Culture of anglicisms application in the student media space

Murugova Elena Valerievna ORCID: 0000-0003-0781-9767 Doctor of Philology Professor; Department of Integrative and Digital Linguistics; Don State Technical University 344082, Russia, Rostov-On-Don, Bratsky lane, 39, A, sq. 17 murugovaelena@yandex.ru Dmitrieva Kseniya Dmitrievna Student; Department of Scientific and Technical Translation and Professional Communication; Don State Technical University 344003, Russia, Rostov-On-Don, Gagarina str., 1 kseniya.dmitrieva.04@mail.ru Karpenko Mariya Gennadievna Student; Department of Scientific and Technical Translation and Professional Communication; Don State Technical University 344003, Russia, Rostov-On-Don, Gagarina str., 1 kima.kim53@mail.ru Mahonina Elizaveta Alekseevna Student; Department of Scientific and Technical Translation and Professional Communication; Don State Technical University 344003, Russia, Rostov-On-Don, Gagarina str., 1 ml143673@gmail.com

Petrova Anastasiya Georgievna Student; Department of Scientific and Technical Translation and Professional Communication; Don State Technical University 344003, Russia, Rostov-On-Don, Gagarina str., 1 nastyapetrova182005@gmail.com

In recent decades, there has been a rapid flow of English borrowings into various languages. Within the framework of translingual linguistics, for the development of language as a whole, studying the nature of linguistic structures, researchers consider issues of communicative influence ^[1-3], historical and sociolinguistic influence ^[4], stylistic use of Anglicisms ^[5], gender differences ^[6], the ability to bilingualism ^[7-9], switching codes from one language to another ^[10-14], the practices of postmultilinguism that we observe in the 21st century ^[15-17]. The alternation of languages, spoken and written, between linguistic varieties, as well as between speech and writing, is a very common feature of human social interaction ^[13]. The translinguistic perspective calls into question the view accepted in the scientific community of applied and sociolinguistics that bilingualism and multilingualism are the protection of national languages, the preservation of one's identity. Moreover, language users use not only language tools to communicate with each other, but also semiotic resources, gestures, facial expressions, etc. The analysis of multilingual practices allows us to solve some key problems of linguistic theories, such as the evolution of language, language and thinking, understanding the hypothesis of modularity of consciousness, mixing codes in speech recognition.

Within the framework of language contacts, an abundance of Anglicisms from various fields of science is penetrating into modern Russian today, covering a variety of communication channels, especially in the context of the use of social networks ^[18-22]. Active Internet users, of course, are the student community, which tries to popularize a foreign language by adopting the lifestyle, mentality and worldview of native speakers of a foreign language ^[23]. Our Russian researchers define Anglicism as "a certain feature of the English language that has been moved to another language" ^{[24, p. 986]}, as "a word borrowed from English or modeled after an English word or expression" ^{[25, p. 25]}. According to researcher M.A. Breiter, "the borrowing of words lies in close contact between two different cultures. The most significant contact occurred in Russia at the turn of the XVII – XVIII centuries. At that time, people did not approve of the use of such words in society, but in the modern world they are welcomed and actively used every day"^[26].

Nowadays, modern youth have begun to use Runglish more and more often during communication. This phenomenon is caused by the desire to combine elements of two different languages for more effective communication between peers. The term became widely popular back in the 2000s, when the ISS astronauts began to speak in English. In modern Russian, according to the calculations of linguist Leonid Marshev in January 2020, there were about five to six thousand English-language borrowings ^[22]. However, in 2021, a source was found ^[27], which mentions that the Russian language has more than 12 thousand Anglicisms, and their number is currently continuously replenished. An analysis of the chronological distribution of the frequency of use of Anglicisms in the Russian-speaking corpus using the Google Ngram Viewer search service indicates an increase in the use of the word "Anglicism" ^[28].

Figure 1 Frequency of usage using Google Ngram Viewer

The results of the statistical analysis of the "Anglicism" lemma in the National Corpus of the Russian Language ^[29] according to the meta-attribute of the "subject of the text" indicator from the top 10 most frequently encountered topics are such topics as: art and culture (26.32%), philology (15.9%) and leisure, entertainment and entertainment (10.53%) (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Distribution by subject of the text

This study has made it possible to identify the main trends in the use of Anglicisms among university students and to understand how this practice affects the linguistic behavior of young people. The problem faced by students of Russian–speaking universities is the need to save language resources when communicating through communication channels.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the lexical and semantic features of the functioning of Anglicisms in the speech of university students. This goal is reflected in the solution of the following tasks:

1) studying the most popular channels of Don State Technical University (DSTU) students;

2) analysis of the ways of formation and functioning of the most commonly used Anglicisms in the media space of DSTU;

3) identification of the characteristic reasons for the borrowing of Anglicisms in modern Russian.

After conducting word-formation and contextual analyses, we were able to identify the ways of forming Anglicisms in the Russian speech and, based on the context, understand in which areas they are most often used.

The research material was the texts of DSTU students' social networks in the most popular student Telegram chats and VK channels, as well as comments from the Applied Linguistics faculty group. More than 80 of the most common Anglicisms were identified, which were classified according to the method of formation (see Diagram 1) and areas of use (see diagram 2).

Diagram 1. Ways of forming Anglicisms

Diagram 1 shows that the most popular ways of forming Anglicisms are direct borrowings from English (28%), which are presented in almost the same form and meaning as in Russian. These borrowings include words such as digest, file, prompt, quest, respect, summery, announcement, skill, online, user, cover, information, event, all, chat, meme, unit, nice, match, fake, money. Tracing papers are often found in student channels, for example: post, go, buggy, omagad, gaiz, bad, screen, training, admin, rating, speaking, hacker, spam, dislike, smile, slay. Hybrids are somewhat less common: kick, ban, soryan, screen, check, up, shower, like, register, bully, drop, chill, roll.

Diagram 2. Areas of use of Anglicisms

Chart 2 shows the top 9 areas of use of Anglicisms. The most extensive area can be called related to the words used during communication in various messengers (24%): crash, go, kick, gaize, reel, all, information, awareness, evribadi, okay, toxic, chat, check, story, sandwich, coffee break, meme, shower, spiking, bullying, imba, fake, roflit, smile, slay, money. The field of IT technology includes 15% of the Anglicisms: file, user, buggy, screen, slideshow, screen, admin, hacker, drop, fake, ringtone. The online services platform is also popular among DSTU students (13%): online, stickerpack, storytime, like, register, all, information, education, evribadi, speaking, bullying, post, content, dislike.

In order to identify the causes of the spread of Anglicisms in the Russian language, we conducted an online survey among students of 1-5 courses of the DSTU of socio-humanitarian and technical faculties: "Psychology, Pedagogy and Defectology", "Jurisprudence", "Applied Geodesy", "Automation, Mechatronics and Management", "Computer Science and Computer Engineering", "Bioengineering and veterinary Medicine", "Energy and Oil and Gas industry", "Applied Linguistics", "Industrial and Civil Engineering", "Aircraft Engineering", "School of Architecture, Design and Arts". More than 360 respondents were interviewed. The responses were divided into the following categories: 1) the most frequent Anglicisms; 2) the meanings of words that are understandable; 3) areas of use; 4) violation of language norms; 5) reasons for use in speech; 6) the influence of knowledge of English on understanding the meanings of Anglicisms (see Table 1).

Table 1

The results of an online survey of students of 1-5 courses of DSTU of socio-humanitarian and technical faculties

According to the survey results, the vast majority of respondents include dress code, top, go, buggy, trash, crash, content, post, kick among the most commonly used of the 80 Anglicisms presented. In order to find out in which environment Anglicisms are used, the question was asked: "Where do you use this vocabulary most often?", to which 93% of respondents replied that the use of Anglicisms occurs in a youth communication environment. The majority of respondents are tolerant of the use of Anglicisms and believe that this is a process that cannot be stopped. At the same time, it helps students to save language resources and briefly convey thoughts.

In our study, we wanted to confirm or refute the hypothesis about the influence of the professional community on the use of Anglicisms in speech. To do this, we conducted a survey among students from various faculties, both socio-humanitarian and technical, who actively use Anglicisms in social networks (see Table 2).

Table 2

The results of a student survey on the use of Anglicisms in speech

We were able to identify the Anglicisms most characteristic of a particular community, which, in general, accounted for 20% of the total number of Anglicisms used. The fact that most Anglicisms are used independently of students' specialization indicates that, first of all, knowledge of English helps students understand the meaning of such words, which is confirmed by statistics on the impact of knowledge of English on understanding the meanings of Anglicisms. To this question, 68% of respondents answered that knowledge of English helps to understand Anglicisms and they dispense with an explanatory dictionary.

Thus, during the study it was found out that students actively use Anglicisms, as there is a popularization of English language learning. This inevitable process led to the formation of a new phenomenon called "runglish" due to the desire of students to quickly express their thoughts during conversations with their peers, most often in various messengers. It has been revealed that direct borrowings, costing and hybrids are the most popular, the use of which is associated with a good level of English language proficiency and depends less on the specialization of students.