Lexical Borrowing

Introduction:

• Languages borrow words from the 'open' lexical classes - nouns, verbs and adjectives of other languages
• Word to word translations (calques) borrow the meaning rather than the form (lemma)
• Lexeme - a set of forms that all have the same meaning
• Lemma - particular form chosen by convention to represent that meaning
• Lexical borrowing from English, German and Italian is particular common in French

Reasons for Borrowing:

•  In the case of a new discovery, the word is often taken from language in which the idea originated
• e.g. 'café' from Arabic
• Linguistic contact 
• borrowing between neighbouring countries frequently occurs
• borrowing from the culturally, economically and politically dominant language for that region is also common 
• e.g. English words for technology (bit) and marketing
• Anglicisms often end up being 'in competition' with other French words for some concepts
• e.g. "poster" vs "affiche" or "paneau", "on/off" vs "marche/arrête"
• Fashion - words are often borrowed from whatever language is fashionable at this point in time 

Older Entries:

• Very ancient 'emprunts' (loan words) came from Latin or Greek 
• e.g. 'academie' or 'soldat' 
• More recent examples, e.g. 'baby-boomer'/'body-building' have a Gallic pronunciation but the spelling remains anglicised
• The degree of 'gallicisation' is often dependent on how often the word is used 
• Code switching is not the same as lexical borrowing - this is a phenomenon evidenced by bilingual people who switch from one language to another
• An emprunt on the other hand has passed from one language to another and doesn't indicate that the speaker is fluent in both languages

Typology of emprunts:

• Direct - i.e. unchanged, e.g. body-building
• False etymology - sometimes the meaning of the emprunt in the new language doesn't match its meaning in the original language
• e.g. 'le lifting' means 'face lift'
• Grammatical adaption - how the emprunt should fit in with the French grammatical system
• e.g. pluralisation - for 'rugbyman' follows French rules and not English - 'les rugbymans'
• Phonological and graphical adaption - how the pronunciation changes, how the spelling changes to fit French system 
• e.g. 'faisabilité'

Examples:

•  Direct - 'walkman' (French alternative - balladeur)
• Adaption - 'conteneur' 
• French pronunciation reflected in the spelling - 'e' replaces 'ai' and 'eur' replaces 'er'
• False etymology - 'bronzing' (tanning)
• this word doesn't exist in English but it is based on it
• Semantic 'calques' (loan translations) - réaliser 
• changed from its original French meaning (to achieve or make sth happen) to English (sudden understanding)
• Borrowing of scholarly terminology - e.g. 'uni-dimensionnel'

Translations:

• Direct translations from English
• liberté de la presse, science-fiction, liste noire
• Compound words
• e.g. top-modèle (graphically modified)
• Abbreviations 
• Pull (un pullover), self (self-service, i.e. cafeteria)

Integration Problems

• Phonological problem - these phonemes don't exist in the French phonological system, therefore they are simply pronounced with a French accent
• e.g. show business, weekend, camping, gang
• Grammatical problem 
•  Gender - no easy rule 
• Some English musical terms are feminine e.g. la popmusic, la trash
• Other musical terms are masculine, le folk, le jazz 
• Other confusing issues - English words with different genders from the original French word 
• e.g. le gag vs la blague
• Plural 
• Question of whether to follow the English or French rule - e.g. les rugbymans
• English adjectives don't take the accord e.g. snob/cool
• Semantic
• The meaning of some French words changed by English influence 
• e.g. réaliser, terrible

Impact of the Emprunt:

• The loan word is a product of external processes but once it enters the French language, it undergoes internal processes
• e.g. film - filmer - filmage - filmothèque 
• Experiences suffixation e.g. sponsoriser, squattage 
• Or prefixation e.g. surbooking
• Abbreviation e.g. le trench (coat), le basket (basketball)

Prescriptive reactions: 

• There are many language regulation bodies in France which exist to control, among other things, the entry of new words 
• e.g. l'académie française
• Ministerial commissions of terminology - gather alternatives for technical terms
• Official journal of neologisms
• Prescriptive language laws, e.g. Bas-Lauriol (1975) and Toubon (1994)
• Their aim - to conserve the French linguistic heritage