ENGLISH BORROWINGS IN FRENCH IN THE ASPECT OF CANADIAN BILLINGVISM

Abstract

The article examines English borrowings into French in the context of Canadian bilingualism in connection with Canadian language policy, which combines several centralized language policies implemented by the federal government and regional policies pursued by provincial governments, including Quebec. To understand and analyze such a linguistic phenomenon, the article briefly discusses the historical causes of Canadian bilingualism. The study focuses on the lexical, grammatical and phonetic features of Canadian French and suggests that borrowing from both British and American versions of English into French has led to a unique combination that can only be identified as an independent phenomenon. The characteristics of Canadian French vocabulary, spelling, and grammar discussed in this article illustrate that Canadian French cannot be fully identified with any other type of French. The Canadian version of the French language is expressive, authentic, including through borrowings from the English language. The study emphasizes that the Canadian version of the French language, provided constant interaction with the English language, is learned naturally, and the rules naturally. Bilingual speakers agree on universal rules without knowing them, share and use these rules, but never clearly study them, because it seems impossible to teach how to change the code and maintain the structural integrity of the statement. The findings contradict the expectation that borrowed words harm the language that borrows them, so it was found that bilingual speakers who speak both English and French implicitly understand and use the rules of both languages, and borrowing and switching codes do not lead to language erosion.