Transformations of borrowings: The main conceptual and terminological apparatus

Abstract

At the present stage of development of Russian linguistics, the number of works devoted to the study of various aspects of borrowing of lexical units has increased. However, there is a lack of stable, generally accepted terminology to describe the processes of borrowing linguistic units and their transformations. The aim of the research is to clarify the conceptual and terminological apparatus which is used to describe the processes of transformation of borrowed units in the recipient language. The generally accepted paradigm of the terms “assimilation”, “naturalization”, “integration” and “adaptation” is taken as a basis in this work. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that the etymology of the presented terminological units is used to clarify the terminological apparatus, the semantics of these terms in other areas of scientific knowledge is specified, and the possibilities of their application in linguistics are considered. The results of the analysis carried out allow us to justify the use of the term “assimilation” as the most optimal one, denoting various changes occurring in the process of integration or naturalization of borrowed words into the system of the recipient language. The article examines the main types of quantitative and qualitative assimilation. The terminological aspects of the description of each type are specified. As a result of the conducted research, the basic conceptual and terminological apparatus for describing the process of borrowing lexical units and their transformations in the recipient language has been formulated.