ASSIMILATION OF ENGLISH LOANWORDS IN CHINESE

Abstract

This article is devoted to the problem of the main ways of assimilating English words into Chinese: phonetic, semantic and calque are the main methods of assimilation of English words. Which way of loan words is preferable remains a debatable question among the Chinese linguistics. Specifics of hieroglyphic writing of the Chinese language predetermined a number of features of assimilating English neologisms by calque. Currently, a large number of words are assimilated in a mixed way, in addition to the exact translation of an English word or part of a word into Chinese, there is necessarily a hieroglyph or a combination of hieroglyphs that convey the sound of English word or part of an English word. Such sound characters can be found in both the preposition and the postposition of the semantic part of word. A distinctive feature of such hieroglyphic signs is their asemantic character. As for the graphic method, it is not a productive way in Chinese. In recent years, in Chinese language a method that hieroglyphic word synthesized by hieroglyphic signs, digital signs, symbols and English graphemes is actively used. The specific point of this loan words method in Chinese is their function as abbreviations. A separate role is the classifier in terms of assimilation of English new words in Chinese. Adding a classifier to a loan word makes it easier for Chinese speakers to understand. This article also describes the variants of assimilation English loan words in Chinese. The article provides a large number of examples illustrating typical ways of assimilating English neologisms in Chinese.