The Psycholinguistic Aspects of Global Bilingualism Against the Background of the Society Digitalization Process in Ukraine and Slovak Republic

Abstract

ABSTRACT Purpose. The purpose of the experimental study is to identify the tendencies of the global bilingualism development in the Ukrainian and Slovak languages based on the English loanwords functioning in the individual consciousness of their speakers. The novelty of the research is setting up the main features of the global bilinguialism where the young people are the social stratum that represents the basis of the language changes and reacts to the social processes leading to the new perception of the English loanwords that is relevant nowadays. The main hypothesis of the research is the statement about the expansion of the global bilingualism trends connected with the intensive use of the digital technologies. It causes language code switching and the blurring of the languge pictures of the world. Methods. The main method of the research is psycholinguistic, more precisely, the free associative experiment and its essence to offer the respondent the stimuli, in our case, the English loanwords, with the aim of evoking appropriate associations. Presedure. The respondents were given a written list of the stimulus words and they had to write down the first word that comes to their mind when responding to the stimuli. For the Ukrainian and Slovak respondents the list consisted of such English loanwords from the area of the social networking: Ukr. контент, Sl. kontent (content); Ukr. скріншот, Sl. skrinshot (screenshot); Ukr. iнтерфейс, Sl. interfeis (interface); Ukr. xештег, Sl. haštag (hashtag); Ukr. чат, Sl. čat (chat); Ukr. клік, Sl. klik (click); Ukr. лайк, Sl. like (like); Ukr. паблік, Sl. public (public).The experiment was conducted two times in 2019 and in 2022 in the Ukrainian and Slovak universities at non-language faculties where the respondents at the age of 17–21 took part: 200 Ukrainian and 200 Slovak students, 100 women and 100 men. Results. There have been four groups of the associations given by the Ukrainians and Slovaks: the same loanword, the other English loanword, the unassimilated English word, the word of the native language. The number of the associations in different groups is dissimilar. The Slovaks gave more associations in English, the Ukrainians had more associations in Ukrainian. The both groups have the tendency to increase the number of the associations expressed with the English words, which are connected with the process of the global bilingualism development caused by the society digitalization era. Conclusions. Due to the globalization processes that are taking place all over the world, the perception of the loanwords is changing. The English language is perceived as an integral part of everyday life. According to the results of the experiments conducted in 2019 and 2022 we can observe the emergence of the associations in English, which indicates the development of a special type of bilingualism, namely global, which is connected with the internationalization of the English language in the world, as well as the peculiarities of its perception. The development of the global bilingualism causes the interaction of two language codes in the consciousness of the individual. The English language is penetrating into the speech of the Ukrainian and Slovak people, changing thinking in the globalizing society. Thus, the shift in the self-concept can affect the transformation in the language picture of the world, that confirms the research hypothesis.