Authors’ names:
Olga A. Kuzina, Yuriy L. Sitko – Lomonosov Moscow State University Branch in Sevastopol, Sevastopol, Russia
Abstract:
The article describes the results of research in borrowing and assimilation of English physics terms in the Russian language. Modern Russian scientific discourse was found to contain many borrowed English terminological units, the tendency explained by the dominant position of English in global science and the subsequent trend of internationalization of terminological systems. In the course of the research, 87 physical terms were selected from scientific papers obtained from the Internet websites “Bulletin of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Physics” and “Cyberleninka.” Applying the methods of structural, derivational, and morphological analysis, the terms were divided into one-word terms and word combination terms. One-word terms were further subdivided into primitive (root) words, derivatives, compounds, and abbreviations. It was found that one-word terms are borrowed more actively than word combination terms. Derivatives and compound terminological units are three times more numerous than abbreviations and root words. Root words are mostly monosyllabic, borrowed by transcription or transliteration. All these units are fully assimilated in the Russian language. Among derivatives and compounds, predominance belongs to derivatives that were formed in English through word formation and then were borrowed into Russian by transcription or transliteration. However, there are also lexemes that contain both English and Russian word-formation elements (Russian suffixes in the structure of derivatives and calqued second components in the structure of compounds). All derivatives were found to be fully assimilated in Russian. Among abbreviations and compounds, we also find lexical units that preserve their original Latin spelling and thus remain at the initial stage of assimilation process into Russian. All word combination terms were identified as noun phrases. Most of them consist of two components with the structure “adjective + noun,” the adjective derived from a transcribed or transliterated English stem by attaching a Russian word-building suffix. Another type of word combination commonly found is a two- or three-component terminological phrase which contains a non-assimilated English element together with a calqued noun.
| Section | LANGUAGE AND CULTURE |
| DOI: | 10.47388/2072-3490/lunn2024-66-2-181-195 |
| Downloads | 92 |
| Key words | term; assimilation; borrowing; physics terms; terminology |