A sociolinguist explanation of Japan's prolific borrowing of English

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概要

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• Japan's borrowing of English is virtually unparalleled. While almost all languages have borrowed from others, Japan has distinguished itself by the scale, range and alacrity of its borrowing, and foreign words have had an immense influence on its society. Japan has borrowed upwards of 50,000 European words, and today roughly 10 percent of its lexicon is of Western origin, with the principal engine of word generation being borrowing from English. The key features of lexical borrowing in Japan are that foreign languages have long been esteemed as key to Japan's development, and that a unique script has been largely dedicated to their transcription. Moreover, English is 'distant' enough to be freely molded to fit society rather than the source language. This paper details the socio-linguistic factors that contribute to Japan's prolific borrowing of particularly English, namely: eagerness to borrow; freedom for ad-hoc borrowing; universal English education; malleability; systematic redundancy; a dedicated script; tolerance of loanwords; and high turnover.

• 龍谷大学の論文
• 2009-03-12

著者

• Daulton Frank

  龍谷大学経済学部准教授

関連論文

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• Lexical borrowing and the global web of words
• 外来語禁止の反論
• Word Formation and EFL in Japan
• A sociolinguist explanation of Japan's prolific borrowing of English
• エニグマである英語の中の日本語 : 文化人が好んで使う語彙
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