The peculiarities of anglicisms’ and americanisms’ use in the youth language of Ukraine and Germany

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Department of Translation and Linguistics International Humanitarian University

The peculiarities of anglicisms' and americanisms' use in the youth language of Ukraine and Germany

Savchuk Н.V., Associate Professor

Summary

english borrowing youth linguistic

The research paper is devoted to the Anglo-American borrowings came into the youth language of Ukraine and Germany in the past decade. The English language contact with German and Ukrainian is described. The history of formation and development of the term jargon is treated. The most frequently used Americanisms and Anglicisms are analyzed in the language of Ukrainian and German youth.

Key words: borrowings, language contact, jargon, Anglicisms, Americanisms.

Анотація

Савчук Г. В. Особливості вживання англіцизмів та американізмів у мові української та німецької молоді

Статтю присвячено запозиченням, що увійшли в українську та німецьку молодіжну мови з англійської за останні десятиліття. Описано англо-німецьке та англо-українське мовне контактування. Розглянуто історію становлення і розвитку терміна «жаргон». Проаналізовано найуживаніші випадки англіцизмів та американізмів у мові української та німецької молоді.

Ключові слова: запозичення, мовне контактування, жаргон, англіцизми, американізми.

Аннотация

Савчук А. В. Особенности употребления англицизмов и американизмов в языке украинской и немецкой молодёжи

Статья посвящена заимствованиям, которые вошли в немецкий и украинский языки молодёжи с английского за последние десятилетия. Описан англо-немецкий и англо-украинский языковой контакт. Рассмотрена история становления и развития термина «жаргон». Проанализированы частотные случаи употребления англицизмов и американизмов в языке украинской и немецкой молодежи.

Ключевые слова: заимствования, языковой контакт, жаргон, англицизмы, американизмы.

Formulation of the problem. Language is an extremely complex mechanism in which the vocabulary is constantly updated through the derivation, changes of meanings of the words, and foreign borrowings. Today the influence of English on the German and Ukrainian languages is significant due to globalization. In modern German and Ukrainian English loan words have formed the largest social group of innovations over recent decades. Slang or jargon continues to be an important source of derivational elements of German and Ukrainian. The borrowed elements in the literary language are often undergone changes in their semantics. The semantic changes result in spreading polysemy that encompasses the vast layers of German and Ukrainian vocabulary.

The development and extension of youth culture actively contributes to borrowings and Americamania of young speakers is one of the important problems of modern linguistics, namely the peculiarities of its development and effect on the literary language.

Analysis of recent research and publications. The extensive research into the issue of functioning English loan words in the modern Ukrainian and German youth environment has been done by the following linguists (E.F. Kaden, E. Schonfeld, H. Ehrmann, H. Henne, H. Kupper, M. Renke, W. Schmidt, A.A. Voskresenska, V.S. Mizetska, L.V. Oliynyk, L.M. Bakulenko, L.M. Palamar, M.J. Mostovyi, Yu.M. Vasylenko etc.) [1-15]. The accumulated in different linguistic areas the experience of comparing and contrasting Ukrainian and German languages requires a theoretical generalization and systematization. Summarizing theoretical works on the issue of comparing and contrasting English loan words and their role in modern Ukrainian and German youth environment are almost absent.

The objective is to identify the peculiarities of Anglicisms' and Americanisms' use in modern German and Ukrainian youth slang. To achieve this goal it is necessary to solve a number of tasks: to highlight the concept jargon and slang, to determine the main reasons and ways of coming Anglicisms and Americanisms into modern German and Ukrainian youth languages; to distinguish theme groups of English loan words in the modern Ukrainian and German youth environment; to analyze differential features of the youth language ofUkraine and Germany.

Statement of the base material. In modern native and foreign linguistics there are different terms which name near concepts: argot, slang,jargon, social dialect, cant and others. But so far there is no consensus in the interpretation and differentiation of these concepts. One can call various reasons of it. One of them is a flexible vocabulary, coping words from the language of one social group into another, the penetration of regional words and dialectisms to the lexicon of social groups and learning social dialect by native speakers of regional dialects.

One of the earliest interpretations available to us as to the origin of the term jargon was recorded in the English dictionary in 1882, by which this phenomenon was treated as a “careless language; primary is chirp, birds twitter”, and compared with the Spanish gerigonza, Italian gergone, obviously from the primary garg, gargle to wheeze, to give guttural sounds (creak). So, the described linguistic phenomenon was associated with something negative, unpleasant to scold, to yell, to wheeze [10; 14].

More clear definition the term jargon has in the dictionary by J. Marouzeau where it is interpreted as an artificial language used by the members of some group wishing to be not understood, or in the last resort, those who wish to live in separate communities: jargon of thieves, jargon of schoolchildren etc. In a broader sense, this term is referred to the incorrect and incomprehensible manner of speaking [16].

Native scientific resources give somewhat different interpretations of jargon and define jargon as a social dialect that is different from a literary language in a specific vocabulary and pronunciation; it is deprived its own phonetic system, doesn't exist separately or independently but always on the basis of certain language.

Thus, jargon is asserted as a system phenomenon and characterized by the following features: expressivity, belonging to a professional or social group, causes of its coming into existence and use, and its role in a standard language have been clearly outlined. On the one hand, argot, slang, cant are often used synonymously; thus, one can see the attempts of linguists to differentiate these terms, from the other hand.

It should be pointed out that above mentioned attempts are not always of great success or give the desired results; therefore, it can be explained by reasoning: obscurity of etymological words, a contradiction in etymology.

In particular, in the French dictionary by P. Larousse argot is interpreted as the language used by a particular group of people and that is difficult for others to understand. M. Zhenin treats argot as gergo that means “a sacred language known only to well educated people and incomprehensible to the ignorant”. And then we read the postulate that it is a special language of criminals (hooligans) and those interested to communicate with each other so that they were not understood by those who they were afraid of [14; 15].

One can see a certain contradiction in such combination of ideas. On the one hand, it is a sacred language, on the other hand, it is a language of criminals.

The attempts to distinguish argot as the phenomenon and at the same time to give changes that took place in its status can be seen in the above-stated dictionary by P. Larousse. As defined in the dictionary argot, slang, cant, gego is a specific language used by the members of any group or social category in order to prevent other speakers from understanding their conversations.

Originally the term was referred to the speech of scumbags. Later it gained greater importance. Now argot is not necessarily a form of vulgar language, there are argot of actors, argot of scientists and argot of students. So, in the mid 50s of the XX century argot is not defined as a negative phenomenon (the language of people at the bottom), but as a distinguishable language factor (the language means of any social or professional group). Here we can see that terms-jargon and argot are used with different connotations and shades of meaning while referring to the language of a particular social or professional group.

Later in the linguistic literature of the twentieth century there came into use a definition that argot was understood as jargon, but unlike argot the term-jargon had a pejorative meaning (sailor-jargon, sports jargon). Pejorative (from the Latin Pejor bad, worthless, abusive).

The term slang originally appeared in English lexicography. Perhaps it had to replace or coexist with the term jargon. So far it has not revealed yet when the term was first introduced, there is no consensus in the interpretation of the concept. Theoretical confusion in the definition of slang could not but influence lexicography. The term slang fully reflects contradiction and vagueness of theoretical concepts according to the definition in native and foreign dictionaries. For example, in foreign dictionaries a few meanings of slang are given: “the special vocabulary used by any group of lowborn people”; “vulgar language (now merged with the jargon of lowborn criminals)”; “jargon of a certain class or period”; “spoken language, which is below the standard language of well-educated people and includes new or usual words used in specific meanings”.

As defined in above-mentioned foreign dictionaries slang (jargon) is a low and vulgar language, spoken language. Thus, the authors show the polysemous nature of slang.

In native linguistics slang was synonymous with jargon, and the term slang was mainly used in English-speaking countries. With the development of linguistics slang and jargon were not used synonymously. V.A. Khomiakov defined slang as “relatively stable for a certain period, widely used, stylistically marked lexical layer, the component of expressive common phrases that comes into the literary language, very heterogeneous in its origins, in the degree of compliance with the literary standard” [17, p. 44].

Completely different interpretations of slang are given in the “Dictionary of Linguistic Terms” by O.S. Akhmanova. Slang is a spoken variant of professional speech; elements of a spoken variant of a professional or social group when penetrating into the literary language, or even into speech of people who do not belong to this group, they gain the specific emotional and expressive coloring in these languages [18, p. 419]. As can be seen from the two above-stated definitions, slang is a certain spoken variant of the language having an expressive coloring and used in professional or individual classes. The focus of our research paper is the peculiarity of youth slang. According to S.I. Levkovska, youth slang is a kind of spoken language peculiar to young people and used by them for various purposes [19, p. 168].

Thus, it is necessary to emphasize that slang expressions unite some groups of young people. For example, the slang of students of philologists and students of mathematicians will differ, and representatives of these two groups may not understand each other. The difference between slang and a spoken language is due to the fact that the spoken language is used informally, and it is understandable to all representatives of any social and cultural environment.

Slang highlights the individual's belonging to a group. There are a number of differences between youth slang and slang of other professional groups. This difference is conditioned by the fact that youth slang is the most dynamic variety of informal language, new members join this group and other ones leave it because of their age, therefore, the language also changes with coming new representatives. Each newcomer wants to differ both from “fathers” and from older youth, and brings his own code in the lexicon incomprehensible to the others.

The history of slang's and jargon's origin is interesting. Slang appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century, jargon is much earlier. Slang is the quintessence of spoken language that is related to comforts of life, but not with scientific laws, grammatical rules or philosophical ideas. Words and phrases are converted into slang when they begin to be used within professional groups, changing its meaning. The use of slang pursues the objective and reflects the mood of younger generation speakers, serves as a means of witticisms and humor, gives the phenomena in a descriptive way, helps to hold someone else's attention, to avoid cliches, to emphasize the additional feature of the phenomenon, to facilitate communication. The vocabulary enlargement is taken place at the same time.

History of the European slang begins in the XIII century when the name of Rotwalsh (present Rotwelsch) appeared, i.e. a kind of tramp-jargon. In England the first observations of slang were done at the beginning of the sixteenth century by Copland in his book “The Hye Waye to the of Spittle House” (approximately 1517-1537). In the XXI century slang is a vocabulary that is peculiar to certain social circles, namely schools, universities, to the political, military and professional groupings. Cooking, fashion, trade, hobbies are found in slang. So, according to the latest Longman dictionary jargon is interpreted as words and expressions that are used mainly by people who belong to the same professional group, and that are difficult to understand: military jargon. Slang is a very informal language that includes new and sometimes offensive words, and that is used especially by people who belong to a particular group, such as young or criminals [20].

Examining the German and Ukrainian languages of today we can observe changes in them due to borrowings from foreign languages, especially from British and American English. Therefore, in literature of recent years on lexicology there have been introduced the following terms: “Anglicism” and “Americanism”. The huge influx of English loan words to the above-mentioned languages is due to the political and economic activities of the US and the UK and their impact on international processes. And another feature that is no less distinctive is the role of English in the process of international communication, technical development and communications in the twenty-first century.

Thus, the active promotion of the American way of life makes the youth often use English loan words in the process of communication and even now the young people from different countries can understand each other.

It is interesting to study the approach as to borrowings by V.A. Kukharenko, who indentified four thematic groups of foreign loan words: science and technology vocabulary, political and economic vocabulary, everyday language and vocabulary of advertising and entertainment industry.

The first thematic group performs the onomasiologic function and usually does not form synonymous series and close to terminology. The second group is heterogeneous in nature and also includes terminological borrowings. The third and fourth group is the vocabulary that is used by adults and young people.

When researching English loan words in the speech of Ukrainian and German youth, we noticed that the content structure of borrowed words was not always kept, but, on the contrary, it was completely modified and a phonetic and morphological assimilation took place.

The analysis of the Ukrainian and German youth slang shows that word-forming activity of affixation, by means of which some lexical innovations were built, depends on involving long-term formative elements and new language units that perform the word-formative function and play the leading role in the formation of innovative derivatives.

According to our observations, the English loan words that are used in the speech of Ukrainian and German youth are very diverse and encompass the different layers of vocabulary. In terms of the semantics among the studied borrowings are widely represented the names of people denoting professional activity: in German Cop, Bos, in Ukrainian коп, бос, names to denote silly, clumsy man: in German -Looser, Steamer, in Ukrainian крейзі, лузер; names that belong to the sphere of leisure: in German zappen, toggeln, peoples, Chippie, Wannabee, in Ukrainian бір, фастфуд, бакен, паті; names to denote an action: in German craisen, steppen, switch, kicken, shoppen, poppen, handeln, in Ukrainian денс, гугпити, дрінк, піаритись; names that are widely spread in fashion, music, sports, cinema, television, computer areas: in German tiffig, hippig, cool, Trash, trending, in Ukrainian вінда, ді-джей,репер, постити, хештеги, пейнтбол, степ.

Thematically English loan words are grouped around a wide range of denotata and related to interests, pastimes, hobbies of the youth, but the borrowings having expressive and evaluative colouring are of great interest. Such lexical units are characterized by expressivness and emotionality, because expression it is a manifestation of feelings and emotions.

Investigating youth slang we have concluded that it can be referred to the emotional category of words which contains both the objective and subjective lexical meaning, i.e. the speaker's attitude towards the idea expressed. Finally, it is the context which defines expressive and emotional coloring of the word (here neutral words can acquire expression and be influenced by the environment).

The range of emotions to express such a vocabulary is very broad. There are endearment, contempt, irony, ridicule, and even abuse.

The vocabulary of overall evaluation is divided into several subgroups: a) borrowings that express admiration: in German kinky, tiffig, hippig, cool, trendy, in Ukrainian супер, вау пайс, b) borrowings that express discontent and indifference: in German -Cop, mellow, Steamer, Trash, Wannabee; in Ukrainianтреш, коп, отфейсувати «побити».

То the group of thematically limited words we refer ones that are used to describe people. German examples: Eltern Supporters (Oldies, Regierang), Lehrer-Boss (Chef, Pauker). Ukrainian examples: перенти, юзер «людина, яка вживає наркотики».

On the basis of the above-mentioned facts it is necessary to point out that the tendency to exaggerate is peculiar for the Ukrainian and German youth.

The tendency to exaggerate is explained by the fact that young people under the influence of emotions use expressions that do not meet denotata, i.e. they exaggerate in number, size, intensity and so on. This tendency is most noticeable when using such emotional intensifies in the spoken language of German and Ukrainian youth. For instance, cool (Ukr. куп), super (Ukr. супер), hippig (Ukr. xinoeuu). Many words in this group get the specific youth coloring; and it is explained by the frequency of their use. Here we can refer such German intensifies as total, absolute, echt, voll, unheimlich.

Dein neuer Fetzen ist echt trendy [3, p. 139].

Examples of the use of English intensifies in the Ukrainian youth environment: куловий, бестовий, брендовий тощо.

Наприклад:

Ти диви, який він купив трендовий піджак! (social network).

Among the English loan words that can be met in the speech of German and Ukrainian youth, one can find the following forms of address: hi (hi), morning (Morning), boy (boy),fellow (felover). It is known that most Anglicisms and Americanisms used in the speech of young people belong to the spheres of youth hobbies and entertainment. This fact facilitates, to some extent, the penetration of English loan words in the systems of German and Ukrainian languages.

In most cases English loan words are subjected to the process of transliteration in the speech of German and Ukrainian youth. It could be explained by the fact that English and German belong to the Germanic group of languages. In German one can observe the following tendency: the borrowed lexemes keep their graphic form and win back the positions in advertising, radio, television and so on.

For example, the loan-word Supporters can be used as a noun (parents) and as a verb (to help) in the language of German youth.

Ich muss erst deinen Supporters frageni Meine Supporters sind dieMonnis ausgegangen. Kannst du mich mal shnell supporten? [5,p. 132].

The next English word to cruise is used in the meaning to take a rideforfun.

Lass uns mal mit deinem neuen Auto bisschen rumcruisen [5, p. 132].

It should be noted that sometimes the same borrowings are used in different meanings in Ukrainian and German youth environment. Most often they have one meaning in common, but there are meanings that are typical of German or Ukrainian youth slang. So, the word Boss beyond the meaning boss or chief gains also the connotation teacher in the language of German youth. For example: Willst du meinen neuen Boss sehen?

Conclusions

As a result of communication various words and utterances are usually occurred in the youth groups and they are often used to replace the names for common objects and phenomena. For many English loan words it is peculiar emotional and expressive coloring, or a wide range of emotions such as irony, contempt, humor, boastfulness, negativism. A characteristic feature of such a vocabulary is its mobility and variability. Youth vocabulary is grouped around the concepts and things related to their interests. The modern youth slang of Germany and Ukraine is a kind of lexical subsystem with internal structural features and trends.

Prospects for further research are to develop a comprehensive methodology to examine loan words in the Ukrainian, German youth environment and that includes elements of sociological, sociolinguistic and other methods of linguistic research.

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