Курсовая работа: Intercultural communication of Russian and English languages

2. borrowing of foreign words.

By means of chronological feature there are following groups of original Russian words, combined together by its origin or genesis (Gr. Genesis – the origin): Indo-European, Common-Slavic, East-Slavic (or Old Russian) and strictly Russian.

Indo-European words are words which after the dissolution of the Indo-European ethnic community (the end of the neolith period) were inherited by ancient languages of this language family, including Common-Slavic language. In this way there are some terms common to most of Indo-European languages: “мать”, “брат”, “дочь”, “овца”, “бык”, “волк”, “мясо”, “кость” and others.

Words that were inherited by Old Russian from the Slavic tribes languages, who occupied a vast territory of East and Central Europe and Balkans by the beginning of A.D. are called Common-Slavic. It served as a unified means of communication approximately till the VII century A.D. that is before the resettlement of Slavic tribes, when the lingual unity was collapsed. It is natural to suppose that there were some territorially separated dialectal differences in the period of one Common-Slavic language circulation, which served as a basis for formation of separate Slavic language groups: South-Slavic, West-Slavic and East-Slavic. However, each of this group has a number of words appeared in the period of Common-Slavic unity. For example:

- names of plants: “дуб”, “ель”, “ясень”, “лист”, “просо”, “ячмень”, “пшеница”, “мак”, “кора”, “дерево”, “черемуха” and so on;

- referred to labour: “мотыга”, “челнок”, “ковать”, “сечь”;

- names of shelter and its parts: “дом”, “сени”, “пол”, “кров”;

- names of poultry and birds: “курица”, “гусь”, “соловей”, “скворец”;

- names of food-stuffs: “квас”, “кисель”, “сыр”, “сало”and others.

East-Slavic (or Old Russian) words are words that appeared only in the language of East-Slavic tribes (ancestors of nowadays Russian, Ukraine and Belarus nations) from the beginning of VIII century. These tribes were united as a feudally state – «Kievskaya Rus’» by the IX century. The word-stock of this language has not been jet well investigated by the historical lexicology but there are some examples: “сизый”, “хороший”, “падчерица”, “дядя”, “кружево”, “зяблик”, “белка”, “сорок”, “девяносто”, “сегодня”, “внезапно” and others. Properly speaking, all words (except of loan-words) appeared when the language developed firstly as a language of great-Russian nationality (from XIV century), and then as a national Russian language (from XVII century) refer to the original Russian vocabulary. Here are the examples of Russian word-stock:

- actions: “ворковать”, “разредить”, “размозжить”, “брюзжать”;

- names of everyday things: “обои”, “обложка”, “голубцы”, “кулебяка”;

- names of concepts: “итог”, “обман”, “обиняк”, “опыт” and others.

However to be successful in following the language developing is very complicated as the language is alive as a life itself.

1.2 Borrowings in Russian language

From the ancient times Russian nation came into cultural, trade, military and political relations with other states that certainly leaded to the language borrowings. Within the process of usage the majority of them were exposed by the borrowing language influence. Step by step loan-words, assimilated (from Lat. “assimilare” – усваивать, уподоблять) in borrowing language, had formed the layer of widespread words and by this time weren’t perceived as foreign anymore. In different epoch words from other languages penetrated into original Russian vocabulary. However, national originality of Russian language did not suffer at all from the penetration of foreign words into it, as the process of borrowing is quite natural way of any language enrichment. Russian language preserved its self-dependency and just got rich by means of borrowed words.

Linguistic borrowing are words (morpheme or syntactic construction) and set expressions, moved from one language to another. The beginning of English borrowings in Russian language refers to the beginning of XVII century. Later by the middle of XIX century loan-words entered Russian to become its essential part. The word-stock of international vocabulary was being arisen.[2]

As for nowadays a great interest of linguists is concentrated upon the Russian–English lingual communication. Intensification of informational flow, appearance of Internet, expansion of international relationships, development of world trade, economy, informational technologies, participation in various international competitions, fashion shows are the reasons that caused the new words entering into Russian lexis.

The openness of our society leads us to a considerable enlargement of mental outlook and range of interests, and to the improvement of foreign languages knowledge. The spheres of international business, trade, culture and tourism have been raised after the long period of Soviet “iron curtain”. So that the necessity of communicating with the users of other languages has evolved in our lives. Consequently the necessity of borrowing English words in modern society fits with the above mentioned reasons.

Adopted words come into system-defined relations with original vocabulary:

1) Loan-word can be a synonym to the original one:

Forexample: Файтер – боец;

Мониторинг – наблюдение;

Киллер[3] – убийца;

Пиар – связи с общественностью;

Контракт – договор; etc.

2) Loan-word can replace the Russian word:

Forexample: Секонд-хэнд – комиссионный магазин;

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