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Chapter 3. Investigating gender variation of English loanwords in German

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Abstract

This article examines variation in gender assignment to English loanwords – a phenomenon that has rarely been studied on a large empirical basis to date. We report on a multi-method study of gender assignment to Anglicisms as evidenced by large newspaper corpora and experimental data elicited from German native speakers, allowing empirically well-grounded insights into methodological and sociolinguistic factors that determine gender variation. In contrast to earlier studies which assume variation in gender assignment to be especially prevalent in the early stages of integration, thus claiming that there is comparatively little variation in general, our findings show a substantial amount of variation among the test items. In general, we find that variation is higher in the informant data when compared to the corpus data.

Abstract

This article examines variation in gender assignment to English loanwords – a phenomenon that has rarely been studied on a large empirical basis to date. We report on a multi-method study of gender assignment to Anglicisms as evidenced by large newspaper corpora and experimental data elicited from German native speakers, allowing empirically well-grounded insights into methodological and sociolinguistic factors that determine gender variation. In contrast to earlier studies which assume variation in gender assignment to be especially prevalent in the early stages of integration, thus claiming that there is comparatively little variation in general, our findings show a substantial amount of variation among the test items. In general, we find that variation is higher in the informant data when compared to the corpus data.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Acknowledgements ix
  5. The lexical influence of English on European languages 1
  6. Section I. Exploring Anglicisms
  7. Chapter 1. Fair play to them 27
  8. Chapter 2. Proposing a pragmatic distinction for lexical Anglicisms 43
  9. Chapter 3. Investigating gender variation of English loanwords in German 65
  10. Chapter 4. The collection of Anglicisms 91
  11. Chapter 5. Semi-automatic approaches to Anglicism detection in Norwegian corpus data 111
  12. Chapter 6. Lexicographic description of recent Anglicisms in Serbian 131
  13. Chapter 7. Anglicisms in Armenian 149
  14. Section II. English-induced phraseology
  15. Chapter 8. Phraseology in flux 169
  16. Chapter 9. Multi-word loan translations and semantic borrowings from English in French journalistic discourse 199
  17. Chapter 10. Newly-coined Anglicisms in contemporary Spanish 217
  18. Chapter 11. Der Elefant im Raum… 239
  19. Chapter 12. English influence on Polish proverbial language 261
  20. Section III. Anglicisms in specialized discourse
  21. Chapter 13. English direct loans in European football lexis 281
  22. Chapter 14. Incorporation degrees of selected economics-related Anglicisms in Italian 305
  23. Chapter 15. Anglicisms in the discourse of Alitalia’s bailout in the Italian press 325
  24. Author index 343
  25. Language index 347
  26. Subject index 349
The Anglicization of European Lexis
This chapter is in the book The Anglicization of European Lexis
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.174.07cal

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors vii
  4. Acknowledgements ix
  5. The lexical influence of English on European languages 1
  6. Section I. Exploring Anglicisms
  7. Chapter 1. Fair play to them 27
  8. Chapter 2. Proposing a pragmatic distinction for lexical Anglicisms 43
  9. Chapter 3. Investigating gender variation of English loanwords in German 65
  10. Chapter 4. The collection of Anglicisms 91
  11. Chapter 5. Semi-automatic approaches to Anglicism detection in Norwegian corpus data 111
  12. Chapter 6. Lexicographic description of recent Anglicisms in Serbian 131
  13. Chapter 7. Anglicisms in Armenian 149
  14. Section II. English-induced phraseology
  15. Chapter 8. Phraseology in flux 169
  16. Chapter 9. Multi-word loan translations and semantic borrowings from English in French journalistic discourse 199
  17. Chapter 10. Newly-coined Anglicisms in contemporary Spanish 217
  18. Chapter 11. Der Elefant im Raum… 239
  19. Chapter 12. English influence on Polish proverbial language 261
  20. Section III. Anglicisms in specialized discourse
  21. Chapter 13. English direct loans in European football lexis 281
  22. Chapter 14. Incorporation degrees of selected economics-related Anglicisms in Italian 305
  23. Chapter 15. Anglicisms in the discourse of Alitalia’s bailout in the Italian press 325
  24. Author index 343
  25. Language index 347
  26. Subject index 349
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