German and French Borrowings in an EFL Context – A Serbian Perspective

German and French Borrowings in an EFL Context – A Serbian Perspective

Čubrović, Biljana

This paper looks into the nature, some specificities of interlanguage usage and the phonetic adaptation (or the lack of it) in the area of some recent French and German loanwords and their teaching in a Serbian EFL classroom. It is a commonplace to say that French, German and English have been in intensive contact for many centuries now, but the level and direction of influence have by no means been constant. The two main extralinguistic criteria that trigger the borrowing process, need and prestige, are taken into account, with the aim of deciding to what extent such newer lexical acquisitions have been nativised in contemporary English. The nature of the linguistic contact between French and English, on the one hand, and German and English, on the other, conditions the selection process in which a loanword enters the English lexicon, and an EFL classroom. Lastly, a justification for the teaching of borrowings is provided and some guidelines for their teaching offered, which could easily be implemented in any EFL context.

Conference or Workshop Item
PeerReviewed

2011-05

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