Agnieszka Bochnak 2770 Analysis of Languages in Contact on the Example of Franglais Thesis presented in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Philology – Applied Linguistics at the Tischner European University in Kraków Written under the supervision of Aleksander Gomola, PhD Kraków, November 2012 Agnieszka Bochnak 2770 Analiza języków w kontakcie na przykładzie Franglais Praca licencjacka na kierunku: Filologia - Lingwistyka stosowana w zakresie: Biznes i komunikacja międzykulturowa Praca napisana pod kierunkiem Dr. Aleksandra Gomoli Kraków, listopad 2012 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 4 2.Theoritical Part ...................................................................................................................... 5 2.1. ”Pure” Language – How Languages Influence Each Other ............................................ 5 2.2. Languages in Contact ...................................................................................................... 6 2.3. Lingua Franca and Pidgin ................................................................................................ 7 2.4. Vernacular vs. Vehicular Language ................................................................................ 9 2.5. Language Domination ................................................................................................... 10 2.6. Language and Globalisation ......................................................................................... 11 2.6.1.The Case of Globish .................................................................................................... 12 2.7. Influence of English on Other Languages ..................................................................... 13 2.8 Anglicisms and Borrowings ........................................................................................... 14 2.9. Language in Business .................................................................................................... 16 3. Franglais ............................................................................................................................. 18 3.1. Introduction and Meaning ............................................................................................. 18 3.2. History of Franglais ....................................................................................................... 19 3.3. Franglais and Law ......................................................................................................... 21 3.4. English in France ........................................................................................................... 23 3.5. Franglais in Literature and Mass Media ........................................................................ 24 3.6. Borrowings and Stylistics .............................................................................................. 27 3.7. Franglais – a Threat or a Sign of Development? ........................................................... 30 4. Questionnary – Analysis .................................................................................................... 32 4.1. Part 1. ............................................................................................................................. 33 4.2. Part 2 .............................................................................................................................. 38 5. Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 40 6. Bibliography ........................................................................................................................ 43 7. Appendix ............................................................................................................................. 54 3 1. Introduction The aim of this bachelor project is to study the phenomenon of Franglais – the mingled combination of English and French, which is becoming an increasingly visible issue in the French language. In the thesis I will pay particular attention to the comparision of using Franglais in various fields of life, but especially I will study Franglais in the context of today’s business language. My aim is to focus not only on the linguistic aspect, but also to indicate a social and cultural influence of using Franglais. The gained knowledge will certainly help me to raise awarness of the power of language and the dynamics of its change. In the first chapter I will present some theoretical statements which are essential to the discussion of the main topic. I will start by presenting the issue of „pure“ language. Then I will move to the issue of languages in contact as well as I will mention lingua franca and pidgin. Then, basic theoretical definitions concerning vernacular and vehicular language will be compared. Next, I will present the case of language domination and its importance not only in the linguistic area, but also in the business world. Consequently, I will introduce the topic of globalisation and the case of Globish at present day. At the end of my theoretical part I will mention the influence of English on Other Languages as well as the language in business will be discussed. The second chapter will focus on Franglais and a variety of topics that are associated with it. By presenting a brief history of Franglais I will show the relation between French and English through centuries. Then I will continue on showing the legal point of view concerning Franglais and, as a consequence, law regulations that were imposed because of the issue. Next I will focus on the impact of Franglais nowadays, by taking examples from litterature and mass media. Finally , a disputable topic will be discussed, namely Franglais as a threat or a sign of a development. The last chapter of the thesis aims to analyse Franglais and its present use among French population in France. The attention will be paid to people who work in international corporations in France. For this purpose a special questionnaire will be conducted. The questionnaire divides into two parts: the first one focuses on the English language; where French population has learned English, how fluent they are in speaking English and in what 4 circumstances they use the English language at work. The first part aims to verify the awareness of French population on the English language and its use at work. The second part focuses more on everyday life situations. Its aim is to demonstrate how the French community uses English nowadays, but most important, how they consider the use of anglicisms in the French language. The thesis ends with the bibliography in which I will put all sources that helped me in writing the thesis. In this part one can find the main authors that inspired my work, as well as adresses of publications, websites or some back-numbers. At the end of the work I will put the appendix which will include the original questionnaire thanks to which the analysis of the chapter 4 was made. 2.Theoritical Part 2.1. ”Pure” Language – How Languages Influence Each Other No language can be classified as “pure” language. From the beginning of the humankind and as soon as people started to speak more than one language, languages have been in contact. The process has resulted in an impressive number of 6000 languages on the planet today. However, a half of them are in danger of extinction and every 15 days one language disappears (Hagège in L’Express 2000). As a matter of fact, some languages are more exposed to the danger of extinction than others. The most corresponding examples of languages which are in danger are those that are used only by a few speakers, for instance native languages from South America or an Australian folk. No language has ever been an entirely homogenous language. It is hardly possible that any language has developed in a total isolation from other tongues. It is because a language is not only a set of words; on the contrary, it has some cultural and historical context, or even psychological references (Bostina-Bratu 2010). This issue results in affecting the today’s languages and creating varieties in the linguistic world. This is the case of creating in one country the population of two or more languages speakers. And whereas many countries assumed to be monolingual, there is no doubt that we can recognize many people of these monolingual countries as bilingual or even trilingual. Given that a language may be used by so many different speakers, it is especially important to understand the cultural context behind the language they speak. The case of English and French does not differ. As in the following chapter one will observe (see chapter 3. Franglais), the history of these two countries, with 5 many invasions throughout centuries and interferences in their cultures, all this has significantly influenced their languages and as a consequence, has an impact on a variety of borrowings both from English into French as well as from French into English. The important thing is to remember that every invasion and every adoption of other culture leads to new streams in language patterns, and because of that it is hardly believed that “pure” language has ever existed. 2.2. Languages in Contact As previously mentioned, languages affect each other on different levels, causing new patterns in the linguistic area.