Word clipping as a current language trend

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Word clipping as a current language trend

Verhovtsova O.M., Senior Lecturer at the Department of Foreign

Languages and Translation National Aviation University

Ishchenko O.V., Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theory, Practice

Kutsenko O.V., Senior Lecturer at the Department of Foreign

Languages and Translation National Aviation University,

The frantic pace of life and feverish communication in social networks and messengers force us to shorten commonly used concepts in correspondence. Being shorter, clipped words are easy to spell and pronounce. Clipped words are more commonly used in everyday language: Xmas, sub, veg, l'apero, disco, les actus, un ado, la recre, дюраль, декрет, спец. In some cases, the clipped form of a word is more popular (and more frequently used) than the original word itself. But how do experts treat it? Are these ubiquitous abbreviations killing our spoken language and writing literacy?

The coining of clipped word-forms may result either in the ousting of one of the words from the vocabulary or in establishing a clear semantic differentiation between the two units. In a few cases, the full words produce new roots: chapman - chap, brandywine - brandy. However, in most cases a shortened word exists in the vocabulary together with the longer word from which it is derived and usually has the same lexical meaning differing only in stylistic reference. The question naturally arises whether the shortened and original forms should be considered separate words. Though it is obvious that in the case of semantic difference between a shortened unit and a longer one from which it is derived they can be termed as two distinct words: cabriolet - cab. Some linguists hold the view that as the two units do not differ in meaning but only in stylistic application, it would be wrong to apply the term word to the shortened unit. In fact, the shortened unit is a word-variant. The question of whether the original word and the shortened form, which is usually used with some difference in style, should be recognized as two different words remains unresolved.

Key words: apocope, word shortening, clipped words, abbreviations, communication, messages.

Скорочення як тренд сучасної мови

Шалений темп життя та гарячкове спілкування в соцмережах і месенджерах змушують нас заощаджувати час та скорочувати повідомлення. Такі «обрізані» слова легко писати та вимовляти: Xmas, sub, veg, l'apero, disco, les actus, un ado, la recre, дюраль, декрет, спец. У деяких випадках скорочена форма слова є більш популярною (і частіше вживаною), ніж початкове слово. Але як до цієї тенденції ставляться фахівці? Чи ці всюдисущі абревіатури вбивають нашу розмовну та письмову мову? Створення скорочених словоформ може призвести до витіснення зайвих слів зі словника, або ж до встановлення чіткої семантичної диференціації між двома одиницями. У деяких випадках повнозначні слова породжують нові однокореневі: chapman - chap, brandywine - brandy. Однак у більшості випадків скорочене слово існує в словнику поряд із словом, від якого воно походить, і зазвичай має те саме лексичне значення, що відрізняється лише стилістичним забарвленням. Таким чином, виникає питання, чи слід вважати скорочену і вихідну форми окремими словами. Очевидно, що у випадку семантичної різниці між скороченою та її вихідною формою слова можна говорити про дві різні одиниці: кабріолет - кабіна. Деякі лінгвісти вважають, що оскільки дві одиниці відрізняються не значенням, а лише стилістичним використанням, було б невірно вживати термін “слово” стосовно скороченого варіанту. По суті, скорочене слово є варіантом повнозначної лексеми. Залишається невирішеним питання про те, чи слід визнавати вихідне слово і його скорочену форму, яка зазвичай вживається з певною стилістичною відмінністю, двома різними словами.

Ключові слова: апокопа, скорочення слів, абревіатура, комунікація, повідомлення.

Introduction

The modern world of communication is the world of always hurrying people who want to convey the maximum amount of information with minimal costs. The need to save time brings to life a lot of abbreviations or shortenings, which are becoming very typical for many languages of modern time.

Chatting via SMS and using the Internet has been part of our daily “diet” for a very long time. Tablets, phones, various social networks have replaced our live communication. People all the time seek to make their life easier and easier by combining many things: work, study, rest, etc. What exactly causes this communication? Fast, productive, convenient, but not always clear, social networks save us time and money. Correspondence with the use of messages allows us to keep in touch at any time: at work, school, at meetings, when there is no possibility to make a call. Does this communication reflect in vocabulary?

The relevance of the topic is determined by the need to study apocope as a linguistic phenomenon from a cultural and linguistic point of view. It is very important to study this phenomenon, because it covers all sides and aspects of the language at the modern stage.

The object of research in this work is apocope as a figure of speech from the point of view of semantics, grammar, and stylistics and the ways of words shortening as well. The research material is represented by original texts, in particular, artistic texts, songs, headlines and oral statements in English, French and Ukrainian.

The purpose of our study is to find out the reasons for shortening words, as well as to determine the level of understanding of commonly used abbreviations and find out the place of shortened words in the system of vocabulary and the language as a whole.

Research methods: since we reviewed a considerable number of apocopes in this work, the research methodology includes various forms of analysis: in particular, descriptive-logical (to establish language characteristics), the method of component analysis, as well as the method of identification and transformation.

Theoretical Background

The problems of abbreviated lexical units attracted the attention of such Ukrainian scientists as V.N. Rychkov, O.M. Medvid, O.V. Palyukh, S.M. Yenikeeva, L.M. Chumak, O.L. Ilyenko, I. A. Kameneva. A significant number of recent publications are devoted to a concept of abbreviation. The Ukrainian linguists Denysovets, Horodenska, Nikolashyna and Pavlova trace the formation of terms “truncation” and “trimming” to define the concept of “cutting off” the phonemic end or a certain part of the creative basis in the process of forming new words in the Ukrainian language [1, 116]. A number of studies explored the apocope in personal names. Fajardo researches the process of clipped personal names in various languages where he distinguishes uncombined or absolute, suffixed, and blend types of clipped personal names [2, 41]. Nesterchuk looked at apocope with suffix in the variants of a proper woman's names in Volyn' region (Ukraine) [3, 105].

In their book “English Words: History and Structure” Stockwell and Minkova dive into the historical origins and the structure of English word stock. They state that in many cases it is apparent that shortennings are deliberately formed to save time and space in lists. Many of them have entered the language and speakers have lost track of where they came from. They also argue that the process of word clipping often applies not just to an existing word, but to a whole phrase [4, 10].

Words are the subjects of mutation

In everyday conversation, they constantly undergo tugs and tweaks and sometimes drift rather far and become visibly different. Their initial sounds can be lost (aphaere- sis), e.g. 'twas, 'cause, knock, or the words can lose their sounds at the end. Apocope or final clipping is just what the term implies: cutting off or clipping the last syllable or some syllables of a word to make the clipped term. In phonology apocope is a type of elision, which is defined by Crystal as “the omission of sound or sounds in connected speech” [5, 166].

Apocope is a term in historical linguistics

From the older stages, when English was a heavily inflected language, apocope stands out in writing. For example, Old English tellan led to tell, Middle English kepen gave us modern keep. Another indication that apocope took place is silent letters at the end of the words, e.g. `n' in column and hymn or `b' in numb and thumb. Shortenings have been recorded since 15th century and shortening is more and more productive now [6, 59].

Alongside with the examples from diachronic linguistics, the term apocope also applies to the changes, which are a kind of elision. This way traditional led to trad, microphone - mike, disrespect - diss, detoxification - detox. School language gives shortened chem (chemistry), maths (mathematics), psych (psychology).

The omission of sound `d' in and is also apocope. It can disappear from some set expressions such as rock 'n' roll and fish 'n' chips. Another example is the loss of `v' in the well-known phrase cup of tea produced more like cup o ' tea.

We should note that the apocope is the process itself (the fall of “-mobile”, “ement”, “ique”) while the result of the apocope (here, auto, appart, magnif) is an abbreviation. It corresponds to a precise meaning of the complete word when it has several homonyms. This contraction is often used in a familiar way to simplify the language. It can be used knowingly to verbalize a speech or to blur the message for a particular aesthetic purpose. Thus, it is close to elision, ellipse, and abbreviation and contributes to the formation of neologisms. Words built by affixation, for example, are of a more complex character both structurally and semantically. Shortened words are structurally simple words and in most cases have the same lexical meaning as the longer words from which they are derived.

The linguistic phenomenon of apocope in English also manifests in common usage of peoples' names: James - Jim; Benjamin - Ben, Elizabeth - Liz, which is also typical of French Clotilde - Clo, and Ukrainian: Софія - Соня, Денис-Ден.

Some shortened words appear in the language because people fail to pronounce them in a due way - saying mos instead of most, for example - most of them function more like nicknames for longer words.

English abounds with examples like alko for alcohol, croc for a crocodile, footy for football, nopro for no problem, ad for advertising, tho for though, def for definitely, fab for fabulous, etc.

“Yes, but while they love him and would have had him, he would have spent most of the day sitting on the sofa eating crisps and watching telly” [7, 142].

` Why don'tyou two go ahead? 'she said. `I'll lock up and join you in a mo'? [7, 137]

Although apocope is not a dominating feature of the Ukrainian language, it can be frequently found in Ukrainian slang mostly in the language of young people: універ (університет), велик (велосипед), фізра (фізкультура). In Ukrainian apocope is mostly characteristic of nouns: опер (оперуповноважений); кіло (кілограм); спец (спеціаліст); декрет (декретна відпустка). Moreover, apocope is often used with compounding: генпрокуратура, міськрада. There are not so many words of this type in English: Internet, Eurobank. Some words formed by apocope are devoid of expressive coloring and function as normal, albeit artificial, nominations: зав, членкор.

In the Northern Lemki dialects (Ukraine), the apocope resulted from accent and phonetic processes, with the final [y] lost in the verbs of the imperative mood of the 2nd person singular: бер instead of бери “take”, воз instead of вози “carry”, роб instead of роби “do” [8, 170]. In contrast to the Ukrainian language, apocope is quite typical of French, where it can be used on different language levels. Let's consider the ways the words are shortened.

The last letter is sometimes replaced by the vowel “o” (for example in “apero”, “disco”, “resto”, etc.). It should be noted that some of the examples belong to the colloquial language (“coloc”), while others have become separate words (“auto”). In some cases, the apocope is so integrated into the language that it is not perceived as such by the speaker: metro(met- ropolitain)- le resto (restaurant) - le labo (labora- toire) - un dico (discoteque)- un ado (adolescent) - le frigo (frigidaire) - le velo (velocipede) - le porno (pornographie) - perso (personnel(lement) - intello (intellectuel) - la geo (geographie) - la philo (phi- losophie) - l'apero (aperitif) - une auto (automobile) - un exo (un exercice) - la techno (musique electronique) - un facho (un fasciste) - un ecolo (un ecologiste) - un gaucho (gauchiste) - un collabo (collaborateur) - hebdo (hebdomadaire) - McDo (McDonald's).

Moreover, both in literature and poetry, the use of apocope contributes to extending the phenomenon of connotation and symbolic resources:

Et puis aux dire des gens de l 'hosto il fallait une certaine experience pour poser ce pont central [9, 207].

Mais je n'ai rien contre lespedes, bordels, arrete avec ca! Qu'est-ce qu'il y a d'autre dans ton rapport? [9, 206]

We can also see it in Indila's song “Derniere danse” [10]

Je ne suis qu'un etre sans importance

Sans lui, je suis un peu paro

Je deambule seule dans le metro

Thus, the apocope is very frequent in oral speech because the speakers tend not to pronounce the end of the words; in this sense, it is an original mechanism for creating new words and even neologisms.

From stylistic point of view, we may distinguish:

a) integrated apocopes: they are no longer perceived as such and the term that gave them birth is often hardly used anymore:

- auto: automobile (eng, fr); авто: автомобіль (ukr).

- cine, cinema: cinematographe; cinema: cinematography; кіно: кінематограф (ukr).

- radio: radiodiffusion, (eng, fr); радіо: радіо- дифузія (ukr).

- tarmac: the word comes from tarmacadam in the full form and 1910 in the abbreviated form. A little late to find that it is ugly and useless or too fashionable! The “tar” part means tar, it is a material made of tar and crushed stone. The tarmac is where planes park and circulate; it's not the runway.

abbreviation word lexical

The plane waits on the tarmac

L'avion attendsur le tarmac.

The words of Greek or Latin origin entering into compound nouns and ending in -o lend themselves very well to the apocope because they join a popular ending: gyneco, archaeo, philo, astro, cardio, gastro, steno, dactylo, geo (geology or geometry), bio.

b) apocope in spoken language is lexicali- zed in words like: advert (advertisement), chimp (chimpanzee), cig (cigarette), con (confidence trick, convention, convict), intro (introduction) (eng); bide (bidon), bon app' (bon appetit), mater (mater- nelle), mob (mobylette), occase (occasion), p'tit dej (petit dejeuner)', aprem' (apremidi), beauf (beau- frere.) (fr); агітка (агітаційна листівка), універ (університет), док (доктор), комп (комп'ютер), клава (клавіатура) (ukr).

c) I'll take you out to dinner later. There is a new resto _in Cirencester.(eng) [7, 162]

In fact, I put the champers in the fridge so we can celebrate. [7, 201]

I hope you enjoy the walk, dear? Asks Elisabeth.

Very much, says Poppy. We used to do hiking at uni [11, 240].

Le prof de gym a siffle l'heure de la recre. (fr)

Un travail de pro, ambulance bidon, papier administratif s falsifies [9, 190].

Думаю, що в інтернет-магазині можна купити нормальний комп.

d) apocope in proper names: proper names are often apocoped sometimes with double apocope: Boul'Mich' (Boulevard Saint-Michel), Sebasto (boulevard Sebastopol), the Vel'd'hiv (Winter Velodrome), the Maub (Maubert district), the Mouffe (Mouffetard district), Stras (Strasbourg), Gus (Gustave), Alex (Alexandre), Momo is Maurice and Monique, Fred is Alfred and Frederic, Коля (Микола), Таня (Тетяна).

Dr Rebecca Spelman, a psychologist at the Private Therapy Clinic comments: 'The way in which names can influence someone's personality is a self-fulfilling prophecy and without recognising it, we build a mental image and certain expectations of what a person is like based on their name. Is your name Bob, Jim, Ron or Bill? If so, you're likely to be a man in demand after new research revealed that having a shortened name increases your appeal among the opposite sex [12].

In fact, the length of the name affects not only people's allure but also their income as her study found. Overall, the study discovered that shorter names had greater appeal than longer ones in a huge 72 per cent of cases.

Tim, you never told me that you went to Leo and Alice on Saturday! [13, 38]

Do you know anyone who may own a red Jag? [14, 106]

Sarko Hebdo, un nouveau journal satirique 100% montpellierain.

From the structural point we can distinguish the following types of possible clipping processes, depending on which part of the word undergoes structural changes:

a) back-clipping: temperature - temp, rhino - rhinoceros, gym - gymnasium, ordi - ordinateur, velo - velocipede, une manif-manifestation, спец - спеціаліст, опер - оперуповноважений;

b) fore-clipping: helicopter - copter, telephone - phone, plane - aeroplane, margarine - oleomargarine, mum - chrysanthemum, bleme - probleme, crenom - sacre nom, troquet - bistroquet;

c) mixed clipping: influenza - flu, cuke - cucumber, refrigerator - fridge, gater - alligator, pram - perambulator, script - prescription, frigo - appareil frigorifique).

Slang very often uses the apocope which allows a flexibility of the undeniable language in situations of communication where the principle of economy prevail.

C'est une cata for C'est une catastrophe, Un dej magnif for un dejeuner magnifique.

Sorry, hon.we've got to go through with it [7, 180].

The studies suggest that apocope is mostly used by young people. They use SMS, e-mails to exchange information thus they appreciate laconism of expressions. The tendency to save up time while speaking is manifested in grammar structures as well: t'as raison for tu as raison, l'voila for le voil), m'man for maman, m'sieur for monsieur, v'la for voila.

He wouldn't look like a grass? Idunno, Jane, it's possible, but what I do know is the poor little bastard ended up dead [14, 173].

It is easy to imagine two youngsters speaking in this way:

- Salut! T' as vu le foot hier a la tele?

- Ah oui, je l'ai vu a la cafet du resto U. Mais au moment de la pub, je suis parti parce que j'ai un exam et je dois reviser. D'ailleurs je te laisse parce que mon velo est creve et je dois prendre le tram.

- Bon, on se voit a la cafet comme d'hab?

- D'accord, a toute!

Thus, we can make a conclusion that it is almost impossible to do without abbreviations in messengers. Many experts believe that for a person with a large vocabulary, there is nothing wrong with these abbreviations. If necessary, they will be able to write a decent text and correctly state it. It is like two different styles, two genres. Moreover, it is not bad to own both of them. Today's correspondence in WhatsApp and Viber often, of course, looks ridiculous, but it does not affect the purity of speech, either written or spoken. This is just one of the facets of the language.

In spite of the fact that clipped words are the least informative and most predictable, they enter the everyday language which is typical for the vocabulary as the most flexible part of the language. Through a constant use in speech or the urgent incentive of economy, the final sounds of many words eroded gradually over time. People would tend to shorten words they use often, to save time in writing and speaking. It is a fast and comfortable way to carry information but we think they should not take over in order to preserve the beauty of the language.

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