Assimilation of new words

All words getting from one language (from which the word is borrowed- Source language) into another (language that adopts a word – Target language) come through the first stage of assimilation. On this stage words are still connected with the reality that created them. Also when the word hasn’t got yet acclimatized in the target language it can have variants of pronunciation and spelling; for example: “доллар”, “доллер”, “долар” (Eng. “dollar”)[6]

The characteristic features of these lexical units at the survey period are their mass character, novelty and uniformity against the source language. The overwhelming majority of new words are to be borrowed from English language. The sphere where loan-words usually assimilate is quite specific. First of all, it is a “professional terminology” of any sphere specialists’ (computer engineering, financing activities, trade business, sports) and also spheres of politics, art, fashion, music, dancing and others.

Total computerization has leaded to the appearance, in Russian language and especially in the youth midst, a peculiar computerese jargon. It is obvious, that all innovations are held inside the system of the language and are formed up by means of Russian language grammatical rules. Consequently, the users of this jargon, aimed at making their speech distinctive and colorful can not manage without normal Russian language and rules mentioned above. There are a great number of computerese jargonisms which were changed or purposely mangled. English verb “to crack” (раскалывать) was changed into “крекнуть” or in humorous form “крякнуть”, a verb “to hack” (кромсать, разбивать) – became “хакнуть” with the help of Russian suffix “-ну”, which serves to denote a momentary action (that is to do something once; for example: “стукнуть” – to knock once and “стучать” – to knock during some time). By the way, there is no category of such kind in English, but in Russian language it is very common. Two ways of reproduction of one English word “game” (игра) have resulted into two varieties of its handing over:

1) After the way of writing:

“гамесы” that is “игры” (games, plural form);

2) After the way of pronunciation:

“геймер” that is “игрок” (player, a person).

On the whole, English suffix “-er” turned out to be very customary for denomination of any kind figures; for example: “юзер”, “дилер”, “киллер”. Nowadays labour-market becomes wider by means of new professions which come from the most developed countries. There is an interesting and a very up-to-date profession called “фрилансер” (from English freelancer – “free lance”, a person working out of stuff). This nomination refers to the number of words which have never existed in Russian language. So that mass media as the most sensitive organ of modern society tries to introduce us with such notions:

«…но в душе уже тогда знала, что стану фрилансером…»[7]

A lot of words like “компьютер”, “дисплей”[8], “файл”, “интерфейс”, “принтер”, “сканер”, “ноутбук”, “браузер”, “сайт”, “провайдер” and many others are reflections of new lifestyle generated by total computerization.

On the whole, computerese jargon is very similar to a general jargon (Jargon – is a speech of any social or professional group which contains a large number of terms and expressions peculiar to only such group, including imitation or relative words.)[9] and is developing within its rules. Research workers of Russian language strive for fixing novelties emerging in a system of language. Special dictionaries of neologisms serve to this problem realization. There are annual and anniversary dictionaries were observations about borrowings are collected together. It is significant that neologisms are new words which have not yet became day-to-day objects or concepts or corresponding items or notions. They are to be generated by two ways: firstly, neologisms appear on the original base of a language and secondly, some notions come from one language to another in one of the forms of borrowings.

Gradually foreign term gets assimilated due to its frequent usage in spoken language and in written form. Its morphological shape acquires stable form and as a result the adaptation, according to the norms of language, occurs. On this stage of foreign word assimilation in the sphere of native speakers’ popular etymology begins its operation. When a foreign word considered being incomprehensible people usually make an effort to fill its sound form with the contents close and most easily understood to the users of borrowing language. For example: the word “пиджак”. When it was just borrowed from English “pea-jacket” it sounded as “спинжак” in respect to the Russian notion “спина”.

And the last stage of foreign word penetration is striking root, when the word becomes widely used in the vocabulary system of native speakers and completely adapts within the grammatical rules of this language. From then on the word is included into all processes that occur with other words of the word-stock: it can produce words of the same root, abbreviations, acquire new nuances of definition. For example the English word “попса” that is popular music, pop music. This word is very frequent in usage, so it produced a lot of word-forms and combinations: “популярный”, “поп-культура”, “попсовый” and “поп-звезда”.

Sometimes words of English origin in Russian language can be defined by the ending:

- with the ending “-ер” or “-ор” is presents the largest group: “бартер”, “блейзер”, “брокер”, “ваучер”, “гамбургер”, “спонсор”, “компьютер”, “триллер”, “инвестор”;

- with the ending “-инг”, stress is placed on the first syllable: “брифинг”, “лизинг”, “рейтинг”, “серфинг”, “холдинг”;

- with the ending “-мент”, always trisyllable or tetrasyllable nouns: “импичмент”, “истеблишмент”, “менеджмент”;

- ending with a vowel sound: “лобби”, “шоу”, “ноу-хау”.