Abstract
This paper examines the presence of English in a corpus of commercials recorded from four Spanish TV channels with high audience shares between 2013 and 2015. We aim to contribute to the study of the dynamics of the usage of anglicisms in Spain. Drawing data from a wider sociolinguistic research project, our analysis will focus on the corpus of adverts related to three specific fields which have to do with recreational activities, namely, technology, entertainment, and food and drinks. In addition to the linguistic level, the audiovisual modes of communication will also be explored. This multimodal analysis will not only provide a record of the different types of lexical anglicisms employed, but will also reveal the significant role of the audiovisual mode in the transfer of linguistic material and socio-cultural values of the English-speaking world. Keywords: anglicisms, TV advertising, sociolinguistics, European Spanish.
Highlights
The spread and impact of the English language and Anglo-American culture all over the world is widely documented
This paper has explored the sociolinguistic dynamics of the usage of anglicisms in Spanish TV advertising
What they all tend to underline is the prestige and sense of modernity associated to English and the important role this language seems to play for linguistic creativity and lexical innovation
Summary
The spread and impact of the English language and Anglo-American culture all over the world is widely documented. In the case of European Spanish, the impact of English is a fact (Luján-García, 2012; Reichelt, 2006; RodríguezGonzález, 1999, 2002, 2012, 2013; Rodríguez-Medina, 2000) and many researchers have given evidence in the last decades of the usage of anglicisms in a variety of fields, such as computer science (Pano, 2007; Bolaños and Luján, 2010), economy (Russo, 2002), fashion and beauty (Balteiro and Campos, 2012), music (Olivares-Baños, 2009), sports (Rodríguez-González, 2012), the legal system (Sánchez-Reyes and Durán, 2002), advertising (Rodríguez-Medina, 2001; Durán, 2002; Rodríguez-Díaz, 2011; Varey, 2008) and even drugs (Rodríguez-González, 1994) Far from decreasing, this leadership of English as an international language seems to be unbeatable as it remains in control of the worlds of science, technology, the media and the cultural spheres – including music and cinema – as well as many other fields, not to mention global politics, economy and advertising (Van Hooft Comajuncosas, 2006). To the best of our knowledge, except for Blanco’s 1997 pilot study and Rodríguez-Segura’s 1999 work on anglicisms in Spanish media, no previous research has analysed the presence of English in the commercials shown in Spanish
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