The nativization of pragmatic borrowings in remote language contact situations

Abstract

This article focuses on the issue of pragmatic borrowing and how it manifests in language contact settings where the language of influence is a nonnative language for the receiving speech community. In this case, the languages under investigation are English and its unidirectional influence on Finnish. The article first establishes the behavior of pragmatic elements in traditional language contact settings, then moves on to problematize the notion within contemporary language contact settings. The article then offers specific examples of pragmatic borrowings from English into Finnish, including pliis (‘please’), oh my god, and about. The discussion accounts for the social, pragmatic, semantic and grammatical incorporation of these elements into Finnish, demonstrating that the borrowed forms have characteristics which are distinct from both the source language (English) as well as heritage form in the recipient language (Finnish). Included in the discussion of these forms is a proposed trajectory for how such borrowings enter into native discourse, as well as the success vs. failure of pragmatic borrowings in entering mainstream discourse.