Anglicisms (once more) Revisited: Adaptation, Calque, Standardization
Anglicisms (once more) Revisited: Adaptation, Calque, Standardization

Summary/Abstract: Anglo-American words or lexical items, phrases and even grammar structures continue to make their way into the Romanian language. The modest aim of this paper is to revisit the main phenomena related to that process, as a mere “educated witnesses” of it, especially dwelling on assimilation, adaptation, variety and typology, standardization, and a number of general, linguistic or more specific implications. We tried to illustrate the issue of assimilation and adaptation, making a number of remarks concerning the ‘historical status’ of certain anglicisms. Some of them were the result of pure translation (and meaning usurpation), while some others were generated through loan translation/decalcomania. Some other anglicisms are part of a quite substantial ‘technical jargon’, while still others can be deemed actual barbarisms. They are often the result of faulty/incomplete/unadapted translation, generating (sometimes incredible) solecisms and/or genuinely comical instances. Some anglicisms became buzz words, being circulated by the media, high technology domains, etc. The formation, spelling and pronunciation of the types of anglicisms illustrated were also addressed (with side-remarks concerning standardization), as well as a number of semantic and stylistic issues, including a few notes on a set of secondary linguistic phenomena having to do with the broader cultural – and even ideological – background.

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