Foreign words in the old man and the sea

hemingway novella man sea

Unassimilated borrowings differ from assimilated ones in their pronunciation, spelling, frequency, semantic structure and sphere of application. However, there is no distinct borderline between the two groups.

So far no linguist has been able to suggest more or less comprehensive criteria for determining the degree of assimilation of borrowings. The latter depends in the first place upon the time of borrowing: the earlier it takes place, the more thoroughly it tends to follow normal English habits of accentuation, pronunciation etc. It is but natural that the majority of early borrowings have acquired full English citizenship and that most English speaking people are astonished on first hearing, that such everyday words as widow, chair, dish, box have not always belonged to their language.

However mere age is not the sole factor. Not only borrowings long in use, but also borrowed words of recent date may be completely made over to conform to English patterns if they are widely and popularly employed. Words that are rarely used in everyday speech, that are known to a small group of people retain their foreign peculiarities. Thus many 19^th century French borrowings have been completely assimilated (clinic, turbine, exploitation, diplomat), whereas the words noblesse [no'bles], ennui [ã:nwi] (1667), éclat [eı'klб:] (1674) have not been assimilated even in point of pronunciation.

Another factor determining the process of assimilation is the way in which the borrowing was adopted into the language. Words borrowed orally are assimilated more readily, they undergo greater changes, whereas with words adopted through writing the process of assimilation is longer and more laborious.

Apart from borrowings in the vocabulary of the English language there is a considerable layer of words called barbarisms [12]. These are words of foreign origin, which have not been assimilated into the English language. They bear the appearance of a foreign word and are felt as something alien to the native tongue, retaining their «foreignness» [6].

Barbarisms are, like archaisms, considered to be on the outskirts of the literary language. Most of them have corresponding English synonyms: e. g. chic (=stylish), bon mot (=a clever witty saying), en passant (= in passing), ad infinitum (= to infinity) and many other words and phrases.

It is very important for purely stylistic purposes to distinguish between barbarisms and foreign words proper. Barbarisms are words, which have already become facts of the English language. They are, as it were, part and parcel of the English word-stock, though they remain on the outskirts of the literary vocabulary [13].

Foreign words, though used for certain stylistic purposes, do not belong to the English vocabulary. They are not registered by English dictionaries, except in a kind of addenda which gives the meanings of the foreign words most frequently used in literary English, while barbarisms are generally given in the body of the dictionary. In printed works foreign words and phrases are generally italicized to indicate their alien nature. Barbarisms, on the contrary, are not made conspicuous in the text unless they bear a special load of stylistic information. There are foreign words in the English vocabulary, which fulfill a terminological function [11].

It is evident that barbarisms are a historical category. Many words and phrases which were once just foreign words used in literary English to express a concept non-existent in English reality, have little by little entered the class of words named barbarisms, many of which have gradually lost their foreign peculiarities, become more or less naturalized and have merged with the native English stock of words.

Foreign words in imaginative prose are used to create the effect of authenticity of the described locality, ethnic group, professional/social status of characters, i.e. foreign words fulfill the functions of characterization and emphasis.

The action of Hemingway’s story The Old Man and the Sea takes place in Cuba. All the characters in the book are Spanish-speaking, and Hemingway wants very much to convey the authenticity of Spanish speech in the monologues and dialogues of his characters. To achieve the effect he uses Spanish words.

They are mainly used by the main hero Santiago, in his speech at sea when referring to the fish, the sharks, the dolphins, the weather, and to his state. He also uses them on land when speaking with Manolin about baseball. So there are actually two topics which interest him, and, correspondingly, all Spanish words can be divided into two semantic groups: sea-oriented and sports-oriented. The first are mostly Spanish names for fishes, fishing equipment, and weather conditions. The second group contains Spanish names of baseball teams, games, and baseballers.

The first group is much larger, it consists of 10 lexemes, used 23 times. Their list, translation and frequency are presented in the table.

Table 1. The sea – oriented semantic group

The second group is twice smaller and contains only personal names, each of which is used only once:

Table 2. The sports – oriented semantic group

The meaning of Spanish words is made clear to English readers by the context.

Conclusion

Hemingway’s novella The Old Man and The Sea (1953) became his last life-time publication. It was also instrumental in bringing him his Nobel Prize for literature in 1954 and is considered his best literary achievement by quite a few critics. The first chapter of the paper concentrates on the novella.

To create the authentic atmosphere of the story, which takes place in Cuba and has Spanish-speaking characters, the author inserts Spanish words into their speech. To understand the role of foreign words in the vocabulary of a language, a short survey of lexical borrowings is given in Chapter 2 of the paper.

The list of Spanish words found in the text, their semantic characteristics, functions and frequency are discussed in Chapter 3.

Literature

1. Анастасьев Н. Творчество Э. Хемингуэя: Книга для учащихся. – М.: «Просвещение», 1981. – 140 с.

2. Гиленсон Б.А. Эрнест Хемингуэй: Книга для учащихся. – М.: Просвещение, 1991. – 192 с.

3. Грибанов Б.Т. Эрнест Хемингуэй: герой и время. – М.: Худож. лит., 1980 – 255 с.

4. Лидский Ю.Я. Творчество Э. Хемингуэя. Издание 2-е, переработанное, Киев, «Наукова Думка» 1978 – 420 с.

5. Лексикология английского языка: Учебник для ин-тов и фак. иностр. яз./Р. 3. Гинзбург, С.С. Хидекель, Г.Ю. Князева и А.А. Санкин. – 2-е изд., испр. и доп. – М.: Высш. школа, 1979. – 269 с.

6. Barbarisms in the English language: Stylistics – http://www.ranez.ru/article/id/114.