Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics.pdf

A-Z 139borrowingAdoption of a linguistic expression from one language into another language, usuallywhen no term exists for the new object, concept, or state of affairs. Among the causes ofsuch cross-linguistic influence ( language contact) may be various political, cultural,social, or economic developments (importation of new products, prestige, local flavor,internationalization of specialized languages and jargons, among others). Throughout itshistory, English has been subjected to influences from foreign cultures and languages, forexample, through expansion of the Roman Empire, the migrations of the Scandinavians,Christianization, the development and growth of science and the humanities, Frenchborrowings on and off since the Norman conquest, and more recent borrowings fromdozens of languages in modern times, especially through the growth oftelecommunications and universal travel. ( also foreign word, loan word, semanticchange, word formation)ReferencesGneuss, H. 1955. Lehnbildungen und Lehnbedeutunger im Altenglischen. Berlin.Haugen, E. 1950. The analysis of linguistic borrow-ing. Lg 26. 210–31.Lokotsch, K. 1927. Wörterbuch der europäischen (germanischen, romanischen und slawischen)Wörter orientalischen Ursprungs. Heidelberg. (2nd edn 1975.)Meillet, A. 1921. Linguistique historique et linguistique générale. Paris.Weinreich, U. 1953. Languages in contact, 2nd rev. edn. The Hague.BibliographyBenjamin, S.M. and L.von Schneidemesser. 1979. German loan words in American English: abibliography of studies, 1878–1978. AS 54.210–15.bottom up vs top downHypothesis about analytical strategies in language processing. In the bottom-up process,language comprehension commences with the identification of individual words (asstimuli) that are analyzed according to possible meanings and syntactic functions andcategories and are used as the basis for the construction of possible underlyingpropositions. The top-down process attempts to circumvent problems that ariseparticularly in polysemic expressions: here, the analysis is based on pre-expectations ofthe hearer/receiver regarding the grammatical function of an expression dependent on itsimmediate context; thus, in SOV languages ( word order) a verb is expected after a