Francisation and Anglicisation: The Adaptation of Loanwords between French and English
Creators: name: McKnight, Jocelyn
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Linguistics
subject: FOS: Languages and literature
subject: French
subject: Loanwords
subject: English
subject: Combinatory Phonetics

description: This presentation examines the phonetic and phonological adaptations that occur when French and English words are borrowed from each other, with a focus on the bidirectional nature of these changes. It explores how loanwords will only undergo minimal adaptations, meaning that linguistic adaptations only occur when it is absolutely necessary. This investigation takes the form of a series of case-studies focusing on consonants in both their voiced and voiceless forms; key examples include postalveolar affricates, glottal fricatives, and dental fricatives, with instances drawn from both languages.

The methodological approach taken in this study is a qualitative methodology based on combinatory phonetics and comparative linguistics. The dataset is a curated list of relevant loanwords that entered the receiving languages at various points in history and are not geographically bound. Data for this study were collected using reputable dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Larousse. When English loanwords enter French, the phonemes either remain unchanged, disappear, or adapt to the closest French equivalent. English also retains phonemes in their original form and adapts them when necessary. However, instead of a sound deletion, there is occasionally a consonantal epenthesis. This study is worth being replicated with a larger dataset to validate the generalisability of its findings.

 

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