Analysis of the presence of Anglicisms in a Spanish internet forum: some terms from the fields of fashion, beauty and leisure

Carmen Lujan García

doi:10.14198/raei.2017.30.10

Abstract

The pervasive presence of English in Spain is unquestionable; indeed, a vast volume of literature has provided evidence of this fact. In this article, the remarkable presence of Anglicisms in a particular type of social media will be examined, namely the Spanish Internet forum enfemenino. The analysis covers three specific domains: beauty, fashion and leisure. The study focuses on a sample of English borrowings used in news articles published in this forum over the last 2 years (from January 2015 to March 2017). The findings reveal an increasing use of pure Anglicisms in the forum, whereas adapted Anglicisms, along with pseudo-Anglicisms, are not so common. These Anglicisms seem to be used for different reasons: the values of modernity and prestige associated with English, the lack of Spanish equivalents in some cases, the emergence of new concepts and innovations and, last but not least, the increasing influence that the Anglo-American culture is exerting on Spain. This raises the question of the extent to which these factors affect our sense of identity in Spain.

Highlights

The fact that English has spread as the main global language has led to question the traditional role of English merely as a foreign language (Graddol, 2006)
Advertising and TV commercials were investigated by Rodríguez Díaz (2011) and García-Morales, González-Cruz, Luján-García and Rodríguez-Medina (2016); the fields of eroticism and sexuality were studied by Rodríguez-González, 2011, who includes many Anglicisms in his dictionary, and Crespo-Fernández and LujánGarcía (2013; 2017); other studies dealt with the employment of Anglicisms in toy leaflets aimed at young children in Spain (Luján-García, 2011) or teenagers in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (González Cruz, Rodríguez-Medina and Déniz, 2009)
Once the sample was compiled, Anglicisms were selected and examined using the following method: firstly, the different types of Anglicisms encountered were classified according to the categorisation that will be presented in the following lines of this section, and, secondly, the domain in which the Anglicisms were used was identified with reference to the context of the post as a whole

Summary

Introduction

The fact that English has spread as the main global language has led to question the traditional role of English merely as a foreign language (Graddol, 2006). Rather than speaking of a single English language, we can use the term “Englishes”, which was coined to refer to this set of varieties more than two decades ago by Kachru (1992: 357) Scholars such as Görlach (2002), Anderman and Rogers (2005), Fischer and Pułaczewska (2008), De Houwer and Wilton (2011); Furiassi, Pulcini and RodríguezGonzález (2012); Furiassi and Gottlieb (2015); Andersen, Furiassi and Mišić Ilić (2017) have provided insights into the contact of English with different European languages over recent decades, a period in which the influence (not to call it “invasion”) of the English language has pervaded almost every single area of daily life. Advertising and TV commercials were investigated by Rodríguez Díaz (2011) and García-Morales, González-Cruz, Luján-García and Rodríguez-Medina (2016); the fields of eroticism and sexuality were studied by Rodríguez-González, 2011, who includes many Anglicisms in his dictionary, and Crespo-Fernández and LujánGarcía (2013; 2017); other studies dealt with the employment of Anglicisms in toy leaflets aimed at young children in Spain (Luján-García, 2011) or teenagers in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (González Cruz, Rodríguez-Medina and Déniz, 2009)

Methods

Results

Conclusion