English-language borrowings of the coronavirus era and their functioning in German online publications

Vlasova Vlada Vladimirovna ORCID: 0000-0002-3339-0063 Postgraduate student, Department of Theory and Practice of the Foreign Languages of the Institute of Foreign Languages; Assistant of the Department of Foreign Languages of the Philological Faculty, Peoples' Friendship University of Russia named after Patrice Lumumba. 117198, Russia, Moscow region, Moscow, Miklukho-Maklaya str., 6 1142230126@pfur.ru

During the pandemic, the lexical stock of the German language was significantly replenished with English-language borrowings ^[1]. This has led to an increase in research on this topic and the compilation of various dictionaries of neologisms of the Covid era, for example, an online dictionary Owid.de ^[2] and the dictionary of covid neologisms DWDS ^[3].  The purpose of this study is to classify English—language borrowings on the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic from German online publications and to identify the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the vocabulary of the German language.

In accordance with the purpose, the following research tasks are defined: to describe the features of English-language borrowings during the coronavirus pandemic; to conduct a sample of English–language borrowings in the texts of German online publications for the period February 2020 - December 2021 and to carry out their classification description; to analyze the results and identify the most common types of borrowings according to the classification of E. Haugen.

The theoretical and methodological basis of the research consists of works on the process of borrowing new vocabulary into the recipient language of domestic (L. A. Nefedova, M. I. Doynikova, V. V. Vlasov) and foreign (E. Haugen, N. Lavidas, A. Bergs, I. Sitaridou, E. van Gelderen, H. Chen) scientists; English-language borrowings in the Covid era in German, domestic (N. A., Voskresenskaya, T. A. Ivanchenko, E. A. Redkozubova, E. V. Moskvitin, R. F. Bryleva, Z. V. Todosienko, G. R. Garipova, V. V. Katermina) and foreign (the works of the staff of the Institute of the German Language in Mannheim — A. Klosa-Kuckelhaus, G. Cifonun, K. Mehrs, S. Wolfer; T. Thorn) scientists.  

At the moment, there are innovative methods for studying language changes, which are being studied by such foreign researchers as N. Lavidas, A. Bergs, I. Sitaridou, E. van Gelderen ^[4]. But in this study, traditional research methods are used that have proven their effectiveness, for example, the continuous sampling method, the descriptive method, the comparative historical method, the linguistic statistical method, the structural method, the method of studying dictionary definitions.

The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that English-language borrowings of modern German in the thematic block devoted to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic are considered as part of current texts of online publications. The practical value of the work consists in the possibility of using the research results in classes on a practical German language course; in seminar-type classes on the lexicology of the German language and linguoculturology, as well as in further research work of both students and linguistic researchers.

Borrowing is considered to be any lexical unit that has passed into the recipient language from another language ^{[5, 6]}. There is still no one generally accepted classification of borrowings, but most domestic scientists, such as, for example, L. A. Nefedova and M. I. Doynikova, agree that each of the classifications reflects a separate feature of borrowings (the way they transition into the recipient language, the method of assimilation in another language, etc.) and therefore it is rational to have not one general classification, but several, but revealing the whole essence of this linguistic phenomenon ^{[7, 8]}.

Technical innovations and historical events most of all affect the replenishment of the lexical composition of the language with neologisms and borrowings ^{[9, 10]}. For example, in connection with the coronavirus pandemic, the borrowing of "Social Distancing" has become one of the most frequently used in German-language media ^[11].

According to Gisela Cifonun, a researcher at the Institute of German Language in Mannheim, Anglicisms and lexemes with English-language composites are not evidence of the poverty of the German vocabulary, since they form a certain group of vocabulary within the language. At the same time, the author notes that although Anglicisms are used to convey semantics more reliably, they are the "weak link" of the German language, since not every addressee is able to "decipher" information consisting of Anglicisms. However, in the case of crown Anglicisms, Gisela Cifonun concludes that such borrowings as, for example, "Coronahotspot" and "Coronahype" are much more familiar to the German-speaking population than the more "German-oriented" "Sieben-Tage-Inzidenz" and "Reproduktionszahl" ^[12].   

Annette Klosa-Kuckelhaus conducted a study of the vocabulary of the coronavirus era, in which she analyzed how often the semantically similar borrowings "Lockdown" and "Shutdown" are used in German-language online publications. Both borrowings mean "the closure of almost all shops and public places, as well as the transfer of most employees to remote work." But, given the complete synonymy in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, according to the study, borrowing "Lockdown" in 13 analyzed online media is more common than borrowing "Shutdown" ^[13].   

 Kristin Mehrs draws attention in her work to the fact that in addition to the word-formation pattern "Corona" + essence, "other variants are common, examples of which are the verb "coronisieren" and the adjective "Corona-frei" ^[14].  

Sasha Wolfer, Alexander Koplenik, Frank Michaelis, Caroline Muller - Spitser, researchers at the Institute of German Language in Mannheim, believe that the coronavirus pandemic has had a significant impact on all spheres of life and is reflected in the German language. They conducted a large-scale study and, after analyzing the titles and descriptions of articles of 13 German-language online publications, came to the conclusion that the use of English—language borrowings is not static - it increases and decreases depending on events taking place in the world ^[15].  

In turn, domestic scientists who have studied the effect of coronavirus on the replenishment of the vocabulary of the German language pay attention to the fact that the derived vocabulary has a better chance of gaining a foothold in the language system of the recipient language ^{[16, 17]}.

According to modern research, for example, the research of Bryleva, Mingazetdinova and Todosienko, the use of Anglicisms by the Germans in the crown era is dictated by the globality of the covid problem and the unity of the whole world against it ^[18]. Another reason for the fascination with English-language borrowings, scientists consider the desire to maintain an unambiguous understanding of the same social phenomena, which can "break" the translation of a word into German or another form of linguistic adaptation of borrowing in the recipient language ^[19]. Another reason, especially characteristic of the Internet space, is the desire to be "on trend" and to be correctly understood on social networks ^[20]. In this study, all the listed reasons are considered relevant, but still the fact of the influence of the English language as the language of world communication is noted more significantly, from where words are borrowed to describe new phenomena in the life of society.

This paper examines English-language borrowings dedicated to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic and their functioning in the German language. To select examples of English-language borrowings, the analysis of publications of online publications "Focus" was carried out www.focus.de , "Der Spiegel" www. spiegel.de and "S?ddeutsche Zeitung" www. sueddeutsche.de for the period February 2020 – October 2021: a thematic block dedicated to Covid-19. A total of 21 articles (7 articles each in the online publications "S?ddeutsche Zeitung", "Focus" and "Der Spiegel", respectively) of the thematic block devoted to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic were analyzed, 60 English-language borrowings were highlighted.

The classification description of English-language borrowings was carried out according to the classification of E. Haugen, who distinguishes three types of borrowings: words without morphological replacement (loan words); i.e., fully corresponding to their prototypes in the source language; words with partial morphological replacement (loan-blends), or hybrid formations, i.e. words only partially consisting of foreign-language elements; words with complete morphological substitution, i.e. tracing paper (loan-shifts), or semantic borrowings (semantic loans) ^[21].

    Kristin Mehrs noted in her research that the lexeme "Corona" has become a popular word-formation component for borrowings during the coronavirus pandemic ^[14]. The Russian scientist E. V. Mokvitin also confirms the fact that "Corona", along with "Lockdown" and "Pandemie", is often found as part of borrowed Anglicisms in the German language ^[22]. During the analysis of the articles for the practical part of the study, it was possible to find a sufficient number of borrowings, of which the Corona token was an integral part. They can be divided into two groups, shown in these examples:

Example 1.

Borrowings:Corona-Hotspot

«Triage im Corona-Hotspot? ^[23] »

"Distribution of patients in the area of the greatest spread of covid?"

Type of borrowing:Type 1: Words without morphological substitution (loan words).

Example 2.

Borrowings: Corona-Fall

«Wie die Beh?rden in Rom mitteilten, wurden 24.991 neue Corona-F?lle registriert ^[24].»

"The authorities in Rome have reported that 24,991 new cases of coronavirus infection have been registered."

Type of borrowing: Type 2: words with partial morphological substitution (loan-blends), or hybrid formations, i.e. words that only partially consist of foreign language elements.

The most frequent use turned out to be the borrowing of "Lockdown", it occurred six times in the analyzed material, and the borrowing of "Shutdown", on the contrary, only once.  Thus, it became possible to confirm the hypothesis of Annette Klosa-Kuckelhaus, who in her research concluded that borrowing "Lockdown" in online media is more common than borrowing "Shutdown" ^[13].

Example 3.

Borrowing: Lockdown

«Seit Mitte Januar – mitten im Lockdown – steigen die Infektionszahlen in Flensburg erheblich ^[25].»

"Since mid–January – at the height of the lockdown - the number of cases of infection in Flensburg has increased significantly."

Type of borrowing: Type 1: Words without morphological substitution (loan words).

Example 4.

Borrowing: Shutdown

«Mit dem "Wellenbrecher Shutdown" werde man die zweite Welle der Pandemie brechen und aus dem exponentiellen Wachstum herauskommen ^[24].»

"Reducing the wave of morbidity through quarantine will make it possible to overcome the second wave of the pandemic and get out of exponential growth."

Type of borrowing:Type 1: Words without morphological substitution (loan words).

        English-language borrowings related to distance work and distance learning have a certain popularity among the German media.

Example 5.

Borrowing: Homeoffice

«Im Homeoffice kann jeder mit dem Laufen beginnen ^[26].»

"While working at home, anyone can start going for a run."

Type of borrowing:Type 1: Words without morphological substitution (loan words).

  As E. A. Redkozubova notes in her research, the English-language loan "Coronavirus", which has managed to gain a foothold in the German language, has a fluctuation in gender, can be used with the article of both the middle ("das") and masculine ("der") ^[27]. Borrowings with the "Coronavirus" lexeme and the abbreviations "Cov" and "Covid-19" are not as popular as with the "Corona" lexeme, but are also found in media texts:

Example 6.

Borrowing: Covid-19-Regel

«Es gebe keine Covid-19-Regeln die davon abweichen w?rden ^[23].»  

"According to him, there are no rules dictated by the coronavirus that deviate from this."

Type of borrowing:Type 2: words with partial morphological substitution (loan-blends), or hybrid formations, i.e. words that only partially consist of foreign language elements.

The German language borrowed English vocabulary for various reasons, some of which were justified in the theoretical part of the study. The following examples of lexemes from the media testify to the diversity of English-language borrowings during the coronavirus pandemic:

Example 7.

«Der Landrat des Hotspot-Kreises G?rlitz, wo nach Landkreisangaben die 7-Tage-Inzidenz heute auf ?ber 700 geklettert ist, ?u?erte sich im Zusammenhang mit den Triage-F?llen auch zu Corona-Kritikerin und Querdenkern ^[23].»

"The landrat of the Goerlitz district with a high level of coronavirus spread, where, according to the district, the seven-day incidence has exceeded 700 today, also spoke out against critics of the crown and supporters of "covid dissent" in connection with cases of distribution of patients."

Borrowings: Hotspot-Kreis

Type of borrowing:Type 2: words with partial morphological substitution (loan-blends), or hybrid formations, i.e. words that only partially consist of foreign language elements.

Borrowing: Querdenker

Type of borrowing:Type 3: words with complete morphological substitution, i.e. tracing paper (loan-shifts), or semantic loans

Table 1 shows the classification of English-language borrowings selected based on the material of articles in online publications and distributed into three types according to E. Haugen's classification (see Table 1).

Table 1 — Classification of English-language borrowings in articles of the online publications "Focus", "Der Spiegel" and "S?ddeutsche Zeitung" for the period February 2020 – October 2021: a thematic block dedicated to Covid-19.

The largest number of English–language borrowings - 73% (44 out of 60) belongs to the second type: words with partial morphological substitution (loan-blends), or hybrid formations. The first type — words without morphological replacement (loan words) — make up 23% (14 out of 60); the third type — words with complete morphological replacement, i.e. tracing paper (loan-shifts) or semantic borrowings (semantic loans) — are represented in the minority (4%; 2 out of 60).

The study revealed that the impact of the coronavirus pandemic has not spared the German language. In covid and post-covid time, the German language adapts English-speaking components to a greater extent to its functional needs, for example, combining them with an already existing and functioning lexical unit in the language and thus forming borrowings of the second type according to E. Haugen's classification.