Taal en Tongval - Volume 69, Issue 1, 2017

In this introductory paper we discuss the expanding focus of lexical borrowing research over the past decade. Where this ‘inevitable’ outcome of language contact was originally predominantly addressed from a historical linguistic and lexicographic perspective, a broader range of linguistic traditions have recently been applied to the topic, each introducing their own questions, perspectives and methods. Below, we first present the main insights ensuing from a century of loanword research. Then, we introduce the viewpoints that characterize more recent work and the questions they foreground. In presenting the contributions to this special issue, we finally pay specific attention to the way the six papers add to the broader tendencies and innovations of current lexical borrowing research.

In traditional research, necessary and luxury loanwords have often been opposed to each other as representing two fundamentally different types of borrowing. However, the terms of necessity and luxury have been shown to be problematic, as necessary loanwords can be avoided by choosing alternative types of contact-induced innovations in the recipient language, and from a usage-based perspective, speakers also perceive a certain ‘need’ for luxury borrowings. In my paper, I will thus rephrase the distinction in terms of catachrestic (~necessary) vs. non-catachrestic (~luxury) borrowings (Winter-Froemel, 2011; Onysko and Winter-Froemel, 2011) and focus on the latter group in order to investigate basic principles motivating the introduction of the loanwords in the recipient language. More specifically, I will discuss euphemism, dysphemism, and playfulness, which have been proposed in previous research as basic functions of borrowings (see, e.g. Carstensen, 1965; Galinsky, 1967), and I will explore how these concepts can be refined from a usage-based perspective. Finally, I will turn to the function of naming, which is traditionally considered to be fundamentally different from the pragmatically based factors listed above. Contrary to this belief, I will argue that naming also has a pragmatic dimension by virtue of speakers’ intentions to (re)conceptualize the objects in question. The broad variety of pragmatic motives identified underpins the necessity to adopt a usage-based approach to linguistic borrowing, and the potential of analyzing borrowings according to their cognitive and communicative value.

Although the influence of English on Dutch is mainly visible in a large number of lexical borrowings (De Decker & Vandekerckhove, 2012; Berteloot & Van der Sijs, 2002), a newly compiled corpus of chat conversations between Dutch young adults shows that some native speakers of Dutch codeswitch to English in their Dutch conversations and use English creatively. In this study this is explained as an identity practice for young gay men in a community of practice where non-heteronormative gay-celebratory identities are constructed, due to the connotations of English with the (always English-speaking) entertainment in which these speakers can find multidimensional, young, and ‘cool’ gay role models.

The influence of English on other languages such as Dutch is still growing. But how does this influence show up in actual day to day verbal behavior? A promising domain to study this issue is texting by young adults. How often and in what ways do they use English in their digital messages? Are there context factors at work that make them rely less or more on English? In an experimental study the influence of two pragmatic factors has been assessed: social distance and subjective costs. How familiar is the sender with the receiver, and how intrusive is the message? In response to four sketches of a communicative situation, 38 young adults composed in all 148 text messages. Both pragmatic factors proved to be effective. English words and phrases were used most often in communicating with peers for a ‘light’ reason. When addressing more senior receivers with a rather intrusive message, English was used far less. In the undemanding situation English features outnumbered the Dutch ones; in the more demanding situation this pattern was reversed, now the Dutch features were the more frequent ones. The use of English showed a positional effect as well: it occurred for the most part at the beginning and ending of the message, leaving the core content almost untouched. Each of these effects shows that texters take into account several pragmatic considerations. If English is becoming an integral part of Dutch text messages, it seems to do so in a deliberate way.

The purpose of this study was to investigate if English loanwords are perceived differently in Flanders and the Netherlands, two areas with a shared official language (Dutch) but different sociolinguistic background and history. It has been argued that because of historical French dominance over Flemish, attitudes towards loanwords in Flanders are negative, whereas in the Netherlands attitudes are more positive because Dutch has not been threatened by another language there. In an experiment with a between-subject design, 155 Dutch and Flemish university students evaluated three equivalent Dutch and English job titles (e.g. hoofredacteur/editor-in-chief) with regard to comprehensibility, attractiveness, naturalness, and intention to apply for the job. In addition, general attitudes towards English loanwords were measured. Findings did not reveal differences between the Dutch and Flemish participants in their evaluation of the English versus Dutch job titles, nor in their general attitude towards English loanwords. For both participant groups, there were no differences in attitude towards the English and Dutch versions for two of the job titles, and both groups displayed more positive attitudes towards the Dutch version of one of the job titles than its English equivalent. However, Flemish participants were less likely to apply for jobs with English job titles than for jobs with equivalent Dutch job titles, while for the Dutch participants language of job title did not result in differences in application intention. The general attitude to English loanwords of both Dutch and Flemish participants was positive. It can therefore be concluded that, generally, nationality was not a factor influencing language attitudes.

This article examines the interaction between the two main languages of Suriname, Surinamese Dutch (SD) and Sranan Tongo (ST). It focusses on structural effects caused by code switching (CS) and its impact on the lexical changes of the languages involved. Using the Leipzig Glossing Rules, the morphosyntactic structure of a number of sample sentences becomes clear and the interaction between SD and ST becomes visible. Which categories of loan and trigger words can be found in multilingual Surinamese discourses? And how do we define Sranan-based loan words in Surinamese Dutch? These questions will be examined through a body of data that was compiled during field research in Paramaribo. These data include language use on computer-mediated communication (CMC). CMC belongs to daily life for a section of the Surinamese population. This development has made it possible to research Surinamese multilingualism from a different perspective – a perspective that includes the features of oral and written communication (see Dorleijn & Nortier, 2008, p. 127). One of the oral features is the aforementioned phenomenon of code switching. This article contributes to the study of the interaction between creole languages and Germanic languages.

This article presents an in-depth study of the Frisian loan pindakaas from Dutch pindakaas. This word can be literally glossed as ‘peanut cheese’, but it translates into English as ‘peanut butter’. The translation illustrates that the compound pindakaas is not compositional in Dutch and Frisian, that is, pindakaas is not a kind of kaas (‘cheese’). Because of its non-compositional nature, Dutch pindakaas, we argue, has not been borrowed into Frisian as pindatsiis, even though Dutch kaas in Frisian is tsiis. In contrast, compositional compounds featuring Dutch –kaas surface in Frisian with –tsiis, such as Dutch schapenkaas, Frisian skieppetsiis. The non-compositional nature of pindakaas is shown to have a historical explanation. Independent evidence is cited from psycholinguistics supporting the claim that compositional compounds behave in a way that differs from non-compositional ones. Thus evidence is provided that borrowing is sensitive to compositionality in that elements of compounds are more easily left untranslated when their meaning is not predictable by compositionality from their usage elsewhere in the language.