论英语外来词 --毕业论文.doc

【标题】论英语外来词 【作者】朱丽娟 【关键词】英语；借词；原因；影响 【指导老师】李天梅 【专业】英语 【正文】. IntroductionLanguage is not only the most significant tool for human communication, but also the carrier of human civilization and reflection of social reality. Therefore, with the development of human society and the expansion of political, economic and cultural exchanges among different nations, language borrowing has become a very common phenomenon in language development. Languages, like cultures, are rarely sufficient unto themselves. The necessities of intercourse bring the speakers of one language into direct or indirect contact with those of neighboring or culturally dominant languages. At present there are about 6000 different languages on our planet, and every one of them has a vocabulary containing many thousands of words. Whenever and wherever there are contacts of any sort between the speakers of different languages, speakers will make use of words from other languages to refer to things, processes, and the ways of behavior, organization, or thinking for which words or phrases were not available or convenient in their own language hitherto. Everybody is in a position to learn some of the words used by their neighbors, and very frequently people take a liking to some of their neighbors words and take those words over into their own language. These words are termed borrowings, or loanwords. Loanwords may cover every aspect of human life, including politics, economy, military, culture, art, science, religion and so on.As we know, with the rapid progress of science and technology, especially with the increase of international communication and universal application of internet, languages borrow from each other at an unprecedented rate, take English as an example, the English vocabulary is about more than 1 million while about 80% of them are borrowed from other languages. Moreover, most languages, if not all, manage to widen their vocabularies by borrowing words from other languages. More and more loanwords get established in the native languages, even take the place of the indigenous language. More and more people are capable of speaking one or more foreign languages, and more and more societies become bilingual or polyglot. This is the linguistic phenomenon taking place all the time everywhere.The words that belong to a language do not stay the same, but are constantly changing: some words stop being used and some new ones come instead. New words come into the language in different ways. From the perspective of English, the historical development of the English language shows that English is a heavy borrower, it has adopted words from almost every known language, especially from Latin, French and Greek. Thus, it is worth analyzing English loan words. This paper, therefore, attempts to explore English borrowing in a more thorough and systematic way, expound some theories on English borrowing, confirm some hypotheses and make some improvements in some aspects. Classifications of English Loan WordsThe modern linguists group the English loanwords into four categories according to their different extents of their assimilation and the way they are being as simulated. In a large sense, it can be described as follows: 1A. DenizensIt refers to those that have been absorbed in an earlier period and now have been completely assimilated by the native English. Their pronouncing and spelling rules are all kept to the native English.Many Scandinavian words, for instance, are denizens, such as,“egg”,“get”,“give”,“skill”,“skin”,“sky”,“take”, etc.Sometimes denizens conform to native words even in adoption of English affix: suffix or prefix, like“poorness”(French root with English suffix),“ungracious”(French root with English prefix and suffix),“eventful”(a Latin root event+ an English suffixful),“talkative”(an English root talk+ a Latin suffixative), etc.Hybrids are also denizens because they are words made up of two parts, each from a different language, such as,“sciology”(a French element socio-+ a Latin element-logy), etc.B. AliensIt refers to those that have still preserved their original pronunciation and spelling rules. In general, they are easily identified from its literal forms. The following French borrowings are aliens:“automobile elite”“coup de main” and“trou-de-loup”.C. Translation-loansThey refer to those loanwords that are imitated and translated from the original words or phrases by English according to their meaning, or are translated according to what they are pronounced. The former are those expressions, like“long time no see” which comes from the Chinese“hao jiu mei jian”, and“mother tongue” from the Latin“ lingua maternal”, the latter are those words, such as“kulak” which came from the Russian“kyrak”, and“kettle” from the Latin“cetel”.Sometimes only a part of a compound is borrowed from a foreign language. The compound“auteur theory” is a typical example, which is borrowed from French“politique des auteurs”.D. Semantic-loansThey refer to those native words that add other meanings from other languages. In other words, it means those loanwords just borrowed the meanings rather than the forms, for example,“pioneer” originally referred to“any one of a group of soldiers who go into an area in advance of an amy to clear paths, make roads, etc.”, and now it has the meaning“of a person who is among the first to go into an area or country to settle or work there” in American English. Another example,“dumb” originally referred to“unable to speak, temporarily silent”, and then it added the meaning“stupid” borrowed from the German word“dumn”. Reasons for Borrowing Words from Other LanguagesFrom the perspective of word structure, nothing is as important as the historical contexts in which the language evolved. All aspects of language are constantly changing, but vocabulary is the part that reacts most readily and rapidly to external influences. English has changed its vocabulary so dramatically that in terms of word stock it can no longer be considered a Germanic language, but English language itself. The historical factors define the composition of early vocabulary of English, and also cover the events and circumstances that led to its“hybridizations”.The vocabulary of English is not an unchanging list of words. New words enter the language every day, and some old words cease to be used as well. One of main hybridization is borrowing. In fields of higher learning, like the life science, physical science, medicine, law and the social science, English has usually borrowed words from other languages to get new words to cover new concepts or new material or abstract phenomena. Words referring to notions and objects specific to other cultures are often borrowed wholesale.According to the history of English borrowing, there are two main reasons of borrowings words into English: historical and social reasons.A. Historical reasons1. Similar Grammatical Structures and Common Words with Western Languages2English belongs to the group of languages to which German, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and Norwegian also belong. That is, English belongs to the Low West Germanic branch of the Indo-European family. Hence, the English language shares many common features with those languages which provides potential possibilities and convenience to borrow words from other languages. The most common westen languages are English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, etc. Thus, they undoubtedly have something in common, for example, formally, they all adopt Latin Letters in writing which leaves an impression that words in those languages are similar to each other, like English word“CD-ROM” and French word“cederom”. Grammatically, the plural form in English, French and German are identical, that is, to add“s” to the word ending.2. Invasions from other countriesMilitary conquest is an important factor influencing English borrowing. The history of English best illustrates this. English itself was brought into Britain by Anglo-Saxons, the invaders, in the fifth century. It crowded out the native Celtic speech and Cornish. In modern times, with the enrichment of English and industrial modernization of the English world, Britain began its overseas aggression and colonization around the world. Along with it is the consistent immigration and cultural invasion. Just as Illich has put it, language has always been the consort of empire, and forever shall remain its mate.Two main invasions will be illustrated, one is the invasion from Scandinavians3 in the 9th century, the other is the Norman Conquest in 1066. Clearly, a single or two historical events cannot cause the language change overnight; the cut-off date is a convenience to show what influences brought out by these great events.a. Scandinavian InvasionFrom the 8th century until the 11th century, the Anglo-Saxons was subjected to a series of attacks and invasions by Scandinavian seafears. One can think of those invasions as the second Germanic onslaught on Britain, but only in this time were the invaders and the invaded close relatives, linguistically speaking. The Scandinavians( also known as Vikings) spoke Old Norse. Judging from the written records, there was probably a considerable degree of mutual intelligibility between English and the language of the northeast Midlands of England that had to be surrendered to the Viking invaders.Reconstruction of Viking customs and way of travel suggest that many of the seafarers arrived in England without women folk. Intermarriages must have been common as more and more of the invaders became settlers and inhabitants of what they came to see as their own country. The social and historical circumstances would have been favorable for the transfer of vocabulary from Scandinavian to English. The first linguistic link between Vikings and Anglo-Saxons is found in the large number of Scandinavian place names in the northern and eastern parts of England. The place name ending with“-by” means“settlement”, such as“Carnaby”,“Ellerby”,“Rugby” and“Thirtleby”. The name ending with“-thorpe” means“hamlet”, such as“Barleythorpe”,“Grimsthorpe”,“Hamthorpe”,“Hilderthorpe”,“low Claythorpe”, and“Fridaythorpe”. The name ends with“-thwaite” means“clearing” such as“Hampsthwaite”,“Hunderthwaite” and“Husthwaite”. Demographically, it is hard to reconstruct reliably the extent to which the Scandinavian invasions, victories, and settlements swelled the ranks of the Anglo-Saxon population. However, there are more than 750 Scandinavian name-forms in records concerning medieval Yorkshire and Lincolnshire alone. The best known is the ending with“-son”, as in“Henryson”,“Jackson” and“Robertson”. Judging by the density of Scandinavian place names, we can assume that the the newcomers represented a large and vigorous minority. There were probably as many Scandinavian speakers as English speakers living in the Danelaw. As the lexicon is the language in the history of a nation, it is easy to see why English borrowed almost 1000 words from Scandinavian between the 8th and the 11th centuries.Unlike the adoption of Latin vocabulary, the adopt of Scandinavian words did not involve special education or writing skills. It occurred naturally in the mixed households, in the fields, and in the marketplaces, among people at comparable levels of cultural development. In addition to the social conditions, the word borrowing was facilitated by the linguistic closeness of Scandinavian and English. It is not surprising that loanwords that came into English during this period are not easily recognizable as foreign, nor are they marked as belonging to a more special literate or more elevated level of usage. Scandinavian borrowing in English between the 9th and the 12th centuries are common words such as“bag”,“call”,“cast”,“die”,“fellow”,“hit”,“knife”,“root”,“skin”,“sky”,“ill”,“until”,“wrong”, the prepositions“till” and“fro”(as in to and fro), and the pronoun“they, them, their”. There is probably Scandinavian influence on the pronoun“she”, the verb form“are”, and the quantifiers“both” and“same”. In some regional varieties of English today Scandinavian words exist side by side with the more familiar word from the standard language:“garth” vs.“yard”,“kirk” vs.“church”,“nay” vs.“no”,“trig” vs.“true”. Since the Vikings spoke a Germanic language, sharing words with Old English, but pronouncing them differently, sometimes one and the same word has two pronunciations, Scandinavian and Old English. Those words have evolved into a pair of historically related words which are now two separate lexical items. Such pairs in present-day English are“dike” vs.“ditch”,“scrub” vs.“shrub”,“skirt” vs“shirt”.b. The Norman ConquestThe Norman Conquest of Britain in 10664 has left a lasting mark on the composition of the English vocabulary. In that year, William, Duck of Normandy defeated the English army and was then crowned king of England. Under his 20-year rule the Saxon aristocracy were executed or driven away from their castles and their lands. Their property was now in the possession of Norman barons and retainers who had come with William or had followed him soon therafter. This led to a new correlation between social standing and language: the peasants working in the fields or doing the manual jobs around the noblemens estates were speakers of English, and the overlords spoke French. Given their dependence on local labor, the conquerors had to communicate with the conquered. The French-speaking upper clergy had to talk to the lower clergy and listen to the preacher whose sermons had to be in English. Instructions had to be given and understood in every walk of life. The majority of the population spoke English natively, but many people must have learned enough French to fulfill requests and obey orders from their French overlords. A smattering of French would have been sufficient for some French words to gain access to English. During the Norman occupation, about 10,000 French words were adopted into English, some three-fourths of which are still in use today. For example, words about law and administration are“people”,“crown”,“reign”,“noble”,“blame”,“arrest”,“state”,“judge”,“jury”,“justice”,“evidence”,“pardon”,“government”,“state”,“country”,“parliament”,“council”,“vassal”,“fief”,“police”, etc. Words concering religion are“religion”,“hermit”,“lesson”,“virgin”,“pity”,“pray”,“Bible”,“baptism”,“confess”,“divine”,“sermon”,“grace”,“repent”,“sacrific”, etc. Words with regard to literature are“art”,“beauty”,“literature”,“story”,“chapter”,“poem”,“prose”,“rime”, etc.B. Social ReasonsAs pointed out by Joseph Stalin, language is directly connected with mans productive activity and exists only in human society.5 It grows and develops with the growth and development of a society. It dies when society disappears. Outside society there is no language. As society is constantly in a state of development, so is language. Moreover, the most active component of language is vocabulary, the latest change in society will be mirrored firstly in vocabulary.1. Development of Science and TechnologyThe most significant issue on science and technology is the Industrial Revolution. The British Industrial Revolution had the great influence on the spread of English. It is the industrial Revolution that triggered off the development of borrowed words. The scientific and technical vocabularies grew enormously. By the end of the 17th century a great number of words had been introduced for basic anatomy and mathematics. From the beginning of the 19th century there was a surge in chemistry, physics and biology. 6“Biology” itself came into English words in 1819, and“petrology”(1811),“morphology”(1828),“taxonomy”(1828),“paleontology”(1838),“ethnology”(1842),“gynecology”(1847),“histology”(1847),“cardiology”(1852) are all examples for the classifications of branches.In chemistry,“tellurium” became into English words in 1800, and the more examples are“sodium”(1807),“platinum”(1812),“silicon”(1817),“caffeine”(1830),“chloroform”(1838) and etc.In physics,“sonometer” became into English words in 1808, and the more examples are“centigrade”(1812),“altimeter”(1847),“voltmeter”(1882),“watt”(1882),“electron”(1891) and etc.In biology,“chlorophyll” became into English words in 1810, and the more examples are“bacterium”(1847),“spermzoid”(1877),“chromosome”(1890),“photosynthesis”(1898) and ect.In medicine, gastritis became into English words in 1806, and the more examples are“laryngitis”(1822),“kleptomania”(1830),“haemophilia”(1854),“diphtheria”(1857),“claustrophobia”(1879) and etc.English went back to Latin and Greek in many of its descriptions for the new, often via French, like“oxygen”,“protein”,“nuclear”, and“vaccine” which did not exist in the classical languages but their roots are there. Some did come straight from Latin, in the 19th century, like“cognomen”,“opus”,“ego”,“sanatorium”,“aquarium”,“referendum” and“myth”; or from Greek, such as“pylon”.2. International and Cultural ExchangeAny nation is not isolated, stand-alone but connected tightly with others, and the communication among nations is mutual and they absorb virtues from one another through the contact in order to progress forward. So as to language.The most remarkable event about international and cultural exchange is the Renaissance Movement. During this period, although scholarly and everyday words continued to be borrowed from French in the 16th century, like“fragrant”(1500),“elegance”(1520),“baton”(1520),“adverb”(1530),“cassock”(1550),“admire”(1590),“avenue”(1600), the importance of French loans decreased, English turned increasingly towards Lat