Svetimybių vartojimo polinkiai lietuvių kalbos tekstyne
Tendencies of using loan words in the Corpus of the Lithuanian language

Summary/Abstract: An attempt has been made to investigate the usage of loan words in the corpus of the Lithuanian language available at Vytautas Magnus University. The paper sets out to identify major tendencies of gross mistakes (loan words) occurring in modern written Lithuanian: the total number of mistakes, preferences and priorities. There was an assumption made that part of loan words are used exclusively for stylistic purposes or are becoming extinct. It has been identified that 13 per cent of the gross mistakes enumerated in the List of Gross Mistakes of the Lithuanian Language have not been included into the electronic version of the text, 35 per cent have been used sporadically, from 1 to 5 times, whereas the use of over half of them (60 per cent) has been motivated. On the other hand, it is quite obvious that some gross mistakes tend to be ousted, but the process is very slow. Major influence might have been exerted by motivated use (referring to folklore, quotations of jargon, setexpressions or just for the purpose of a particular effect), avoiding obvious mistakes by writing inverted commas. More attention should be given to critical usage levels: 1) absence or rare usage, gradual disappearance from spoken as well as written usage; 2) frequent usage, when the List of Gross Mistakes is ignored, so is the advice of linguists as well as a correct equivalent.

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