112213-Article Text-293590-1-10-20180704
112213-Article Text-293590-1-10-20180704
DOI: 10.20535/2410-8286.112213
Maryna Kostiuk
Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine
[email protected]
The primary objective of this article is to observe the phenomenon of ―anglicism‖ in the French language and to study the causes and
the reasons for the frequent use of English borrowings. English, as an international language, influences French strongly despite the
efforts of French purists to protect their language from it. This article describes and analyses the influence of the English language on
the French language. It addresses the notion of franglais as a social phenomenon in French that can be observed at different levels of
life. Borrowings from English, or anglicisms, represent one of the most important types of semantic neologisms in the French
language. There are six types of anglicisms in French: semantic, lexical, syntactic, morphological, phonetic and graphical. The
repeated use of borrowings in French results in the modification of their semantic structure according to the peculiarities and needs of
the French language. Anglicisms in French acquire different shades of meaning. The most frequent English borrowings have the
suffix –ing like shopping or camping. The English suffixes -are and -al have been transformed into the French suffixes -aire, -eur, -el,
which are more typical for the French language. Many popular English words are used in the business sphere, not only in France but
all over the world (brainstorming; mainstream; process; workshop; bullet points; burnout; conference call; desk; one-to-one).
Language policy in France, with its main representative the Acad mie française, tries to control the redundant use of English words
in this era of globalisation.
Introduction
Today it is impossible to imagine a French conversation without words like ―business‖, ―shopping‖ or
―Wi-Fi‖. Nevertheless, the way these words have appeared in the Dictionary of French language is very long
and debated. According to a study written by M diaprism and published in the well-known French
newspaper Le Parisien, almost 90 per cent of French people use a lot of English words in their everyday life,
that is to say, speak franglais every day (Delvaux, 2016). This term, ―franglais‖, which means the mixing of
English and French, appeared in 1959, and is still used as the principal term that covers this linguistic and
social phenomenon.
Most French linguists are persuaded that it is possible to find an equivalent to English words in the
―language of Moliere‖ and thus avoid using English in conversation. Discussions started long ago and have
been continuing with a great deal of passion. The use of English borrowings in the French language was the
key issue in the works of researchers such as Guilbert (1975), Pergnier (1988), Lenoble-Pinson (1991),
Picone (1996), Bulley (2005), Stuart (2006), Bogaards (2008), Planchon (2017) and many others. Most of
their works focus on the sources of anglicisms, spheres of use and different grammatical, semantic and
phonetic transformations. Apart from that, attention should be paid to the social aspect of this problem in
terms of globalisation.
So, the purpose of our research is to describe and analyse the phenomena of ―anglicism‖ in French and
determine the principal reasons for the use of English borrowings and their impact on the development of the
French language.
In order to clearly envisage the issue of anglicisms in French we used some traditional methods such as
qualitative and quantitative analysis to get some data about the percentage of French people who use
anglicisms; the number of English words in French, etc.; some forms of discourse analysis to analyse the use
of anglicisms in some concrete contexts; a linguistic ethnographic method to study the cultural and social
context of problematics and others.
English borrowings are called ―anglicisms‖, the word that is commonly used in French mass media.
However, the term ―anglicism‖ is used in two quite different ways. Firstly, this term means a word that is in
English (Le Petit Larousse, Le Petit Robert). Secondly, it‘s a borrowing from English (Le Petit Robert).
Most British and American dictionaries define Anglicism as noun – an English word or phrase that is
used in another language: ―Le week-end‖ is an Anglicism used by the French. The Collins dictionary,
however, as well as the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, contains three different definitions of Anglicism:
1. A word, phrase, or idiom peculiar to the English language, especially as spoken in England; 2. An English
attitude, custom, etc. 3. The fact or quality of being English (Collins English Dictionary, 2014).
The authors of Le Petit Robert Dictionary divide English words into two groups: the words that have
been properly integrated into the French language (such as rail, tunnel); and the new words that are badly
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integrated into French (Le Petit Robert, 2016). Those that are badly integrated are called anglicisms, but they
are still commonly used in French speech (crash test, addiction and so on).
The romanist Hofler (1982) comments in his ―Dictionnaire des anglicismes‖, explains that he included
only those words that are full borrowings in terms of grammatical, semantic, and phonetic adaptation. He
gives his own classifications of anglicisms: words that are fully borrowed (jazz, test); anglo-latinisms
(supporteur); not-real anglicisms, the words that don‘t have a real model of adaptation (curry, tandem). The
matter of the appearance and adaptation of anglicisms in French is always very problematic because of the
unbending attitude of French linguists known as purists (p.20).
According to Boudreau (1999) as cited in Fortin (2009) there are six types of anglicisms in French:
Semantic Anglicism (a word used in the French language where the original meaning has been kept or a
different evolution has been realised over time where the meaning differs to some extent);
Lexical Anglicism (a word or an expression that has been borrowed either exactly as it is in English or
with some minor adjustments);
Syntactic Anglicism (the ―calque‖ of an English construction);
Morphological Anglicism (a rare borrowing which refers to when the form is borrowed but the meaning
in French has a totally different meaning from the English one);
Phonetic Anglicism (when the pronunciation is borrowed);
Graphical Anglicism (a word written in a similar form to the English one or a word that does not follow
the rule from the French language such as punctuation and type of abbreviation (ex.: pm, blvd) (Fortin,
2009).
The majority of the angilcisms belong to categories of lexical (80 %) and semantic (14 %) borrowings,
semantic and graphic represented 3,5 % and 2,5 % respectively (Tattersall, 2003).
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Agence de la Francophonie and many others. The organisation has a lot of aims: encourage French-speaking
organisations to set themselves up on the Internet; promote the use of information highways as a means of
communication among French-speaking institutions; promote the quality of the French language used on the
Internet; ensure the juridical legislation concerning the presence of French on the Internet (Tattersall, 2003).
Then two important laws have been established: the Law Bas-Lauriol (1975) and the Law
Toubon (1994). In 1992 France made an effort to maintain a purely French national identity. The law of
1994 proclaimed French as a fundamental element of the personality and the property of France. The Law
covers all aspects of work, education, research, public life, the media and advertising.
An interesting poll was taken by SOFRES for the newspaper Le Figaro in 1995 asking people about the
restrictions on borrowings (Tornier, 1998). Only 23 % of the people were for the idea of restrictions, and
71 % were against emphasising that the language should accept foreign words to enrich and develop French.
The Acad mie has been working many years on the idea of the purity of French. It is clear that the use
of English words and the developing of Franglais were never accepted, much less promoted, by the
representatives of this institute. The Acad mie has been strongly encouraging people to not use English
words that can be easily changed into their French equivalents. For example, one of the most popular words
―email‖ can be easily changed into French ―courriel‖, which is the combination of ―courrier‖ and
lectronique‖. Even the most frequent prefixes that are used before most French adjectives like, ―super-‖ and
―hyper-‖ can be easily changed into ―très‖ or ―trop‖. The ideas of the Academy are positively received by the
French people except those cases where the restrictions are not logical or seem strange.
In 1998 Jacques Chirac signed the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages that aims to
protect and promote some languages used by minorities.
In 2011 the Academy created a new section on its website called ―Dire, ne pas dire‖ that lists
undesirable anglicisms.
Today the language policy is still active. Scientists and researchers discuss the importance of the French
language and its purity. There are a lot of organisations that maintain and promote the French language.
There are three global networks: the Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (Francophone University
Agency), the Alliances Françaises and the Instituts français. The Francophone University Agency (AUF) is
the Francophonie‘s institutional operator in the areas of higher education and research. Founded in Montreal
in 1961, the AUF specialises in providing support for University Activity in French. The Alliance Française
(AF) is today the largest cultural and associative network in the world. A huge number of people of all ages
go there to learn French and take part in cultural activities in French. The Institut français (IF), a network
represented in different countries, offers special courses in French as a Foreign Language (FFL), French for
Specific Purposes (FSP) (business, tourism, law, medicine, science, international relations, etc.), preparation
for language certification (DELF, DALF and TCF but also Professional French Diplomas of the Paris Île-de-
France Chamber of Commerce and Industry).
People pay attention to the increasing role of English in France today. The French president Emmanuel
Macron uses English a lot, for example in his conferences on the European Union and in his tweets. This is a
very important tendency which contrasts with positions of previous presidents. Jacques Chirac, for instance,
protested in 2006 against some French delegates that addressed the audience in English.
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Another important source is mass media. Sometimes, journalists use English words without translating
them into French. They don‘t take enough time to properly work on the article, so they just use an English
word without thinking of its future impact. In French advertisements, a lot of English words and phrases are
used without translation. Even well-known French companies use English to make their advertisements more
modern, for instance, ―Oasis is good‖, ―vittelfun‖ or ―Serial Cleaner‖. Specifically: the well-known French
car company, Renault, has in their advertisement the English phrase ―French touch‖; and the most popular
French airline, Air France, has their slogan ―France in the air‖.
Sometimes even the names of English films are not translated into French: e.g. ―Men in black‖ or
―Monsters‖. Even French producers name their films in English in order to attract attention of the young
audience: ―Subway‖ of Luc Besson, ―Forever Mozart‖ by Jean-Luc Godard. The same tendency can be
observed in the names of French books – ―People‖ by Stephane Denis for example. Singers ―catch‖ some
new English words very quickly which leads to the addition of a huge number of English words in songs and
even in their names (―For Me Formidable‖ of Charles Aznavour).
There are different reasons why French people use English words in their conversations: the absence of an
equivalent (fact checking); the need for economy of language (crash d‘un avion); the usage of international
words (leader, speaker, embargo); the use of fashionable words (look, show, flashmob) and others. There are
some English words that don‘t have equivalents in the French language such as ―bulldozer‖, ―scanner‖ or
―drone‖. It‘s obvious that teenagers use more English than adults or elderly people. The journal ―Le Parisien‖
gives an interesting example of teenager‘s speech: ―trop swag, qui, entre deux nuggets, va liker sur facebook
pour faire le buzz parce que c'est fun de booster sa life‖ (Delvaux, 2016).
The French linguist Maillet (2016) as cited in Sollier (2016) explains that there are more than 10 per
cent of English words in the French vocabulary and that nowadays this number increases very quickly.
Maillet gives a number of reasons for the ubiquitous appearance of Anglicisms in French. One of the most
frequent reasons given is that many English words are simply shorter and their use became automatic. Jean
Maillet notes that the French language has a very rich vocabulary with has a many synonyms. For example,
instead of the usage of the English word ―look‖ the French can easily use 4 or even more equivalents :
aspect, apparence, especially the younger generation, prefer the English word ―look‖ (Sollier, 2016).
One more important thing is that the French are constantly finding in English convenient verbal shorthand
for many situations. That is why they always use the word ―burn-out‖, for example: it says everything in two
syllables. Another interesting example is a phrase from everyday speech where a man uses this word instead of
its French equivalent ―le syndrome d‘épuisement professionel‖: ―Chérie, j‘ai le burn-out‖.
English words are used in different spheres of life (Chesley, 2010). There are 10 spheres where English
borrowings are most commonly used:
everyday life (kit, baby-food, gadget);
politics (leader, staff, sponsoring, charter);
economics and finance (business school, cash-flow);
law (fact checking);
sports (tennis, free-style);
cinema (fiction, pop star, superstar);
music (remake, fan, folk, pop star);
fashion (jeans, tee-shirt, top);
appearance (lifting, top class, superwoman);
food (fast-food, snack, hot dog).
The influence of the Internet on the French language is a very important issue in socio-cultural context.
The Internet has introduced a number of English words to the French language such as Internet, web,
cyberspace and so on. The number of French-speaking users grows constantly that leads to the appearance of
different ideas concerning French in the Net.
In 1996 Philippe Douste-Blazy, a French Minister for Culture proposed methods of improving the
representation of the French language and culture on the Internet. The need for the development of three
principal areas had been observed: technology planning (the importance of removing any technological
obstacles which may trouble successful diffusion of French on network); status planning (that includes
prestige planning) and corpus planning (French must possess all the words and expressions to express new
concepts in the domain of science and technology). A year after, in 1997, French Minister of Justice Jacques
Toubon said: ―the dominant usage of English on the Internet is a new form of colonization. If we do nothing,
it will be too late, we will be colonized‖ (Tatterstall, 2003). These ideas were maintained by the French
government and French president Chirac that emphases on the necessity of a campaign for linguistic
pluralism and cultural diversity on the information networks (Tatterstall, 2003).
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In 2008 regional and minority languages were acknowledged as ―belonging to the heritage of France‖
which confirmed the historical presence of regional languages. The French president Macron also
acknowledges the linguistic diversity in France, but he emphasises that French is unique and therefore very
important for the nation: ―France is held together by its language [French]... but this indivisible France is plural,
it has other languages. It has its beautiful regional languages... that I wish to recognize, and that we will
recognize. It has all of these languages... which must be able to live in the Republic, without threatening the
French language in the slightest, but rather making our diversity and richness shine forth‖ (McAuley, 2017).
The problem of the use of English in French is especially challenging in this era of globalisation.
English is the current international language and has, therefore, an important status. French, as well, is an
important international language and is one of the official working languages in different international
organisations such as the UN, NATO, and UNESCO. Nowadays there is a tendency for every person who
wants to be a participant in current events and to be a part of Globalisation to speak English. And French
society is no exception. English is taught in French schools and universities and is spoken by a huge number
of young people.
The language policy tries to control the unnecessary, and often redundant, use of English words. This
effort is still effective and necessary according to most French linguists. It doesn‘t mean that the French
resist globalisation on cultural ground, but vice versa, the French people, being an important part
globalisation on cultural ground, are trying to keep their language and cultural identity, cultural, linguistic
and cooking traditions. A well-known French philosopher Albert Camus once said: ―my homeland is the
French language‖; this is very true for the French people.
Conclusions
Anglicisms in the French language should be treated in terms of social linguistics. Today many English
borrowings are used in French and over time they enter official French dictionaries. English borrowings are
called ―anglicisms‖, the word that is commonly used in mass media. French scientists highlight six types of
anglicisms in French: semantic, lexical, syntactic, morphological, phonetic and graphical.
The language policy of France, with its most active representative the Acad mie française, is
determined to maintain the purity of the French language, especially where the borrowing isn‘t perceived to
be a good fit. The ideas of the Academy are positively received by the French people but they continue to use
a huge number of anglicisms in their speech in different spheres: everyday life (gadget), politics (leader),
economics and finance (business school), sports (freestyle), cinema (pop star), music (fan), fashion (jeans),
food (fast-food) and many others. Even French president Macron uses English in his speeches and tweets.
There are many sources of English borrowings and mass media is one of the most important ones.
The influence of the English language has increased during the last twenty years. It is connected with
the development of new technologies and business communications. Sometimes the use of English words is
inevitable, because there is no equivalent in the French language. In other cases, French speakers use English
words to show their active way of life in the twenty-first century.
This article opens a large area for further research on the use of anglicisms in different spheres of life;
the influence of other languages on French and the methods of language policy that deal with the purism of
the French language.
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