Englesko-hrvatski jezični dodiri: razumijemo li jezik televizije?
English-Croatian Language Contacts: Do We Understand the Language of TV networks?

Summary/Abstract: There has been an uncontrolled proliferation of anglicisms and English words into the Croatian language, primarily through the media. The media have a strong impact on the linguistic and cultural awareness of TV viewers and, as a result of this influence, the basic norms of the Croatian language are being destroyed, as is the communicative function of its standard language. In everyday communication the use of non-standard forms of the Croatian language, which has been influenced by English, Europe’s new language, can be noticed. The influence of English as a global and dominant language has been the subject of many linguistic studies by English and Croatian language researchers with varying views ranging from purist to more liberal ones. This paper explores the extent to which the average Croatian TV viewer comprehends the speech discourse of Croatian TV networks. The study is based on the use of expressions which were gathered from various Croatian television programmes. The sample of participants included 110 adults from the city of Gospić. They belong to different age groups and have different educational and professional profiles, as well as different levels of English proficiency. The initial hypothesis was that there is a clear misunderstanding of linguistic forms coined from both the Croatian and English elements. A questionnaire was used consisting of 15 sentence structures in which participants’ understanding of the meaning was tested. In addition, participants were asked to give the Croatian equivalent if they understood the meaning. The research results confirmed the initial hypothesis, that is, there was a clear non-comprehension of non-standard Croatian/ English language constructions by the average Croatian TV viewers.

• Details
• Contents