Abbreviations and shortenings in modern English language

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National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine

Abstract

The article is devoted to the shortening and abbreviations in modern English as the most productive for the lexical bulk in general. The modern pace of life demands to convey a great bulk of information as quickly as possible, saving the space written. The most popular methods of shortening from structural and pragmatically points of view are taken into consideration. Shortening of words means the formation of new ones by substituting a part of the word for a whole, affecting both separate words and word-groups. All shortened words function in the language as other ordinary words do, thus taking into consideration specific grammatical inflections. All of them can be divided according to the traditional division: graphical abbreviations, lexical shortenings, blends and splinters. Besides, all the new shortenings have to be familiar to an average customer in order to be recognized at once while reading them. But it should be kept in mind that they cannot be taken as a standard, though quite a lot of them are officially used everywhere. Having their own peculiarities in style, they demand some special skills from people, while being written. In general, shortening remains one of the most productive ways of writing new qualitative words because of their memorability and economy of written space.

Key words: shortening, graphical, lexical, abbreviation, initials, blending, clipping, methods of translation, international loan words, genuine internationalisms

Анотація

АБРЕВІАТУРИ ТА СКОРОЧЕННЯ В СУЧАСНІЙ АНГЛІЙСЬКІЙ МОВІ

Н.А. Глуховська

Стаття присвячена абревіатурам та словоскороченням в сучасній англійській мові, як однім із найпродуктивніших способів для поповнення лексичного запасу мови в цілому. Сучасний темп життя вимагає від друкованих засобів передачі великого об'єму інформації за найкоротший проміжок часу, ощаджуючи на письмі. Словоскорочення означає утворення нових слів, замінюючи ціле слово його частиною, що є дієвим по відношенню як до окремих слів, так і до словосполучень. Розглядаються найбільш популярні способи словотворення з точки зору структури і прагматики. Всі скорочені слова функціонують в мові як і звичайні інші, таким чином набираючи специфічні граматичні флексії. Всі вони традиційно діляться на: графічні абревіатури, заглавні абревіатури, лексичні скорочення, слова-гібриди. Окрім того, всі нові скорочення мають бути знайомими пересічному споживачеві, щоб їх можна було відразу впізнати при читанні. Але треба також пам'ятати, що нові словоскорочення не є мовним стандартом, хоча багато з них офіційно використовується в усіх сферах. Маючи свої власні особливості стилю, вони вимагають від людини спеціальних навичок при їхньому написанні. В цілому, словоскорочення залишається одним з найбільш продуктивних способів написання якісних слів завдяки здатністю до запам'ятовування і ощадності на письмі.

Ключові слова: словоскорочення, графічний, лексичний, абревіатура, ініціали, слово-гібрид, методи перекладу,інтернаціоналізми

Аннотация

АББРЕВИАТУРЫ И СЛОВОСОКРАЩЕНИЯ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ АНГЛИЙСКОМ ЯЗЫКЕ Н.А. Глуховская

Статья посвящена аббревиатурам и словосокращения в современном английском языке, как одному из самых продуктивных способов для пополнения лексического запаса языка в целом. Современный темп жизни требует от печатных средств передачи большого объема информации за самый короткий промежуток времени, при этом экономя на письме. Словосокращение означает образование новых слов путем замены целого слова его частью, что является действенным по отношению, как к отдельному слову, так и к словосочетаниям. Рассматриваются наиболее популярные способы словообразования с точки зрения структуры и прагматики. Все сокращенные слова функционируют в языке, как и обычные другие, таким образом, вбирая специфические грамматические флексии. Все они традиционно делятся на: графические аббревиатуры, заглавные аббревиатуры, лексические сокращения, слова-гибриды. Вот почему все виды сокращений используются в расширенных текстах, предоставляя широкую информацию о рекламируемой продукции. Кроме того, все новые сокращения должны быть знакомы среднему потребителю, чтобы их сразу же можно было распознать при чтении. Но следует также помнить, что новые сокращения не являются речевым стандартом, хотя многие из них официально используются во всех сферах жизни. Со своими особенностями стиля, они требуют от людей специального умения при написании. В целом, слово сокращение остается одним из наиболее продуктивных способов написания новых качественных слов благодаря способности к запоминанию и экономии на письме.

Ключевые слова: слово сокращение, графический, лексический, аббревиатура, инициалы, слово-гибрид, методы перевода, интернационализмы

Introduction

Realities of today, global interrelation of the nations and different cultural customs of our planet of the 21-st century, growing needs in communication and work among countries and people of different languages and traditions demand training of highly qualified specialists that are expected to translate from foreign language to another, to know two or three foreign languages and are capable to take part in an international cooperation and formation of a new attitude to Ukraine in Europe and the whole world as well.

Nowadays, abbreviation is one of the main trends in the development of Modern English language, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn, at high degree is supported by constant development of modern informational technologies and simplification of speech with no loss of its informative content. It should be mentioned that abbreviation itself is a shortened form of a word or phrase, which consists of a letter or group of letters taken from the word or phrase. Nevertheless abbreviation has appeared just to code the words which people wanted to hide from others, but nowadays it is one of the most well-known ways of derivation. Abbreviation has a high degree of productivity in modern languages, especially in official-business, scientific and technical styles, because it is aimed at increasing regulation and orderliness. In some types of texts the abbreviation can makeup50% of all word uses and 15 % of the vocabulary.

Abbreviation has been used as long as phonetic script existed, in some senses actually being more common in early literacy, where spelling out a whole word was often avoided, initial letters commonly being used to represent words in specific application. Abbreviations have a large creative potential, because they can create a lot of neologisms. Literal abbreviations also take part in the derivation of the compound words. Not everyone knows how to use abbreviations, because many abbreviations are used in one sphere and we cannot use them in other spheres.

The originality of this article

can be proved by the following reasons: a) abbreviation is one of the developing branches of lexicology; b) abbreviation reflects the general trend of simplification of a language; c) abbreviation is closely connected with the development of modern informational technologies; d) abbreviation are closely connected with the theory of translation.

A significant contribution to the development of the problems related to the abbreviations

The problems of abbreviations (i.e. shortened lexical units or international loan words and genuine internationalisms ) as specific language phenomena in modern languages attract the attention of many researchers, and they have been considered in numerous articles and separate researches of Ukrainian, Russian and foreign authors. Towards the most circumstantial works relating to the last ones we can outline such scientists as D. Alekseeva, O. Jespersen, I.Korunets', V. Pavlova, T. Pilze, M. Segal, L. Shelyahovsky, E. Voloshina, R. Walse, and others.B. Voloshin and V. Borisov also described formal structure abbreviations and their relationships with generators units. The philologists I. Stern, M. Schlauch, L. Shelyahovska and L. Sapogova studied the basic principles of modeling of shortened lexical units [1].

The purpose of this paper is to consider the peculiarities of abbreviations and shortenings, to analyze the dynamics of the experimental work. It is mostly based on materials of English dictionaries and instructions.

Scientific novelty is to analize profoundly abbreviations and shortenings in the English language and receive full equivalence during this process.

Practical value is to use the results of the research in the course of aspect translation, lexicology, stylistics, technical translation and practical course of the first language. Thus, the studying of the abbreviation phenomenon as one of the two types of shortening in the English language is important in the process of training future specialists.

Methods isto deal with the things that have been mentioned above and to show abbreviation as one of the two types of shortening words, and to describe different types of it.

Results

abbreviation shortening english language

Abbreviations take many forms and can be found in ancient Greek inscriptions, in medieval manuscripts, and in the Koran [2].

Abbreviations began to proliferate in the 19th century and have been prevalent since; they are employed to reduce the time required for writing or speaking, especially, when referring to the myriad new organizations, bureaucratic entities, and technological products typical of industrial societies [6].

An abbreviation (from Latin brevis, meaning short) is a shortened form of a word or phrase. Usually, it consists of a letter or group of letters taken from a word or a phrase. For example, a word abbreviation can itself be represented by the following abbreviations: abbr., abbrv., or abbrev.

In strict analysis, abbreviations should not be confused with contractions or acronyms (including initialisms), with which they share some semantic and phonetic functions, though all three are connoted by the term “abbreviation” in loose parlance [4, p.167].

In modern English there exist two main ways of shortening: contraction (or clipping) and abbreviation (or initial shortening). Contraction is the act or process of making words smaller. For example: lab (for laboratory), mag (for magazine), story (for history), fancy (for fantasy), Liz (for Elizabeth), etc.

Linguists distinguish various types of classification of abbreviations. Kazakh scientist A.Yskakov differentiates abbreviations as shown below:

a) a string of letters - often spoken as such - formed from the initial letters of the (main) words of a phrase (called initialism), eg.:

PLSS-Public Land Survey System

POB - point of beginning

GPS-global positioning system

Sometimes the letters of abbreviation represent syllables of a word, e.g.:

ID - identity or identification card;

b) a word (sometimes called clipping) standing for the whole, retaining at least one syllable of the original word. E.g.: ad - advertisement; demo - demonstration; flu - influenza; pub - public house; phone - telephone; sitcom - situation comedy.

Sylvia Chalker states that initialism is a type of abbreviation. The use of the initial letters of a name or expression as an abbreviation for it, each letter being pronounced separately, as in BBC, RSVP, RSPCA (also called alphabet abbreviation), etc.

Clipping is a type of abbreviation. The formation of a new word by shortening an existing one; an example of this. E.g. (omni)bus, exam(ination), (in)flu(enza), (tele)phone.

Syllabic abbreviation

A syllabic abbreviation is an abbreviation formed from (usually) initial syllables of several words, such as:

PLSS- is a land survey system that subdivides and describes land

POB - point of beginning (starting point)

Syllabic abbreviations are usually written using lower case, sometimes starting with a capital letter, they are always pronounced as words rather than letter by letter, and should be distinguished from portmanteaus [6].

As for translation is concerned numerous branches of economy require the nowadays demands and up-to-date development and progress in the modern world thanks to the everyday translating/interpreting of scientific and technical matter covering various fields of human knowledge and activities. Nowadays translation of scientific and technical matter has become the most significant and reliable source of obtaining up-to-date information in various fields of science and technology.

Despite the fact creating a bulk of lexicon in different languages, the loan units usually retain an identical/similar surface structure, i.e., form of a word, word- combination or sentence, like genuine internationalisms, they are constantly appearing in different languages as a result of unceasing progress in various domains of science, technology and culture. A bulk of international loan words and expressions are used to designate various grammatical, lexicological, stylistic and other notions. According to Korunets' theory international loan units can be rendered into Ukrainian in one of the following ways:

a) by direct translation of the componental parts without changing considerably their structural form cf.: ellipse- еліпс, empirical-імпіричний, constant (^-константа, asymmetrical-асиметричний, spheroid-сфероїд, equator-екватор, meridian- мередіан verbal translation буквальний/дослівний переклад, etc.

Note. Some Еnglish loan internationalisms may be the same internationalisms as in other languages and vice versa. These and other loan internationalisms are practically rendered only with the help of the phonological level units, i.e., they are transcribed or transliterated in these languages.

b) with the help of componental translation and some replacements, omissions or substitutions arising from the national peculiarities of the target language, i.e., depending on its stylistic mode of usage. Cf.: land improvement меліорація земель but not покращення земельного фонду.

c) with the help of descriptive translation as in the examples like: land survey геодезична зйомка; transit (geogr.) теодоліт; common fraction (math.) простий дріб, longitude (geogr.) довгота.

Conclusions

We investigated the aspects of abbreviations in our article such as: the act or result of abbreviating; a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in place of the whole. We also revealed various types of abbreviations as follows: acronyms; alphabetic abbreviation; compound abbreviations; graphic abbreviations; Latin abbreviations. The studying of the abbreviation phenomenon as one of the two types of shortening in the English language is immensely important in the process of learning a foreign language by future specialist, especially philologist or translators.

Prospects of studies we are going to investigate contraction as the other type of shortening, that it will help training future specialists as competent professionals, ready to take part in an international cooperation and formation of a new attitude to Ukraine in Europe and the whole world as well.

References

1. Causes and tendencies of English abbreviations. [Електронний ресурс] - /Availableat:http://gendocs.ru/v12499/causes_and_tendencies_of_english_abbreviations/.

2. Jespersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982. Pp. 246 - 249.

3. New Hart's Rules. The handbook of style for writers and editors. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. 167.

4. A.Yskakov. Shortening words (английская аббревиатура) [The English abbreviation]/ A.Yskakov // English. 2003. Jan. № 4. 23 - 31.

5. The Merriam. Webster Unabridged Dictionary. [Електронний ресурс]. /Available at:http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/abbreviation/.

6. 6 Arnold I. The English Word. M.: Vysshaya Shkola, 1986.

7. Bauer L. English Word-Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

8. Lyons J. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

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