American Influence on the Immigrant Russian Press

Abstract

AN IMPORTANT SOURCE of information on bilingual situations is provided by the press of the subordinate language.' This paper describes the influence of American English on the lexicon and grammar encountered in the immigrant Russian press. The major emphasis will be on lexicon, since the grammatical borrowings discernible in this written material were of considerably less importance. This is to be expected: it is generally agreed that vocabulary is more vulnerable to borrowing than morphology or syntax,2 though the latter are by no means immune to influence, especially in the spoken language. It appears that any immigrant language in America is affected appreciably by English.3 The press of the subordinate group can be expected to reflect this impact. Even French-language newspapers in Canada, which strive to the utmost for purity because of strong French-Canadian nationalistic feelings, cannot escape English influence.4 A similar situation exists in the AmericanPortuguese press despite earnest appeals for the maintenance of good Portuguese.5 Therefore, it is not surprising that the American-Russian press has been penetrated by numerous and varied Americanisms. All the main types of loan words described in recent general treatments of bilingualism can be illustrated there.6