English lexical loans in the Polish names of professions

Abstract

The aim of the present study, set in the Polish-English context, is to discuss the lexical infl uence of English upon the Polish names of professions. The analysis is based on the offi cial list of professions in Polish, compiled by the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Policy. The loans are classifi ed into different groups, with various criteria taken into account: they are classifi ed (1) according to the time of their fi rst occurrence in Polish (the criterion here is based on their existence or non-existence in two dictionaries, one of general Polish, i.e. Uniwersalny słownik języka polskiego, and one of English borrowings in Polish, i.e. Słownik zapożyczeń angielskich w polszczyźnie); (2) according to the place in which a given borrowing is used (in the very name of the profession or in its peripheral parts) and (3) according to the function of a given borrowing (functioning as the only name of the profession or as an additional name, parallel to the Polish one). Additionally, the roles of the English borrowings in the names of professions are analyzed