Borrowing as the process of two language systems, it’s means of reproduction in the Ukrainian language

PART II

In Part I "Borrowing as a process of two language systems, its means of reproduction in the Ukrainian language" I consider the relevance of the foreign borrowings in the Ukrainian vocabulary, its impact on different spheres of life and history, causes of the penetration of borrowings from English into Ukrainian, and their influence and usage in the Ukrainian youth slang In the modern Ukrainian language borrowings from other, non-Slavic languages are mostly used. They became members of the Ukrainian language from different sources. It contributed to the economic, political and cultural relationships of the Ukrainian people, the peoples of West and East, as the result of which many borrowings are used in the Ukrainian language, that brought the rules of its phonetics and grammar, adapted to the Ukrainian word formation rules and semantic systems.

2.1. The Recent Changes in the Ukrainian Language

Apart from the inherent characteristics of the Ukrainian language and creative activity of the people whom this language belongs to, there has been a long process of establishing its full expressive potential.

The Ukrainian language has a rich vocabulary, quite differentiated with regard to the spheres of usage and functional characteristics. At the same time, it has a developed terminology to meets the needs of today’s science and technology.

Recently the expanding of the Ukrainian language has been widely observed in the Ukrainian society. But this process is being accompanied by some phenomena: the liberalization of norms and the decrease of the language standards. In other words, quality is unable to catch up with the quantity in this case. It would have been natural if at least some efforts had been taken to preserve the level it had reached during the previous level of development. Quite a lot of people feel uneasy because of the mass saturation of the language with different borrowings. The situation has been worsened by the fact that many of them have equivalents in the Ukrainian language: briefing (брифінг) – зустріч; dividend (дивіденд) – прибуток; know-how (ноу-хау) - знаю як. Each nation’s language functions and develops in the context of other languages and under the influence of this context. All nations and countries keep contributing to the mutual scientific, political and economic relations. This fact is the easiest explanation why all the efforts for the artificial isolation of a language are meaningless and contradictory. National selfhood is determined not only by the number of specific words, emphasizes that the national peculiarity of a language is formed by numerous standard components, which are fundamentally combined into one functional system and serve as the means of communication and one of the nation’s factors. It is only the specific character of this functional system that reveals the language durability.

The mutual enrichment of the languages is one of the ways that the languages of the world evolve. The linguistic mechanisms of this interaction during the different periods of the language history might have various peculiarities. The borrowings do not always benefit the language development. Some communication spheres demand the implementation of serious regulatory activities, such as the information sector, especially advertising, where we can witness the foreign words’ “aggression” [АЖНЮК; p. 50]. These phenomena have nothing to do with the enrichment. Enrichment is a process when the verbal symbol of one language covers the conception field of the mother tongue, creating a new meaning or enlarging the connotation of an existing word.

Thus we can observe a common phenomenon, which is the logical consequence of the situation mentioned above. Some people fall under the influence of fashion and begin following what they have heard on TV or over the radio, though they used to speak the standard Ukrainian language, familiar since their childhood.

During the past decade, the Ukrainian language life has witnessed some changes. They are connected with the declaration of the independence on the one hand and the increasing participation of the country in the globalization processes on the other. The growing interest of Ukrainian citizens in the latest information technologies, first and foremost the Internet, made the country open to external influence in the socio-political, intellectual and cultural spheres of life, as well as with regard to moral aspects and daily life. The language has not remained immune to this process.

Decolonization and globalization are phenomena different in kind, opposed to each other in many aspects. Decolonization is connected with the establishment of the national identity. In the sphere of communication at least three problems should be solved: 1) the increase of the Ukrainian language native speakers; 2) its expansion in the spheres where it is little represented; 3) language purification (phonetics, grammar, vocabulary) of the borrowings, especially its derussification [1; p. 48].

Globalization mostly includes the information openness, thus the presence of foreign participants in the communicative process is expected [25; p. 41]. Its nature is transnational, even cosmopolitan. Its inevitable partner in many countries is bi- or multilingualism. Information intervention is realized with the help of such means as radio and television, newspapers, the Internet, information maintenance of the consuming market. The effects of globalization have become noticeable in the educational sphere, due to the English language classes and Internet addiction. Recently we have witnessed a great number of distance educational programs, which are impossible to be used without sufficient knowledge of English. At the same time a number of testing programs such as GRE, TOEFL, IELTS have become an essential part of the educational process, impossible to deal with without mastering the language at the proper level. Globalization stresses the struggle for the domination in the information space. It is not only about the media corporations’ rivalry, but that of national languages as well. The functional niche of the Russian language in Ukraine has been replaced not only by Ukrainian, but by English as well, the language has become an active participant in the commodity exchange, at the same time being a commodity itself. It is easy to see from the examples of audio-, video- output, computer games, concert activity of musicians, and publication activity[5; p. 51].

2.2. The Peculiarities of the Borrowing Process

The main fields where the number of Anglicism’s is the highest are the following: food and drink, animals, sports, clothing, economy, banking and finance, trade and measures, language and literature, medicine and science.

In order to be integrated into the borrowing language, Anglicism’s should be first adapted. The borrowed word should be analyzed from the following points: a) the orthographic level, to understand how the spelling of an English source word is adapted into the orthography of the receiving language; b) the phonological level, to explain the exact pronunciation of the Anglicism especially when it is different from the initial pronunciation; c) the morphological level (parts of speech and gender); d) the semantic level, to define which meaning of the English source word is transferred.

The pronunciation is outlined by the similarity and dissimilarity of the phonological systems of English and the receiving language:

1) if some elements of the receiving language differ from those ones of the Anglicism, its pronunciation is only partially equal to the source word: spot – Croatian: spot [spöt];

2) if the pronunciation of a source word comprises the elements absent in the sound system of the receiving language, the substitution is free: flirt –Russian: флирт [fl’irt];

3) if both systems have the equally described elements, the Anglicism is pronounced according to the norms of the receiving language: zoom [zu:m] - French: zoom [zum].

The morphology of Anglicism’s might have several variants:

1) the Anglicism preserves the suffix of the source word: farmer – Croatian: farmer;

2) the suffix of the receiving language replaces the original one: coalition – Italian: coalizione;

3) no suffix of the receiving language is added: bluff – German: bluff;

4) adaptation of verbs and adjectives usually follow the rules of the receiving language: to test – French: test-er; boycott – German: boycott-ier-en; folklore – Croatian: folklor-an; sport – Italian: sport-ivo.

As for the adaptation of gender, the following criteria are applied:

1) in substantives which denote human creatures gender is determined by their sex: barman (m.)– French: barman (m);

2) the masculine tendency (the majority of Anglicism’s are of masculine gender): magazine – French: magazine;

3) contamination: body art (n) – Italian: una body art (f), analogy with l’arte. As for the semantical meaning, Anglicism’s form the following groups: adapted words with only one meaning: beefsteak – French: bifsteck;

4) an Anglicism might expand the number of its meanings after being integrated into the receiving language: termite – French: termite (hidden, destructive work), nylon – Croatian: najlon (plastic).

In order to borrow the lexical items from English, at least some contact (lingustic, ethnic) should have been observed between one or more Anglophone countries and another group [20; p. 280]. The borrowing from English does not differ from the lexical transfer from any other language to a language-borrower. In most cases the process of borrowing involves phonetic and morphological changes of the borrowed word as a part of its adaptation to the receiving system. Sometimes the writing system of the recipient language may be totally unlike the structure of the borrowed word; in this case the alphabet of the recipient may be adapted to the words which have been borrowed. This phenomenon is common in Japanese, Arabic and Modern Hebrew, as their alphabets are different from the English Latin-based alphabet. Sometimes the borrowed words are absorbed with their English spelling and pronunciation, despite the fact that the English spelling rules are different from those of the recipient language.

Not all English borrowings reflect new objects, but may refer to familiar elements. In such cases the borrowed loan words are used as synonyms and form the basis for the creation of semantic doublets. Doublets can also be formed in the cases, when new lexemes are formed. Usually one of the doublets is used more frequently, which diminishes the role of the other one and might lead to its complete fadeaway.

With regard the borrowing of different parts of speech, it is usually nouns which are transferred. Adverbials, particles and vocatives are borrowed less frequently, sometimes replacing those of the absorbing language because of discourse preferences, for example, “OK”.

The borrowing process tends to be discriminatory because of the number of concepts in the English language. Most of the borrowed words can be divided into two categories: the sphere of economics, technology and science and the sphere of personal needs (culture, entertainment and material products). The number of English borrowings in a definite language depends on the cultural and economic development of the group it is spoken in. The more technologically and economically developed a society is, the more English borrowings can be found in its language. The change of the borrowing pattern is explained by the ideological spirit and the English language, which is associated with its native speakers and their position in the modern world.

The overall borrowing process is dependent on extralinguistic factors, such as the exposure to English words of borrowing speakers, duration of English learning at school, the contacts with the Internet, English movies, books and journals [22; p. 871]. Hence, the countries which have been in contact with English for a short time have fewer Anglicism’s in their languages than those countries where English has been present for a long time, for example, the languages of Japan and Taiwan China, where speakers of American English used to be in close contacts with the local population for a long time. These languages have witnessed the flow of the borrowings, though the tempo has varied in different periods due to governmental control. The vocabulary which is usually borrowed is formed according to the habits and needs of the recipient community. Accommodation habits, climate and the pattern of behavior are extralinguistic factors which define which lexical items are to be borrowed, as unnecessary concepts are not likely to be borrowed.

The quantity and tempo of the borrowing process are also dependent on psycholinguistic and linguistic features, such as the importance of the new items for the speakers of the borrowing language and the connection between the phonological and morphological structures of English and the language-recipient. The lack of some phonemes and differences in articulation do not prevent speakers of the borrowing language from using important words. Still, most of the borrowed words undergo the process of morphophonological adaptation which is relevant to the rules of the borrowing language. For example, the pronunciation of English /w/ causes certain difficulties for Russian and Ukrainian speakers, pushing them to the creation of easily pronounced versions of the English words [21; p. 438].

Each language has its own unique history of contacts with other languages, influenced by psycholinguistic factors (the needs of individuals) and sociolinguistic ones (the needs of communities). Thus, each language follows its personal pattern in the borrowing process, and Ukrainian language in particular.

2.3. The Historical Aspect of the Penetration of English Borrowings into the Ukrainian Language

Language contacts have been widely studied within different linguistic paradigms (p. 90). Language contact situations have been investigated in terms of language transfer, various kinds of interference, codeswitching and code-mixing, bilingualism and multilingualism. Today linguistics focuses on relationships between language, culture and thought; this view has proven itself useful in many linguistic spheres, including language contact studies. [11; p. 21].

One of the essential dimensions, which cannot be ignored, is the globalization of the English language. It has created a new type of language contact situation and thus a new type of bilingualism. Where one of the languages is the global language, providing access to the world community, and the other is a regional language, providing access to a local community [18;p. 19].

The most important issues to be faced are how national linguacultures are influenced by global English and what socio-cultural changes facilitate such influences. A continuous cooperation of the language-borrower and the language donor is successful if tested with the time and social needs. The area most influenced by other languages is that of vocabulary. It is connected with the fact that there have always been economic, political, cultural and other relations between nations; consequently, the language is enriched by words and expressions from other ones. The borrowing of foreign lexical elements is one of the basic ways of the vocabulary enrichment.

The Ukrainian language has been mostly influenced by English by the means of lexical borrowings and calques (exact reproductions of an English term with the Ukrainian language-inherent material) - (gamburger - hamburger), semantic changes of Ukrainian lexical units, which have been interpreted as semantic calques (e.g. the word контролювати used to mean to check in Ukrainian, but underwent the influence of its English analogue and developed the meaning to command) [1; p. 52]. Among other changes we can observe the changes in connotations (such words as агресивний, амбіційний - aggressive, ambitious have lost the negative connotations they used to have originally), changes in derivational patterns (some pseudo Anglicism’s, created with the help of lexical elements of the English language, such as дресмен – dressman (a male model). We should pay attention to the increased use of previously uncountable nouns in the plural, e.g. бізнеси – “businesses”. Phonological influences should also be taken into consideration, e.g. in such words as Florida or Washington the stress is shifted back to the first syllable like in English, though previously, being adjusted to the Ukrainian accentual pattern, the stress was laid on the second or third syllable. Graphics and punctuation have also been influenced by the English borrowings, e.g. capital letters are used instead of small ones in the names of companies, changing the arrangement of quotation marks, when both components are placed in the upper part of the text, while in Ukrainian the first component of quotation marks is usually used at the bottom of the line.

A special attention should be paid to discourse influences, such as the transfer of certain standardized text patterns, such as TV and newspaper news presentations or business letter organization. There has been a considerable decrease in the use of traditional Ukrainian patronymics, especially names of political and showbusiness figures. Particular attention should be paid to lexical changes, because they are more evident than other changes in any linguistic sphere. These changes can be analyzed from different perspectives, for example their semantic functions, whether the words are borrowed to give a name to a new phenomenon, or to provide stylistically colored synonyms for existing Ukrainian words. The meanings of some of the borrowings remain intact, while other English borrowings are transformed in the process of transfer to meet the needs of the Ukrainian language and society [11; p. 29].

Some lexical items are borrowed for a short time as a matter of fashion or for some other reasons, but finally disappear as unnecessary for the language borrower. The borrowed items reach different levels of assimilation in the process of their functioning. This level is determined not by the chronological hierarchy of their appearance, but by the practical applicability at the current moment. A word, which had been borrowed earlier, will not necessarily be assimilated better than one which penetrated into the language later.

The first significant contacts with foreign cultures started during the time of Kyiv Rus’s baptism, at the time of Peter the Great’s reforms, and all through the nineteenth century [21; p. 441]. The periods of cultural dialogues can be subdivided into stages. At the very moment that one culture starts borrowing from another one, at first, usually, foreign texts occupy a higher cultural position. They are considered to be “more beautiful” than “outdated” domestic texts. Later, it is possible to observe the following phenomenon: foreign texts and vernacular ones adjusting to each other: translations and adaptations grow in numbers, “imported” ideas are no longer accepted as “perfect”, people come back to their forgotten roots. The host culture might reach the stage when imported concepts become so much adjusted to the recipient culture, that are no longer perceived as borrowed [21; p. 443]. This idea is closely connected with the two types of translation strategies, which emerge in response to the domestic cultural situation: domesticating and foreignizing.

Most English words started coming to the Ukrainian language through Russian. English words appeared in the Russian literary language in the nineteenth century due to Western European languages, for example French: бюджет (byudget) (French budget from English budget), and because of the direct contacts with native speakers. The possibility of such contacts was immensely increased during the reign of Peter I, who was trying to establish closer and more regular connections of Russia with Western countries, to approach European standards, which was accompanied by noticeable changes in the vocabulary. The next wave of borrowing started in the 1830’-s and lasted until the 1890’-s. This period is marked by the national language supression, which through the Empire decrees (1863, 1876) had to use the imposed norms of the Russian imperialism, such as the printing of school text-books, translation and original literary pieces in Ukrainian being forbidden[11; p. 119]. Most of the borrowed words were internationalisms – the words with a similar meaning in different, sometimes not kindred languages. These are such words as бойкот (boycott), бокс (box), бюджет (budget), генетика (genetics), гумор (humour), експрес (express), експорт (export), імпорт (import), танк (tank), чек (cheque).

The first decades of the twentieth century were marked by presence of such words in the Ukrainian language as джаз (jazz), светр (sweater), трактор (tractor), тролейбус (trolleybus), френч (french), фокстрот (foxtrot), фільм (film), чемпіон (champion) [1;p. 51]. This period was not rich in borrowings due to the fact that a newly-created Soviet state was in isolation from all other countries. Starting with the 1920’-s, the process of borrowing was intensified in the areas of science, technology, sports and culture.

At the first stage of borrowing after the collapse of the Soviet Union the influence of English was hectic: Ukraine was trying to catch up with the world English language community. After the minimum stock of concepts, necessary for mutual intelligibility was built up in Ukrainian, the hunger for innovations diminished. Some borrowings disappeared, others were replaced by Ukrainian neologisms: the word “media” was replaced by the Ukrainian abbreviation ЗМІ which stands for засоби масової інформації – the means of mass information. It was at the end of the twentieth century that Ukraine underwent changes in its social life, thus joining the world community. Surely, the linguistic situation in the society changed as well. English-Ukrainian translations have increased in all spheres, including the mass media, mass culture, and advertising.

Changes in dominant cultural values might be the main reason for the assimilation of words that denote the appropriated value concepts. For example, the borrowing of the word PR – public relations, has brought the concept of an artificially created friendly communicative climate, though originally the Slavic culture disclaimed open demonstration of friendliness to strangers.In the middle of the twentieth century because of the so called socio-political “thaw” the penetration of English borrowings into both Ukrainian and Russian languages increased. The vocabulary was supplemented by such words as автостоп (autostop), бестселер (bestseller), брифінг (breefing), вестерн (western), детектив (detective), дизайн (design), інтерв’ю (interview), кемпінг (camping), концерн (concern), менеджер (manager), ноу-хау (know-how), офіс (office), прес-реліз (press-release), стрес (stress), тайм-аут (time-out), трейлер (trailer), хобі (hobby).

Some English borrowings have preserved phonetic and grammar features not typical for Ukrainian and that is why they are recognizable as “strangers”. These are such words, indeclinable in Ukrainian: бунгало (bungalow), віскі (whiskey), денді (dandy), дербі (derby), каное (canoe), ноу-хау (know-how). Most English borrowings are graphically and phonetically assimilated. One of the rarest phenomena is when a noun is used in singular, originally having the characteristics of plural form. The Ukrainian word “бутси” (boot) is a derivative from the English plural form “boots”; Ukrainian “кекс” comes from the plural form “cakes”. Sometimes it is difficult to know for sure which part of speech was the original for the derivative: a noun or a verb The explanation of this phenomenon lies in such means of a word-formation as conversion, which causes the words’ similarity despite their applicability to two parts of speech, e.g.: блеф (Engl. noun bluff, verb.to bluff), дисплей (Engl. noun.display, verb to display), імпорт (Engl. noun import, verb to import), ліфт (Engl. noun lift, verb to lift) [16;p. 79].

Most adjectives get adjusted to the norms of the Ukrainian language quite easily: комфортабельний (comfortable), лояльний (loyal), резистивний (resistive), релевантний (relevant).

Sometimes the borrowed adjectives are turned into nouns, once having penetrated into Ukrainian: an English adjective “pink” has been turned into a noun пінк (a pink paint made from chrome). Such changes happen to English adjectives and verbal forms which have an ending –ing: блюмінг (blooming), крекінг (cracking).

One of the most interesting cases according is when various word-combinations are borrowed and expressed with the help of a noun in Ukrainian: гомруль (home + rule), нокаут (knockout – Engl. to knock, ударити + out), нокдаун (knockdown, Engl. to knock + down), аврал (avral, Engl. over + all), ноу-хау (know-how, Engl.to know + how). Some nouns have emerged as a result of compound words’ borrowing, e.g.: банкнота (banknote - bank-note), голкіпер (goal-keeper), букмекер (bookmaker). A separate group comprises the borrowings which have emerged in English as abbreviations, but used in Ukrainian as terms: алгол (algorythmic language), лазер (laser - light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation).

Among English borrowings used in Ukrainian, there are also words coming from proper names. But as borrowings they are used as general concepts. For example, the word бойкот (boycott) originates from the surname of Captain Boycott, whose leaseholders first used the tactics of “boycott”. This list may be supplemented with the names of natural phenomena and social processes, derivated from English proper names: дальтонізм (daltonism) – coming from the surname of a physicist Dalton; дарвінізм (Darwinism) – from the surname of a natural scientist Darwin.

Some borrowings have changed their initial meaning since the first implementation [8; p 179]. For example, the word “слайд” (Engl. “slide”), first was used in the meaning “a moving seat for a rower in a boat”, then was used for a colourful diapositive.

Realizing the depth of the Ukrainian language’s historical roots does not neglect its perception as a constantly developing system. Its development is determined by polyfunctional requirements not only inside Ukraine, but in its international connections as well.

2.4. Dependence on the English Loan Words in the Advertising Field

The end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century can be characterized by cardinal changes in the political, social and economic life of Ukrainian society [16; p. 103]. New approaches with regard to the strengthening and development of relations between countries have taken on special significance. Сhanges in the life of the modern society are reflected in its languages, as it is known that a language is a dynamic system and it rapidly reacts to the development of science and technology.

The lexical system of the present-day Ukrainian language reflects every new object or phenomenon that appeared in our life at the turn of the new millennium. After opening the Ukrainian market to overseas goods a lot of trade dealers appeared on the territory of Ukraine. As a result, a net of advertising agencies has been opened for attracting Ukrainian consumers. Advertising texts became an integral part of almost all newspapers and magazines. Advertisement plays a great role in the distributing goods from manufacturers to consumers. In the vocabulary of present-day Ukrainian advertisements, commonly used words predominate, though socio-political vocabulary, emotionally-coloured words, terms, borrowings from foreign languages are used as well”.

The English borrowings in the Ukrainian language are conveyed with the help of transcription or transliteration. Transcription means the adequate word reproduction with the help of language-borrower’s graphemes. The dominant factor in this case is the word’s sounding in the source-language. When graphics is considered more important, we are speaking about transliteration Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another. The main aim of transliteration is to be exact, so that a reader can reproduce the original spelling of transliterated words. Transcription maps the sounds of one language to the script of another language and mostly implies looking for a better way to convey foreign words into a particular language [14; с. 47].

English spelling is non-phonetical, that is word graphics often do not coincide with its pronunciation. For example, in the English language the word “tank” is pronounced with an open sound [æ], but both in Ukrainian and Russian the sound [а] is used. In the word “park” the vowel [а:] is pronounced, but the consonant [r], following it, is omitted. In the Ukrainian language the sound [r] is distinct and instead of [а:], [а] is used. Sometimes an incomplete acoustic correspondence between foreign and Ukrainian sounds causes several variants during the process of assimilating the foreign sounds in the Ukrainian language.

The stems of borrowed words are susceptible to derivation paradigms that are also used in the advertising media. Many of the new lexical units, borrowed from English and present in the Ukrainian advertisements, indicate the names of the computer’s hardware, the names of modern everyday devices, while some of them name modern newly-appeared kinds of sport, or elements of modern music culture. Most of the borrowed words of English origin have been assimilated grammatically and they function according to the norms of the Ukrainian language. They have acquired the category of gender; they are also used in all cases and in the forms of singular and plural numbers. In approximately 90% of the English borrowed words, the Latin way of writing has been transformed into the Cyrillic alphabet (p.104).

There are however some words that are written with Latin letters: CD-плеєр (СD-player), CD-ченджер (CD-changer), DVD-диск (DVD-disc), PR-кампанія (PR-campaign), VIP-перепустка (VIP-holiday).

The lack of language competence of the employees of the advertising agencies sometimes causes borrowed words to be used in some advertising texts with a deviation from the norms of the Ukrainian spelling [2; p. 11].

As for the specific features of any advertising text, it should be concrete and purposeful. The main idea may be expressed as a slogan which should be easy to remember. A peculiar motive, something which might be interesting for a consumer, has to form the basis of advertisement. The main aim of any advertisement is to attract the attention of consumers, spectators, etc. Recently the Ukrainian market has been overloaded with goods, the price of which is not oriented to the average customer, but to the well-off strata of society; thus, advertisers try to use a greater number of English borrowings, considering this group.

One of the main features of today’s Ukrainian advertising is the parallel usage of borrowings and their Ukrainian equivalents. Looking through advertisements it is easy to find the synonyms which are used for naming the same concept. The word CD-плейер (CD-player, consisting of two parts, the first one is written in Latin, the second one in Cyrillic) gives evidence that language tries to find the best variant for naming the concept. There are three main categories of English borrowings in Ukrainian advertisements.

1. Computer and IT terminology;

2. Domestic appliances;

3. Sport.

The following concepts belong to the first category: адаптер - adapter, вінчестер – winchester (hard disc), дигітайзер - digitizer, диск-disc, дисплей-display, джойстик - joystick, драйвер - driver, інтерфейс - interface, картридж-cartridge, контролер - controller, модем - modem, монітор -monitor, ноутбук - notebook, плотер-plotter, принтер-printer, провайдер-provider, сервер-server, сканер-scanner, тюнер-tuner, чип – chip, etc. There are many borrowings which have been used in the Ukrainian language for a long time (computer, display, and disc) and other ones which appeared only at the end of the previous century (site, hosting, toner).

Usually those concepts are borrowed which do not have equivalents in the Ukrainian language. Sometimes during the process of borrowing, the semantic structure of a word is expanded. The word “server” first was used when tennis became popular in our country, thus its meaning was “player who serves in racket games”. With the spreading of computer equipment its meaning became wider and now means “a computer or program that supplies data or resources to other machines on a network”. In the process of its development the word сервер has turned into a polysemic word turned from a monosemic one [16; p. 105].

One of the ways of developing a word semantic structure is to make it more complicated. It means that a mono- or polysemic word obtains new, additional variants in the process of its development [2; с. 93].

In the process of technological development, the homonym for the word “winchester” has appeared, meaning “a magnetic medium for information recording”. During its borrowing, the process of metaphorization has taken place – transfer of the proper name to the name of the commodity: Sometimes it is difficult to classify the appearance of a word’s new meaning. The unification of a homonym meanings into a polysemantic word is a long process. That is why there are always several words in the language, which are difficult to categorize either as homonyms or meanings of a polysemic word” [ФЕДОРЕЦЬ; с. 89]. Rapid scientific and technological progress has enriched the lexical system of today’s Ukrainian literary language with the words which denote domestic appliances. A wide spread of the modern appliances of the world’s leading companies in the Ukrainian sales network gave a chance to our citizens to enlarge their vocabulary due to the frequent usage of English borrowings.

2.5. English Borrowings in the Ukrainian Youth Slang

Despite the fact that slang is typical for many social groups, most people restrict its usage to the young people’s priorities. Slang is the most noticeable linguistic component of youth-based identities. Older generations are not likely to accept changes, including the linguistic ones. In terms of language usage, young people are keen on variations until they reach the adolescent peak, after which they have to deal with a wide range of responsibilities, but during the young years teenagers and young adults invest a lot of time in talking and experiments with social effects of the language. Today’s adult culture is more and more influenced by youth culture, taking for granted many words which originated in teen slang:

Adolescent slang is everywhere, alongside adolescent fashions and lifestyles. An entire culture takes many of its discourse cues from youth-generated slang. Young people come under social pressure and display a natural resistance to it [10; p. 37]. They test the boundaries of authority experimenting with fashion, tattoos, music, behavior and speech. Youngsters find out new ways of expressing themselves, declaring their own stand. At the same time it is important for them to feel that they comprise a part of a big group. For them slang is a mark of a social identity, the means for fitting in [10; p. 38].

For many years slang was not mentioned in any of the dictionaries and no research was conducted in this area. Consequentially, Ukrainian lexicography reveals great gaps in this area. The first signs of the interest in slang appeared in the 1990’-s, when newspapers and magazines started containing abundant examples of youth and criminal slang. The present day slang mostly consists of widely-used colloquialisms, criminal slang, army slang, as most people serving in the army are young people, who are really creative in producing new words and expressions, and youth slang, which has become a significant system, influencing the development of contemporary Ukrainian speech. The youth slang welcomes all processes which include the emergence of new words and expressions, many of which have come into general use. In the last ten years youth slang has borrowed many words from English, adjusting them to the rules of Ukrainian word formation. Some words have kept their initial meanings, such as фейс (face), дрінкати (to drink); others have shifted to different meanings: мейкатись (to make). More and more slang expressions penetrate into standard Ukrainian. One can observe such phenomenon as the influence of different groups of slang, which simultaneously increases the word stock of the Ukrainian language.

An increasing number of English words in modern Ukrainian youth slang can be explained by the popularity of this language among youngsters, as they see the many aspects of its application in their everyday life [Kochergan; с. 8]. The first English borrowings in Ukrainian youth slang appeared some twenty years ago together with the popularity of the hippie movement. Later being a hippie lost its prestige and the number of Anglicism’s in the speech of youngsters was considerably reduced. It is quite complicated to learn the precise time of the penetration of some lexemes into the youth slang, but they have been functioning successfully for a long period of time: ботл (bottle), піпл (people), флет (flat). The new borrowings comprise such words as байкар (biker), дрінк (drink), дестрой (destroy), сейшн (session) [4; p. 63].

The programmers’ slang deserves a special attention. This type of slang became highly topical in the middle of the 1990-s. It is constantly supplemented by English borrowings, created by means of derivation from the roots of English origin: сейвнути (to save a file), сетап (set up), сканити (to scan), прінтонути (to print), софта (software). The computer slang is changing at the same speed as the computer technologies themselves.

Slang is mostly used by the young people living in the urban areas, who are more exposed to the American culture and have a constant access to the Internet, music and new tendencies unlike their rural peers.

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