Metakalbiniai vienetai kaip pagrindinis vartosenos tradicijos neturinčių naujųjų skolinių ir jų atitikmenų integracijos į tekstą būdas
Meta-linguistic units as the primary tool for integrating new unassimilated loanwords and their equivalents into a text

Summary/Abstract: Based on the Electronic Database of New Loanwords and Their Equivalents representing written and electronic usage in 2014-2015 (containing 1581 head-loanwords, 663 their different Lithuanian equivalents, and 4735 illustrative examples), this article focuses on meta-linguistic units (MUs) that help the addressee to decode a text, as one of the ways of integrating new unassimilated loanwords and their Lithuanian equivalents into a text. As a result of a comparative analysis, the article also presents another related way of integrating new lexemes into a text, i. e. distinguishing graphics such as inverted commas and italics, and discusses relevance of and interaction between these tools. A quantitative study has confirmed the insights from previous qualitative studies of a narrower empirical context and volumes about the relevance of MUs with meta-linguistic comments that help the addressee to decode a text as an explicit way of introducing new unassimilated loanwords and their equivalents into a text. The study has detected MUs in nearly a half (43 per cent) of the illustrative examples (2035) of the usage of new lexemes collected in the above-mentioned database. A qualitative analysis has revealed an unquestionable relation between MUs and the degree of assimilation of a new loanword or its equivalent(s): metalinguistic comments usually follow loanwords or their Lithuanian equivalents that are most likely unfamiliar to the addressee or, in other words, new or very rarely used. MUs fall into two major functional groups: semantic explainers and estimators of value. The former explaining the meaning of new words most likely unknown or little known to the addressee and thus helping to decode the text prevail, whereas value-estimating MUs very rarely appear as stand-alone units; instead, they are usually used together with semantic explainers. Quantitatively, a more frequent way of integrating loanwords into a text is distinguishing graphics. It is, in principle, used only with respect to new loanwords. Distinguishing graphics is related to meta-linguistic comments and could be considered an implicit meta-linguistic tool employed by the addresser as a to-be-on-the-safe-side strategy. Loanwords marked this way account for over a half (53 per cent) of all illustrative examples of the usage of loanwords. It should be noted, however, that distinguishing graphics, unlike semantically explanatory MUs, is also used to mark loanwords that have already been assimilated and the meaning which is already known to the addressee. In a text, such loanwords perform an emotional-expressive / poetic / factual-social / connotative / meta-linguistic function. However, studies show that both in Lithuanian and other languages there is a strong relation between meta-linguistic comments and distinguishing graphics, on one side, and degree of assimilation, on the other: the higher the duration and/or frequency of usage, the lower occurrence of both tools. To sum up the results of the present and previous studies on the issue, MUs with metalinguistic comments could be considered to be the principal instrument of integrating new unassimilated loanwords and their equivalents into a text, helping to decode the text. Their emergence and increasing occurrence signify the start of socialization and lexicalization of new unassimilated loanwords and their equivalents, while their disappearance means that the new word has shifted from the passive to active lexicon because of denoting realia important to the linguistic community and, therefore, being in frequent usage (with the exception of loanwords disappearing at least from the formal public discourse because of being replaced with Lithuanian words designating the same realia).

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