English and French vocabulary as a product of historical development

Abstract

The word-stock of any language may be subdivided into the sets. The elements of one are native, the elements of another are borrowed. Borrowings are modified in phonetic shape, spelling or meaning according to the standards of the recipient language. The process of interpenetration is constantly going on. One penetrated into a certain language system, a loan word is assimilated and undergoes semantic changes. The greater are the changes, the weaker is the connection of the word with its traditional use in the original language. According to the latest lexicographic data we can speak of a formation tendency of new lexical equivalents in Indo-European languages and the necessity to study them. The French language, which is the object of the study of language, consists of several varieties. The vocabulary of the language is constantly changing, to a greater or lesser extent. Changes are tracked and recorded, which allows to adequately understand modern language, which is developing as a living thing. Social changes of time, caused by changes in the structure of the socio-political system, changes in ownership and composition of active participants in communication, cause a conscious change in language norms. This is expressed primarily in the growth of variant elements of communication, a large number of new loanwords and terms, and, finally, in stylistic changes in the meaning of oral and written language, with a marked change in the domestic sphere of communication. The problem, investigated in the article, is connected with the history of penetration of foreign words, among them English, into the French language and vice versa. Everybody can withness the influence of English borrowings in one foreign language nowadays, the process of adaptation of Anglicisms. The aim of the paper is to confirm loanwords in the French language that are a result of lexical interference of two languages – two cultures – in contact. The material of the investigation is about 70 per cent of Anglicisms, picked out from the latest mass media publications in French. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the fact that Anglicisms make up a part of the French word-stock, replenish the language vocabulary