Obcy w systemie : studium konfrontatywne wyrazów obcego pochodzenia w języku polskim i rosyjskim

Abstract

This monograph is attempted at subjecting under a thorough scrutiny the issue of words of foreign origin – both the ones, which became familiar and assimilated in both languages under review (Polish and Russian), as well as those that reflect the latest tendencies within the scope of analysed processes. It appears that such an approach constitutes an opportunity to highlight the permanent and non-permanent trends in the process of adaptation and incorporation of elements of a foreign system. The idea of the foreignness (understood as strangeness and otherness) of words incorporated into another linguistic system is a dominant theme of the research and deliberations presented in this work. The research aims at identification of the differences between the loanword units and the units belonging to the incorporating system, on the one hand, and identification of how this foreignness is manifested and how it functions at different levels of the language, in grammar categories, in meanings and formal expressions, on the other hand. To this end, the study presents differences and similarities through the comparison of the two incorporating systems – Polish and Russian – pointing to the parallels and dissimilarities within this field, as well as determining factors and reasons on which the similarity or the lack thereof in both languages depends. The analysis performed within the framework of this research identified how the units of foreign origin operate in both languages, their symmetry and asymmetry at the levels of formality, grammar, word formation as well as lexis and stylistics. These tasks are carried out accordingly in the particular chapters of the monograph. The analysis of empirical material is preceded by theoretical deliberations, which comprise the issue of difficulties with defining the elements of foreign origin, presentation of various research approaches in the field, characteristics of the material sources, as well as the objectives of the analysis and the research perspectives. The theoretical chapter discusses concepts such as foreign language lexis, loanwords, lexis of foreign origin, foreign words and their scope, as well as the dynamic character of these phenomena – the most coincident in both Russian and Polish traditions, defined as a process of incorporating elements of foreign origin. Also the state of current research on loanwords as well as definition and analytical diversities have been characterised and discussed in details in this chapter. The following aspects are subsequently addressed in the four analytical chapters: formal aspects (equivalence in terms of phonetics and phonology, orthography and orthoepy), grammatical issues (equivalence in terms of the category of gender and number), word formation (equivalence in terms of the elements of word formation – suffixes, prefixes and elements of compounds), lexical and stylistic topics (equivalence in terms of the meaning and stylistics). The analysis covered a total of approx. 5000 lexemes, which entered both languages directly or through an intermediary languages, in accordance with the theoretical assumptions. For the purpose of the analysis, the words have been selected (and the elements of words which were an indicator of foreignness) that entered into Polish and Russian directly or indirectly from: Latin, Greek, English, Italian, French and German, since these languages have exerted the greatest impact on the Polish and Russian. The analysis aimed at systematisation, and subsequent identification of the characteristic trends of the functioning of units of foreign origin in the systems of Polish and Russian language, therefore the analysed material has been interpreted in accordance with certain criteria. The first step in the analysis consisted in collecting material from selected sources and comparing both the dictionary contents, as well as the interpretations of the origin and meaning provided by the dictionaries. One of the criteria for selecting the linguistic units was their repeatability. Owing to their special nature, dictionaries of foreign words cannot constitute the only source of information on the analysed units, therefore the next stages of the analysis were based on bilingual dictionaries, which allowed selecting the appropriate units for testing. Also etymological dictionaries of Polish and Russian, as well as explanatory dictionaries were used. Due to the information contained therein regarding the origin of the words, their meaning and stylistic aspects, they provided the basis for more objective selection and interpretation of the linguistic units. In the context of the analysis itself, one of the objectives was to illustrate the manner of adaptation through the employment of models of words or models of other elements of foreign origin. This resulted in identification of specific trends – symmetric or asymmetric – in the adaptation to the phonological, word formation, grammatical and lexical systems of both languages. Despite the fact that in the earlier studies on loanwords these issues have been looked at, they were not explored thoroughly, but rather selectively for some particular aspects. It was assumed that the units of foreign origin, regardless of the source of loanwords, display constant tendencies of adaptation, dependent on various factors. Therefore, it was vital to identify the root causes of distinctness and similarities between the linguistic units of foreign origin, which had not been properly dealt with so far in the literature. Accordingly, under this study it was found out that different levels of language may be correlated with different reasons for the diversity in forms and meanings. It has been determined whether these factors were parallel or different for the Polish and Russian languages (e.g. in Polish the loanword is of graphic character, whereas in Russian – phonetic). The role of intermediary languages has been emphasised, especially for grammatical and formal aspects of loanwords. Also the primary sources of foreign words in both languages have been indicated. The work is part of a range of disciplines such as linguistics, confrontative linguistics, lexicography, translatology. It appears that the work is also important from the point of view of didactics, since it allows identification of regularities or any lack of equivalence, which are important in acquiring the language, especially a foreign language. Therefore, the study has both theoretical and practical value. The research perspectives, outlined in the individual chapters, are based both on the latest achievements of linguistics in the context of research on loanwords, and on the material which was selected and reviewed specifically for the purpose of this analysis, since, on the one hand, the study aimed to identify permanent trends, on the other hand, to present the evolutions and transformations which drive the incorporation processes nowadays. The perspectives of studying loanwords, especially of confrontative studies, are very broad, because of the dynamics of social, cultural and linguistic transformations. They are facilitated and deepened by such fields of sciences as linguistics of language contacts, neology, philosophy of language, etc., since they allow putting new questions (or phrasing them in a new way) and provide new tools, which is especially significant in the case of problems associated with recent loanwords, their status and limitations. This requires verification of existing definitions as well as theoretical and methodological assumptions.