A
lot of people currently show an interest in Anglicisms, even if they have no linguistic training
(Álvarez 2001: 49). Not only linguists, but also political and social
institutions have tended to express apprehensions about the borrowing
of English terms into Spanish. These worries and purist attitudes should also
be seen in the light of social considerations, as the existence of Anglicisms
may bring Anglo-Saxon supremacy to mind (Rodríguez González 2002: 131). From a
purist point of view, the borrowing of foreign terms constitutes a danger to
the Spanish language. Gómez
Capuz (2005: 7) describes these attitudes:
“[e]n el lenguaje normativista y
purista español, las palabras procedentes de otros idiomas [...] dejan de ser
simples elementos léxicos para convertirse en personificaciones de la “amenaza
extranjera”: a veces son descritas en términos militares como “invasores” [...]
otras veces son descritas en términos biológicos y médicos como [...] “virus””
Instead of these metaphors, Gómez Capuz (2005: 7) proposes we update our
view of Anglicisms and see them as “lexical immigrants” instead. Explaining
that Anglicisms, just like immigrants, may face difficult circumstances after
their arrival and that they may have to give up some of their native
characteristics in order to achieve integration into their new country of
residence, Gómez Capuz draws compelling parallels between immigrants and
linguistic borrowings. As a matter of fact, his metaphor somewhat mirrors a
change in attitudes in linguistic investigations into Anglicisms in Spanish.
While research between the 1940s and 1970s tended to express rather purist attitudes,
later research has adopted a more moderate and descriptive position. Anglicisms
are now treated as a phenomenon related to language contact (Medina López 2004:
15ff.).
Borrowing
is not an unusual process in languages. Throughout its history, Spanish has
borrowed many words from other languages, such as Arabic, Italian or French
(Rodríguez González 2002: 128, Gómez Capuz 2005: 7f. and Medina López 2004:
9f.). English loanwords started to appear in the Spanish language in the 18th
century. This linguistic phenomenon is thus related to Britain’s growth as a
world power. In the 18th and 19th century, Spaniards
started taking an interest in British culture, life and sports. English started
to be taught at some schools, and the Industrial Revolution and its
technological innovations required new vocabulary (Rodríguez González 2002:
128f.). After 1950, the influence of the English language became even more
considerable. Tourism, the media, sports, fashion, a general fascination with
the American way of life, computers and the internet help to explain the
increased effects of English upon the Spanish language. A further factor was
the strong increase of English and English philology as school and university
subjects (Rodríguez González 2002: 129f. and 134; Medina López 2004: 7-12). As
can be seen, the study of Anglicisms entails the study of the external and
social factors that condition the incorporation of English loanwords into the
Spanish language (cf. Medina López 2004: 11).
Anglicisms occur at various levels of the linguistic system; they can be
lexical, orthographic, morphological, semantic, syntactic or pragmatic (Álvarez 2001: 50 and Rodríguez González 2002: 130f.). When it comes to
usage, differences can be found according to the region, stylistic level, the
means of communication and the social status or education level of the user
(Rodríguez González 2002: 132f. and 145ff.). Different varieties of Spanish use
different English loan words and they also use them to different degrees. Latin
American varieties showed an earlier and stronger influence of English, to be
more precise, of American English. European Spanish Anglicisms are often due to
mediation via French (Rodríguez González 2002: 132 and Medina López 2004: 8).
One therefore needs to take into account that there are cases in which the
loanword with an English ultimate etymon has come into Spanish via another
language. For example, biftec/bistec (< beefsteak) arrived in Spanish via French (Rodríguez González 2002:
134). Consequently, it is difficult to establish one concrete definition that
will capture the etymological origin, the way it entered the Spanish language
and the situational and social variation in the use of an Anglicism (Medina
López 2004: 13).
After
its introduction into a language, a loanword can undergo various stages of
adaptation and integration. Usually, three stages are distinguished. In the
first stage, that of transfer, the loan’s usage is limited to specific fields.
Only one of the loan’s native meanings is borrowed and this meaning might need
to be explained alongside the term in the receiving language (Gómez Capuz 2005:
15f.). This stage is followed by a stage of assimilation. Loans which have
proved their usefulness and are employed and understood to a certain extent
will undergo a lengthy process of orthographic, phonetic, morphological and
semantic adaptation (ibid.: 17f.). The third stage corresponds to a native
behaviour of the borrowed element, i.e. it is not easily recognised as a
foreign term anymore and is used creatively (ibid.: 25f.)
As
implied above, when studying the integration of Anglicisms into Spanish, one
can investigate their pronunciation, spelling and morphology[1].
When it comes to pronunciation, for example, there are marked differences
between different Anglicisms. The pronunciation of an Anglicism by Spanish
speakers depends on various factors: the duration for which it has been present
in Spanish, its level of integration, whether it arrived via spoken or written
media and the age and education level of the speaker. The pronunciation is
mostly influenced by the differences in the phonological systems of the two
languages. When the English includes phonemes or clusters that do not exist in
Spanish, they need to be rendered somehow. The initial /h/, for example, is
always rendered as [x] (cf. hobby/jobi), while initial /ʤ/ can be
rendered as either [j] or [ʤ] (cf. jazz
as [ʤas] or [jas]). Consonant clusters with an initial [s-] are pronounced by
adding a prothetic /e/ at the front, as in estándar
(Rodríguez González 2002: 135). The age of a loan will influence its
pronunciation as well, with older loans, which often arrived via a written
medium, tending to be pronounced in a Spanish way, while more recent loans
retain the English pronunciation more. This is due to both an increased
familiarity with the foreign language as well as to the loans being taken from
spoken English (ibid.: 136f.).
Orthographically,
we also find different degrees of assimilation into the Spanish system. English
spelling tends to be retained at the start of a loanword’s integration into
Spanish. More recent loans also display a tendency to keep the English
spelling. Consequently, English-like and more Spanish-like variants may
co-exist, such as in <smoking/esmoquin>. The choice of one or the other
then depends on sociolinguistic and stylistic factors. There may even be a
difference in meaning depending on the respective orthography (Rodríguez
González 2002: 137f.).
Loanwords
also need to be assimilated morphologically. For nouns, which constitute the
largest group of Spanish Anglicisms, for example, gender needs to be assigned
and ways of forming the plural need to be decided on. For the latter, there are
three options: -s (pins), -es (pines) or Ø (los pin) (Rodríguez González 2002: 138f.).
As
can be seen, Anglicisms offer a large and complex area of research, where a lot
of different aspects need to be taken into account. Furthermore, specific
Anglicisms may fall out of use or the domains in which Anglicisms are mostly
used may change. Due to these rather quick changes, studies from only a few
decades ago may therefore not be up to date anymore. This is why new studies
should be carried out (Álvarez 2001: 49f.).
Bibliography
Álvarez, I. 2001. Anglicismos Semánticos en el Español Peninsular Actual. Español Actual 76: 49-60.
Gómez
Capuz, J. 2005. La inmigración léxica.
Madrid: Arco Libros.
Medina
López, J. 2004. El anglicismo en el
español actual. Madrid: Arcos Libros.
Rodríguez González, F. 2002. Spanish. In: Görlach, M. (Hg.). English in Europe. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. 128-150.
[1]The following account is based on
Rodríguez González (2002: 135-144). See Gómez Capuz (2005: 18-25) for an
overview of the different processes of assimilation for “lexical immigrants” in
general.
