Phraseological loan translations in Bulgarian and in French: A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study
Phraseological loan translations in Bulgarian and in French: A cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study

Summary/Abstract: Phraseological loan translations can be described as a special type of Anglicisms (Picone 1996: 3), less evident to the naked eye than loanwords or other direct or semi-direct borrowings. Nevertheless they are pervasive and extremely widespread in all European languages and constitute a major sign of globalization in general, and of linguistic Anglicization in particular. French (Fr.) and Bulgarian (Bulg.), and their sister languages for that matter, are no exception to this global trend. An important number of these loan translations have been detected in corpora, the media and on the Internet, e.g. Fr. franchir la ligne rouge and Bulg. пресичам червената линия / presicham chervenata liniya, 'to cross the red line', Fr. être sur le même bateau and Bulg. в една и съща лодка сме / v edna i sushta lodka sme, 'to be in the same boat', or Fr. au milieu de nulle part and Bulg. в средата на нищото / v sredata na nsihtoto, 'in the middle of nowhere'. Lexicographical, typographical, contextual and contrastive methodological criteria have been used in selecting potential loan translations. Even though most of the strings are calques in both languages, a few of them can be said to be specific to one language or the other, even though specificity should be regarded rather as frequency of use and consequently degree of integration in the recipient language. Some instances of language-specific calques are Bulg. имаш пеперуди в стомаха / imash peperudi v stomaha, 'to have butterflies in one’s stomach' and слон в стаята / slon v stayta, 'an elephant in the room' or Fr. ce n’est pas ma tasse de thé 'it’s not my cup of tea' and été indien 'Indian summer'.

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