The globality of sports

C.A. Bayle, in his innovative approach to History writing, discusses in his book The Birth of the Modern World (2004) the gradual stardardization of global culture, political systems and economical structures, shaping the face of the world in a way that 21st century citizens might feel pretty much in the same place in Frankfurt, New York and Shanghai, even though we're talking about cities who belong to different countries and traditions.

Following a similar line,  Edward Said, the famous author of Orientalism, states in Culture and Imperialism (1994) how the expansion of Western culture was possible due to the broad extent of its empires: if by 1800 European powers claimed for themselves 55% of Earth's territory, by 1914 almost 85% of the globe was under the rule of Great Britain, France, the United States or Russia. 

It was imperialism that allowed the rise of a communication network that is still available in the present day--even in a larger extent and in a more penetrant way than it was 30 years ago. It surprises me how, in this sense, some objects and sounds, words and music, hobbies and symbols, foods and drinks have become a global commodity and an integral part of every day life for many people around the world. From pizza to pasta, the most recent hit single of  Daft Punkt or the insult "fuck you". But I'd like to concentrate on sport.

Take the example of (American) football. Even though it is probably the most American of American sports --only rivaled in its americaness by baseball-- last Sunday the Super Bowl was seen by ca. 100 million spectators around the globe. Football isn't as present in contemporary Germany as it is, for example, in Britain, but still there was an echo in the press while some of my German Facebook contacts commented the game on their statuses.

On the other hand, (European) football or soccer --as it is called in America-- is probably the most widely expanded British cultural export after The Beatles (or even more than them, because The Beatles, despite their canonized musical eternity, are in my opinion a more generational thing in contrast to football, a transgenerational phenomena that includes men and women of all ages, nationalities and social classes.

Football or Fussball came to Germany via Hamburg at the end of the 19th century. It was brought by English sailors who founded a small club in the harbor city. The sport expanded quickly in the German speaking world, so last year was celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the Bundesliga. German teams stand for cities or entire regions, but also for multinational companies (Hoffenheim = SAP, Leverkusen = Bayer) and political orientations (St Pauli is for example associated with Hamburg's leftwing scene)

But sports, as superficial and anti-intellectual as they might seem at the glance of  highly educated snobs, an in particular football, are in my opinion one of the most powerful tools of globalization: It has not only become a commodity and a business of millions of euros --from sports equipment to stadium tickets--, it has also become a way to articulate a sense of a global community. Or, as Benedict Anderson called, an Imagined Community of individuals who have neither seen each other, nor have any conscience of each other's concrete existence, yet they are aware of their belonging to a common (comm)unity (See: Imagined Communities, 1983)

Why, then, should be for example the Manchester United so interested in buying a Mexican young player, Chicharito? It is of course a matter of money --it's a about creating a new market and lock potential fans / clients / consumers in a developing country like Mexico, highly addicted to football. Chicharito, as any other player, is a commodity. But also a link between two countries that apparently have nothing to do with each other. Could be, in this sense, the Manchester United the most global of all teams, since it has had among its most famous players so many international figures, such as the Frenchman Eric Cantona? Just imagine this: How crazy were British fans for a Frenchman player, an ambassador of that imaginary "enemy" / rival, that country of "wine-and-cheese-freaks" across the Channel! Take a glance at the film Looking for Eric (2009), which pictures the illusions of a hardcore, middle aged Cantona's fan from Northern England:

We also have examples of this sport's globality in Germany. The team Borussia Dortmund (BVB), for example, offers updates in Japanese on its Facebook page: after Shinji Kagawa (now by the way in ManU) came to the Ruhr, a community of fans was born thousands of kilometers away. Such a paradox: a very traditional, deeply regional team, that is an unbeatable element of Ruhrpott popular culture along with other rival teams, like FC Schalke --hated by the way by Dortmund fans--, has become at the same time a part of Japanese sport's life --and popular culture.

As globalization involves migration at the same time, to finish this post I'd like to throw a last question: have you noticed the very international face of British, French and German National teams?  This makes me think of football also as a political message and as an historical narrative. In the case of Germany, it is for me clear that soccer is also a matter of international affairs: it is about showing the world how ethnically diverse (or as I'd say in German, bunt) German contemporary society has become, and at the same time, it is about sending a message to the interior of the Republic: a clear message that cultural integration is / should be possible. Sami Khedira, Mario Gomez and Mesut Özil --current or former National team members-- are not only football stars, they are also a picture of the cultural history --the history of migrations-- of our Federal Republic.

Feel free to post any comments or send us some other examples you can think of.

Cologne, 06.02.14

Anglicisms in the Spanish language

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 18^th century. This linguistic phenomenon is thus related to Britain’s growth as a world power. In the 18^th and 19^th 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.

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[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.

„La frontera del norte mexicano es una vieja cicatriz y no sanará hasta que no haya ni una muerta más“ [1]

„Die Grenze des nördlichen Mexiko ist eine alte Narbe und sie wird erst heilen, wenn es nicht eine einzige Tote mehr gibt.“[2] Dies sind die Worte der mexikanischen Dichterin und Menschenrechtsaktivistin Susana Chávez Castillo, die sich zu Lebzeiten öffentlich für eine Aufklärung der sogenannten „Frauenmorde“ und ein Ende der Gewalt in der mexikanischen Grenzstadt Ciudad Juárez einsetzte - bis sie vor inzwischen zwei Jahren, am 6. Januar 2011, selbst ermordet wurde. 

 

Ciudad Juárez - Symbol der Grenze

Der Ort, an dem heute Ciudad Juárez liegt, ist aufgrund seiner geographischen Lage seit Geschichtsschreibung der Kolonialmacht Spanien als politisch strategischer Standpunkt bekannt[3]. Im Jahre 1848, nach Beendigung des Mexikanisch-Amerikanischen Krieges, der auf die Unabhängigkeit Mexikos von Spanien folgt, wird das Abkommen Guadalupe de Hidalgo unterzeichnet. Dieses Abkommen legt fest, dass der Río Bravo genannte Fluss fortan den Grenzverlauf zwischen den Vereinigten Staaten und Mexiko markiert. Das Besondere daran ist, dass er die ehemals Paso del Norte genannte Stadt durchteilt und daraus zwei macht: El Paso, Texas, USA und Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexiko.  

Dort, wo die USA als vermeintliches Land der unbegrenzten Möglichkeiten in Sichtweite sind und eine der täglich meist befahrenen Grenzen zu regem Warenaustausch in beide Richtungen einlädt, liegt das Territorium der sogenannten Maquiladoras. In den 1960er Jahren beginnen multi-nationale Unternehmen, in dem Grenzraum zwischen den USA und Mexiko Fabriken zu errichten, in denen aus importierten Rohmaterialen fertige Konsumgüter erstellt werden, welche zollfrei zurück in die USA importiert werden. Die Unternehmen entgehen durch diese Auslagerung eines großen Teils ihrer Produktion den in den USA strengeren Regulierungen für den Umweltschutz und die Arbeitnehmerrechte. Mit Unterzeichnung des Freihandelsabkommens NAFTA von 1994, welches einen zollfreien Warenhandel in beide Richtungen ermöglicht,  erlebt die Maquiladora-Industrie einen großen Aufschwung[4]. In den Maquiladoras arbeiten viele junge Frauen, die aus armen Verhältnissen stammen oder gar aus anderen Teilen Mexikos eingewandert sind, um sich hier in gering entlohnter Schichtarbeit eine Überlebensgrundlage zu schaffen. Ciudad Juárez ist eine stetig wachsenden Stadt, vor der auch der Drogenkrieg keinen Halt macht: Laut Berichten der Frankfurter Allgemeinen sind in Juárez bei den Kämpfen zwischen dem Sinaloa- und dem Juárez-Kartell bereits mehr als 10 500 Menschen ums Leben gekommen[5]. Und dann wären da noch die vielen toten Frauen der Ciudad Juárez.

Der Feminizid von Ciudad Juárez

Im Jahre 1993 beginnt in Ciudad Juárez eine brutale Mordserie an jungen Frauen, die bis zum heutigen Tag kein Ende gefunden hat. Die Frauen, welche oft Angestellte der Maquiladoras sind und aus prekären Verhältnissen stammen, werden meist in einem ähnlichen Muster verschleppt, vergewaltigt und dann verstümmelt in der Wüste oder einem Straßengraben aufgefunden. Durch die hohe Dunkelziffer ist unklar, wie viele Todesopfer es bisher gegeben hat, Schätzungen reichen von 400 bis 1000[6]. Der Großteil der Morde bleibt unaufgeklärt und so taucht Ciudad Juárez immer wieder mit traurigen Nachrichten in der Presse auf, zum Beispiel im Jahresbericht 2013 von Amnesty International:

In the first three months of 2012, at least 13 bodies of young women and girls were discovered in the Valle de Juárez district outside Ciudad Juárez. Seven bodies were reportedly identified as those of girls aged between 15 and 17 who had been abducted in central Ciudad Juárez.[7]

Was bedeutet Feminizid?

Der englische Begriff femicide wird im Jahre 1976 von Diana Russell verwendet, um den Mord an Frauen aufgrund ihres Geschlechtes zu bezeichnen und somit eine neue Kategorie der Klassifikation von Morden als hate crime einzuführen.[8] Obwohl dieser Begriff im englischsprachigen Raum wenig Anklang findet, machen ihn sich lateinamerikanische Menschenrechtsaktivist*innen und Feminist*innen zu eigen. Der politisch konnotierte Begriff des feminicidio (in Abgrenzung zum femicidio, der ohne Implikationen den Mord an einer Frau bezeichnet), adaptiert von der mexikanischen Politikerin und Feministin Marcela Lagarde, wird benutzt, um auf die genderspezifischen Aspekte der vielen an Frauen verübten Morde hinzuweisen.[9] Dies spielt eine wichtige Rolle, da in der Rechtssprechung einiger mexikanischer Staaten die Kategorie des genderspezifischen Mordes nicht existiert[10]. 

Nuestras hijas de regreso a casa – Unsere Töchter auf dem Weg zurück nach Hause

In ihrer Hilflosigkeit haben sich die Angehörigen der ermordeten Frauen zu einer NGO mit dem Namen „Nuestras hijas de regreso a casa“ zusammen getan. Mit ihrer Präsenz im Internet und auf der Straße versuchen sie eine Gegenöffentlichkeit und eine Plattform gegen das Vergessen zu schaffen.[11]

Auch Susana Chávez beteiligte sich an der Arbeit der Organisation und setzte sich mit ihren Gedichten für ein Ende der Mordserie ein[12]. Auf ihrem Blog, der noch immer online zu finden ist, liest sich folgendes Gedicht:

SANGRE NUESTRA                              UNSER BLUT[13]

Sangre mía,                                                Mein Blut

de alba,                                                   der Morgenröte,

de luna partida,                                       des geteilten Mondes,

del silencio.                                             der Stille.

de roca muerta,                                       des toten Steins,

de mujer en cama,                                   der Frau im Bett,

saltando al vacío,                                    in die Leere springend,

Abierta a la locura.                                    Dem Wahnsinn offen.

Sangre clara y definida,                             Blut, hell und deutlich,

fértil y semilla,                                       fruchtbar und ein Samen,

Sangre incomprensible gira,                      Blut, unverständliche Reise

Sangre liberación de sí misma,                  Blut, die Befreiung von sich selbst

Sangre río de mis cantos,                           Blut, Fluss meiner Gesänge,

Mar de mis abismos.                                  Meer meiner Abgründe

Sangre instante donde nazco adolorida,    Blut des Momentes, wenn ich schmerzend geboren werde,

Nutrida de mi última presencia.[14]           Genährt von meiner letzten Erscheinung.

Susana war nur eine von vielen, genauso wie Ciudad Juárez nur ein besonders grausames Beispiel ist. Was bleibt, ist ein Gefühl von Unverständnis und Ohnmacht. Und die Gewissheit, dass es nicht nur am Internationalen Tag gegen Gewalt an Frauen (25. November) wichtig ist, dieses Thema auf die Tagesordnung zu setzen.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Film- und Literaturtipps zum Thema

-       Nava, Gregory: Bordertown (2006)

-       Carrera, Carlos: Das Paradies der Mörder (2009) 

-       Portillo, Lourdes: Señorita Extraviada (2001)

-       Bolaño, Roberto: 2666 (2004)

-       Gaspar de Alba, Alicia: Desert Blood (2005)

[1] Carmen Sosa, Luz del: ¡Ni una muerta más! Susana Chávez, poeta y activista antipatriarcal es asesinada en cd. Juarez, en: http://noticiasdelarebelion.info/?p=5421, 12.01.2011 (Zugriff am 05.01.2014) 

[2] Meine Übersetzung.

[3] Unbekannt: Ciudad Juárez, in: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Ju%C3%A1rez (Zugriff am 07.01.2014)

[4]  Regionalwirtschaftliche Effekte der NAFTA – Beispiel: Maquiladora-Industrie, in: http://www.klett.de/web/uploads/DO03029741_096_097.pdf (Zugriff am 06.01.2014)

[5] Rüb, Matthias: „Wahl in Mexiko. Jenseits des Rio Grande“, in: Frankfurter Allgemeine, 01.07.2012, in: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/wahl-in-mexiko-jenseits-des-rio-grande-11801364.html (Zugriff am 07.01.2014)

[6] Zeiske, Kathrin: „Gewalt mit Sytsem“, in: Jungle World Nr. 13, 01.04.2010, in: http://jungle-world.com/artikel/2010/13/40648.html (Zugriff am 06.01.2014)

[7] Amnesty International: Annual Report: Mexico 2013, in: http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-mexico-2013?page=5 (Zugriff am 06.01.2014)

[8] Russell, Diana: “Femicide“ – The power of a name, in: http://www.dianarussell.com/femicide_the_power_of_a_name.html (Zugriff am 02.01.2014)

[9] Cariboni, Diana: ¿Femicidio, feminicidio? El genocidio necesita un nombre en América Latina, en: http://www.ips.org/mdg3/%C2%BFfemicidio-feminicidio-el-genocidio-necesita-un-nombre-en-america-latina/
(Zugriff am 06.01.2014)

[10] Amnesty Internationl: Annual Report: Mexico 2013, in: http://www.amnestyusa.org/research/reports/annual-report-mexico-2013?page=4 (Zugriff am 08.01.2014)

[11] http://www.mujeresdejuarez.org/

[12] Lucas, Cat: [Mexico] In memory of Susana Chavez Castillo, in: http://www.englishpen.org/mexico-in-memory-of-susana-chavez-castillo-2/ (Zugriff am 06.01.2014)

[13] Meine Übersetzung. 

[14] Chávez, Susana: Sangre, in: http://primeratormenta.blogspot.de/ (Zugriff am 06.01.2014)