Microsoft Word 81843-1179932786- mstyblo thesis0516

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ENGLISHLOANWORDSINMODERNRUSSIANLANGUAGE

MiroslavStybloJr.

A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill inpartial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the DepartmentofSlavic,EurasianandEastEuropeanStudies(RussianandEast EuropeanStudies).

Chapel Hill2007

Approvedby:

LauraA. Janda AdvisorLawrenceE.Feinberg ReaderRadislavLapushin Reader

ABSTRACT

MIROSLAV STYBLO JR.: English Loanwords in Modern Russian Language(Underthedirection ofLauraA. Janda)
English loanwords are presently entering the Russian language, often replacing theirnative counterparts.This thesis addresses the question of why Russian speakers adoptEnglish loanwords instead of using the existing native counterparts.By utilizing contentanalysisofwordfrequencydatafromtheRussiannationalcorpus,thisthesisdemonstrates that loanwords and their counterparts often have some semantic differences.These differences are revealed by examining the meaning and frequency of adjectivescollocated with loanwords and their counterparts.Some adjectives are more likely tocollocatewithaloanwordbutnotitscounterpart,oftenresultinginnarrowingoforiginally broad loanword meaning into a niche meaning. When an English loanwordand its Russian counterpart have different meanings, the loanword has an advantage inlexical competition, and is therefore more likely to be adopted and used by Russianspeakers.This thesis presents an objective and quantifiable method of determining suchanadvantage.

THANKSTO:

Dr.LauraJanda,Dr.LawrenceFeinberg,Dr.RadislavLapushin,DouglasBuchacek, Anne PatroneandNataliaBabich

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