The semantics and functions of Anglicisms and Germanisms in present-day advertising written peninsular Spanish: a comparison

Abstract

Abstract Advertising language in peninsular Spanish has been the subject of extensive study due to its innovative nature and richness of expression. Most attention has been paid to the communication processes involved, its linguistic functions, and its shortening communicative mechanisms at morphological, lexico-semantic and syntactic levels; however, the functions of English and German loanwords and the reasons for their remarkable productivity in advertising written texts have been addressed less frequently. Using data from a 200,000 word personally gathered linguistic corpus extending throughout the period 1998–2007, I focus on the reasons and factors that are responsible for the high productivity of these lexical Anglicisms and the noteworthiness of Germanisms in contemporary press advertising peninsular Spanish. The analysis here examines their semantic nature following a semantic typology adapted for the special tecnolect of advertising. Under discussion will be, among others, the main reasons which may account for the high productivity of loanwords in advertising language with special reference to several examples and a presentation of the results obtained comparing both Anglicisms and Germanisms regarding their semantic categorization and the corresponding considerations that derive from it.