Features of Adaptation of English Borrowings in Chinese (Using of Word ‘Hacker’)

Abstract

The peculiarities of adaptation of anglicisms in the Chinese language are considered. It is shown that the penetration of English linguistic units into the Chinese language is a modern trend, especially in the field of computer technology. It is noted that the morphemes of borrowed words, penetrating into the Chinese language, take part in word formation in the role of classifiers, becoming a constant component of a complex word, which ensures the productivity of a certain model in the Chinese language. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the semantic scope of the term hacker. It has been established that the word hacker has developed different meanings over the past decades. It is pointed out that as the role of the hacker in life changed, the word acquired new interpretations, from neutral ‘specialist’ to negative ‘miscreant’. It is shown that the most active way of borrowing anglicisms is transliteration: the word hacker functions in the Chinese language in the form of two hieroglyphs 黑客, where the second component is included in the “X + 客” model, according to which other neologisms are created. It was revealed that the model is the most productive for the formation of words with the meaning of a person engaged in a certain activity, which is largely due to the active use of the word hacker in the Chinese language.