The association networks of select recent nominal anglicisms and their Serbian language equivalents

Abstract

This study aims to compare the association networks of 40 pairs of recent nominal anglicisms and their Serbian equivalents among 100 philology students by using a word association test. The results of the qualitative and quantitative analyses of the associative responses indicated that different, yet related, parts of the respondents’ mental lexicon are activated as a reaction to the stimuli. We concluded that there were strong tendencies for the complete acceptance of the selected recent anglicisms into the existing Serbian lexicon, as illustrated by the encyclopedic knowledge evident in the responses; that Serbian equivalents were the most frequent responses to the recent anglicisms; that responses which reflect clear linguacultural elements indicated a greater influence of the local culture; and that the recent anglicisms were less prone to superordinate and subordinate responses. In sum, our respondents, all L1 Serbian speakers, did not equally accept all 40 of the recent anglicisms compared to their Serbian equivalents, which in this study represent the norm. The acceptance of the selected recent anglicisms into the Serbian lexical system cannot be reduced solely to the criterion of necessity; instead, we propose that their scalar presentation be implemented in future research.