The role of borrowed vocabulary in the language of fashion

Due to the rapid pace of development of the fashion industry, it becomes necessary to constantly search for names for new artifacts and trends, and borrowing is the most productive and efficient way to solve the problem of the lack of equivalent lexemes in the Russian language. Over time, only the necessary borrowings are fixed in the language, the rest gradually fall into disuse, as well as fashionable realities that lose their relevance.

Keywords: language, borrowing, fashion language, borrowing process, foreign word, Russian language, English language.

Borrowing is the process of transition of a word from one language to another and the product of this process, that is, the word itself. The process of borrowing can take place both within a few years, and in a very short time, it can be the result of the interaction of two or more languages, it depends on many factors. So, during the reign of Peter I, the Russian language was replenished with a huge number of borrowings in various areas of functioning. Basically, these were direct borrowings from the German language. Some words came into Russian through English and French, for example, берет — originally a word of Italian origin, but entered our language through French, корсет — of Spanish origin, but we owe them to French.

In each language there are periods when borrowings from certain languages were mastered especially actively. In our opinion, four periods of borrowing can be distinguished in the Russian language, which correspond to turning points in the history of the country:

1. XI-XII century — the period of the spread of Christianity in Russia, which led to a significant number of Greek Church Slavonic borrowings;
2. the first half of the 18th century — the reign and reforms of Peter I, which introduced a significant number of Germanisms, Dutch terms into the language;
3. the last quarter of the 18th century — the beginning of the 19th century — the development of literature, arts, industry, hence the numerous borrowings from French, Italian, and partly from English;
4. the end of the 20th century — the beginning of the 21st century — globalization, which puts forward the English language as a source of international borrowings.

In the modern world, the concept of language fashion is relevant. The essence of this phenomenon lies in the fact that an individual, using certain (prestigious, borrowed) words, thereby tries to improve his social status, and by demonstrating not the level of education, but rather the level of awareness of new trends. In our country, this phenomenon has become especially widespread in the post-Soviet period — with the opening of borders, the beginning of active globalization, the emergence of new ways of exchanging information. The main source of borrowing — the «storeroom of borrowing» — becomes the English language, or rather its Anglo-American version: «the choice of the source language of borrowings is determined by real historical practice» [3, 120], let's add: the economic and political significance of the area, country, region, which act as a linguocultural source — the language of borrowings.

In the context of general social development and integration processes, the sphere of fashion is also significant. In the second half of the 20th century, most of the fashion houses ended up in the United States: as a result of the Second World War, many of them were forced to close or move overseas from France. The United States turned out to be the most profitable option in a war-torn world, and here the fashion industry continued to develop.

In most cases, borrowing in the field of fashion is due, like borrowing in general, to extralinguistic factors:

– first of all, the emergence of new realities and concepts or the differentiation of already known ones, scientific and technological progress;

– historical or territorial interaction of languages ​​and cultures;

– conceptual insufficiency of the language (in the field of fashion, this is especially significant, as evidenced, for example, by the new colorful vocabulary of fashion in Russian);

– globalization (rapprochement of cultures).

For example, the development of industry and the emergence of new materials influenced the spread of the term нейлон in most of the existing languages ​​of developed countries, this material revolutionized the fashion world and quickly gained popularity. Its name in Douglas Harper's etymological dictionary is explained as follows: composed of «an accidental generic syllable nyl - and - on , a common ending in fiber names» [4].

The name of the element of Scottish national men's clothing — килт — penetrated into the English language due to the cultural interaction between the peoples of England and Scotland.

Another well-known term бикини has come a long way before entering mainstream use. At the time of the appearance of this piece of clothing, in 1946, many countries and peoples were not ready to accept such a frank piece of clothing [2, 62–63].

There are two main types of borrowed vocabulary: established borrowings and foreign language innovations. Established borrowings have been used by the language for so long that they are already perceived as proper Russian, for example: футболка, брюки, джинсы, куртка, юбка, пиджак, шорты . The same type includes concepts that have already gone out of use, since the fashion for them has already passed: фрак, капор, муфта, галифе .

Internationalisms also form a significant foundation of fashion language. In Russian, most of these words came from French and English: декольте from fr. Décolleté , жилет from fr. gilet , костюм from fr. costume , комбинезон from fr. Combinaison — «combination», свитер from English. sweater , смокинг from English smoking ; жакет — from English. jacket , боди from English bodysuit , топ from English. top and others. Part of fashionable internationalisms came from Greek and Latin: a коллекция from lat. collectio , аппликация from lat. applicātiō — « attaching, joining», макси, миди, мини, туника from lat. tunica, сандалии from Greek σανδάλιον .

There is a rather small group of internationalisms from other languages: for example, the words болеро, гаучо (style) , сомбреро came to us from Spanish; from the Eskimo — парка, анорак from anoraq .

There are two main ways of borrowing foreign fashion terminology by the Russian language:

– direct;

– tracing.

Батист — «a thin translucent fabric, made mainly in Northern France and Belgium, from the finest linen yarn» — came from the French batiste [1, 96], the presumed original meaning is from battre «beat, beat; wag».

Боа — «fur neckband, one of the accessories of ladies winter attire» — from fr. boa or lat. boa [1, 121] — from the name of a species of boa constrictor living in tropical America.

Плиссе — from fr. plissee — «wrinkle», which is from lat. plicare — «fold».

Most of the languages in the world do not just borrow words from other languages, but try to assimilate them to their grammatical structure, lexical compatibility and pronunciation. For example, in the Russian language in the field of fashion, we can distinguish a large number of borrowed lexemes formed with the help of Russian derivational models and means from foreign roots: футбол-к-а, кросс-ов-к-и, бейсбол-к-а, джинс-ов-к-а and etc.

As for tracing, in the linguistic encyclopedic dictionary V. N. Yartseva, we find the following information about tracing: «tracing paper is the formation of a new phraseological unit, a word or a new meaning of a word by means of a literal translation of the corresponding foreign language unit». For the language of fashion, the most frequent, in our opinion, are such types of calques as: «word-forming calques — a morphemic translation of a foreign word» and «semantic calque — borrowing the figurative meaning of a word» [5, 325].

Often complex compound names are subjected to tracing in the process of borrowing, for example: fr. haute couture in Russian — высокая мода , eng. bathrobe-coat — Russian пальто-халат , ital. French pocket — Russian французский карман , english ready to wear — Russian готовое платье . This type of translation is characterized by the use of native Russian lexemes or borrowings already mastered by the language.

In some cases, a foreign word can be borrowed by the language in several versions, while one meaning is preserved, for example: English. Levi's — Russian Ливайс — Левис, duffle coat — дафлкот, даффлкот, дафл-кот , English. bodysuit — Russian боди — боди-сьют .

Based on our analysis, we can state that borrowings are an integral and important part of the fashion language. Due to the rapid pace of development of the fashion industry, it becomes necessary to constantly search for names for new artifacts and trends, and borrowing is the most productive and efficient way to solve the problem of the lack of equivalent lexemes in the Russian language. Over time, only the necessary borrowings are fixed in the language, the rest gradually fall into disuse, as well as fashionable realities that lose their relevance.

It should be noted that borrowings in the field of names of fashion attributes contribute to the simplification of international fashion communication, the main part of which is realized in active intercultural interaction: international fashion shows, international fashion houses, fashion magazines, Internet resources. All this proves the prospects and relevance of research in the field of fashion language as a dynamic sphere of language contacts and a significant fragment of national-linguistic reality.

References:

1. Brockhaus, F.A., Efron, I. A. Encyclopedic Dictionary [Text] / F. A. Brockhaus, I. A. Efron. — Moscow: Terra, 1994.
2. Cawthorne, N. History of fashion in the twentieth century [Text] / N. Kotorn. — Moscow: Trivium, 1998.
3. Leychik, V. M. Terminology: subject, methods, structure [Text] / V. M. Leychik. — 3rd ed. — Moscow, 2007.
4. Harper, D. Etymological Dictionary of Douglas Harper [Electronic resource] /D. Harper — Access mode: https://www.etymonline.com/ (Accessed: 02/08/2021).
5. Yartseva, V. N. Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary [Text] / V. N. Yartseva. — Moscow: Sov. Encycl., 1990. — 682 p.