of Russian language and depreciation of Ukrainian (Uzunov, 2014: 90). After recent political events, like Euromaidan and Russian military intervention in Ukraine, language situation in Ukraine has been more difficult and language dispute has become a dispute over a symbolic and ideological aspect.

Such lasting co-existence of two languages within one country caused the appearance of Ukraine-specific language-phenomenon like Surzhyk. It is a degraded form of language communication and one should not confuse it with a dialect because Surzhyk does not have any set of rules (Olszanski, 2012: 12). Artur Bracki defines it as «type of speech based on the Ukrainian language and featuring strong influences from the Russian language which have formed as a result of a long-term co-existence of the two languages, this co-existence has the characteristics of asymmetrical bilingualism» (Bracki, 2009: 14). Most linguists are concerned about this language phenomenon because they are convinced that Surzhyk damages the beauty and purity of the Ukrainian language (Pohribnyi, 2006; Stavytska, 2002). Nevertheless, sociologists claim that Surzhykis used daily by approximately 16-18% of the population of Ukraine, mainly in the central part of the country (Olszanski, 2012: 12-13).

And these days Ukrainian language faces another threat to its purity - the excessive usage of anglicisms. In the 90s of XX century one of the special features of Ukrainian society was so-called «Ukrainian americanomania». This is the popularization of American lifestyle and attempt to assimilate with American culture and civilization (Arkhypenko, 2005: 41). As a result, a huge amount of American English borrowed lexemes appeared in Ukrainian discourse, (especially from American slang: кеш, дрінк, хайп, панк and many others). Such sociolinguistic phenomenon can be explained by the desire of Ukrainian community to get rid of the Soviet past and the need of having the new development guide of the country and society. Borrowing of English loanwords has continued up until now and the problem is that the excessive usage of anglicisms causes the distortion of Ukrainian linguistic norm.

It is worth noting that not just Ukrainian linguists are concerned about English language influence. Excessive usage of anglicisms is a problem for German language as well. The purity of German is one of the most disturbing problems for Germanlinguists, as they believe that uncontrolled usage of borrowed English lexemes may lead to the extinction of German words (Lopushanskyi, 2016: 11-12).

There are more cons than pros of using anglicismsin Ukrainian discourse. The most common argument for positive sides of borrowing English lexemes is that they help to achieve the language economy. English loanwords are often briefer than Ukrainian equivalent so it is easier for speaker to use a short Anglicism instead of giving the long definition by means of Ukrainian language (Hudyma, 2010: 310). For example, it is more convenient to use the lexeme фронтмен (frontman) instead of expression «лідер музичного гурту» («leader of a music band»). Besides, the development of different kinds of information technologies and globalization processes cause the necessity of nomination of new items as Ukrainian language does not contain proper equivalents (Hudyma, 2010: 312), for instance, ресивер (receiver), тюнер (tuner), стрім (stream), блог (blog), хештег (hashtag) and others. Some researchers approve the process of borrowing English lexemes, as they believe that this is one more way to enrich Ukrainian lexicon (Panasiuk, 2015).

There are much more negative sides of usage of anglicisms. The fact of the matter is that borrowed English words not just ruin the uniqueness of Ukrainian language, but also change the linguistic norm making it adoptive to different language innovations as there appear many derivatives from new anglicisms, for instance: фрик (freak) - фрик-номери, фрик-шоу; пост (post) - постити, запостити; лайк (like) - лайкнути, залайкати and others. K. Horodenska claims that borrowing of English attributive nouns (бізнес-новини, бізнес-справа, піар-дійство, піар-витвір, піар-прорив and others) distorts grammar norms of Ukrainian language because according to the rules of Ukrainian language one should use adjectives in attributive position (Horodenska, 2013: 6). Another negative influence on Ukrainian linguistic norm is that speakers often use anglicisms even though there are Ukrainian substitutes for them (покупки instead of шопінг (shopping), губка - спонж (sponge), електронна сигарета - вейп (vape) and others).

However, there is not just linguistic aspect of the usage of English loanwords. More often, the socio-psychological factor is the reason for borrowing and usage of anglicisms. Many linguists assert that speakers use anglicisms in order to sound smarter and «to be in a trend» (Simonok, 1998: 12, Arkhypenko, 2005: 23; Bosak, 2005: 43-45; Hudyma, 2010). Knowledge of English is considered to be prestigious and essential for personal and professional development. Therefore, some speakers aspire to create an impression of intelligent and well-educated person by using anglicisms. Such aspiration leads to the excessive and often inappropriate usage of English borrowings.

The problem of anglicisms has become not just linguistic but also a social issue. Irrelevant using of English loanwords causes confusions and misunderstandings. Nowadays, the problem of English borrowings is one of the most disturbing in Ukrainian society. This issue is being discussed not just by linguists, but also by writers, journalists and even comedians. Popular Ukrainian comedy show «Dizel Show», broadcast by ICTV channel, made a sketch «Problems of Ukrainian language». In this scene, a host of cultural and educational showtakes the interview with two men: one of them speaks western Ukrainian dialect, another man speaks Ukrainian, but he uses a huge amount of anglicisms so the Ukrainian speaking host does not understand either of them. «Алексе, як ви вважаєте, чому вникають проблеми з мовою? - Я думаю через непрофесіоналізм. - А конкретніше? - Наприклад, я приходжу в офіс, клінінг- менеджер захворіла. Окей. Я зустрічаю спічрайтера і копірайтера, вони мені говорять «фліп-чарт брудний, є тільки вайтборд». Я говорю «Камон! Як ви можете воркати коли у вас немає маст-хевстафу?» - Вибачте, а Ви зараз якою мовою говорили?» («DizelShow», 28.10.2016). This comedy sketch reveals an alarming situation within Ukrainian language. Ukrainian linguists have been concerned about strong influence of Russian language and the existence of Surzhyk, but for a long time they were not aware of the new threat to the purity of Ukrainian language - anglicisms. The matter of the fact is that anglicisms not only affect the linguistic norm but also in some way divide Ukrainian community. The aforementioned sketch shown this division in an ironic way but still it reflected current sociolinguistic situation: some people try to look and sound smart and trendy by using English loanwords (very often inappropriately and even ridiculously) while those who want to speak pure Ukrainian language are in minority and often literally do not understand «fans» of anglicisms.

Language situation in Ukraine is quite difficult. According to the survey held in July 2014 24, 1% of Ukrainian citizens speak only Ukrainian language in public places, 11, 7% - mostly Ukrainian (total 35, 8%), 17, 8% - Surzhyk, 30, 7% - only Russian language, 15, 6% - mostly Russian (total 46, 3%) (Khrystia, 2014: 65). As we can see bigger part of Ukrainian citizens speak Russian language. We have not found the survey concerning usage of anglicisms but if we suppose that, some amount of people who speak Ukrainian may often use borrowed English lexemes in their speech, we can imagine that number of people who speak pure Ukrainian language is even smaller. Therefore, language situation in Ukraine was already problematic and excessive usage of anglicisms makes it more complicated.

Like every language in the world, Ukrainian adopts loanwords. Most part of the new borrowed lexemes consists of anglicisms (especially from American slang). The reason for that is the leading role of English on international stage and the intensity of globalization process. However, these days borrowing of anglicisms has become much more dynamic. This led to the excessive usage of English loanwords. Due to the difficult political, social and language situation in Ukraine, using of anglicisms damages the purity of Ukrainian language and distorts the linguistic norm. Borrowing of English lexemes is very complicated because it has linguistic, social and psychological aspects so this problem needs further review.

References

bilingualism anglicism cultural assimilation

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