Chinese English Source Foreign Words Borrowing Process And Mechanism

Lexical borrowing is a dynamic process in which lexical items are borrowed from the source language to the recipient language,and are eventually incorporated into the lexical system of the latter through competition and selection.This paper investigates the borrowing process of Chinese loanwords originated from English and intends to reveal the underlying mechanisms of the process by combining qualitative and quantitative research methods mainly based on large-scale corpora and a questionnaire.The present study draws upon the frame of propagation of innovation,which is a theoretical model of language change,and definesthe borrowing of loanwords as two fundamental processes: the process of lexical innovation across languages and the process of the propagation of the innovation in speech community.Loanwords can be seen as lexical innovations across languages which are borrowed,say,from English and are reproduced in Chinese by borrowers.The mechanism for lexical innovation across languages is interlingual identification between the source language and the recipient language.Lexical borrowing as an innovation is motivated by fillingin lexical gaps or for some pragmatic reasons.The mechanisms for propagation of innovation are social.Propagation is essentially the selection ofloanwords by Chinese speakers,and it occurs at levels of the language system and speech community.At the level of language system,selection-decision will be made among several alternative lexical items referring to the same concept,during which only some are to be selected and adopted while others will fade out.This paper investigates the process of competition and selection between different lexical items referring to the same concept on the basis of large-scalecorpora,andexplores the factors both of linguistic characters and of loanwords' usages influencing the selection-decision of speakers in Chinese community.In terms of linguistic features,the factors are discussed along four principles: the principle of priority of filling in the lexical gaps,the principle of expressing meanings,the principle of linguistic economy and the principle of matching for the patterns of Chinese language.In terms of the usage of loanwords,some factors such as the time of borrowing,the duration of the loanwords,and the frequency and the domain of use affect speakers' selection-decision.At the level ofspeech community,it is found that there are significant differences of the selection-decision among Chinese speakers of different ages,English proficiency,educational levels and places of residence which are especially manifested when the loanwords are newly borrowed into Chinese.The differences of the selection-decision of new loanwords among different social groups can be seen as the direction of the propagation of loanwords in Chinese community.Studies onthe borrowing process and mechanisms of loanwords have long been inadequate,and this paper contributes to deepening our understanding of the topics.Lexical borrowing is a complicated phenomenon,and it needs to be further studied in the future research.