Use of English in advertising and journalistic discourse of the Expanding circle: data from Bulgarian magazines Maya Bogdanova May 2010 Department of English Master Degree Project World Englishes Spring 2010 Supervisor: Philip Shaw Abstract The combination of the socio-political changes following 1989 and the current status of English as the language of international communication promoted dynamic transformations of the attitude and usages of English in Bulgaria. The purpose of this study is to investigate the forms, functions and symbolic value of English in the Bulgarian advertising and journalistic discourse. The emphasis is on non-established words as opposed to established borrowings. Two hypotheses encapsulating the possible relation between English usages in advertising and journalistic discourses are in the centre of investigation: Hypothesis 1 The use of the English language remains on the symbolic and visual level in the Bulgarian advertising and journalistic discourses. Hypothesis 2 The symbolic value of English usage in advertising discourse is the same as that of journalistic discourse. Prior to the analyses, the study introduces an overview of the Bulgarian linguistic situation and a summary of studies in the area of contact phenomena between English and Bulgarian. Special attention is paid to publications discussing advertising and journalistic discourse. On the base of two principles – genre and readership – six magazines have been selected to provide the data for the study: Маниджър (Manager); Story, Наш Дом (Our Home), Жената Днес (The Woman Today), Журнал за Жената (Women’s Journal), and Top Gear България (Top Gear Bulgaria). Using a set of criteria the process of collecting data has extracted the occurrences of English from all advertisements, section and column headings, article titles, and the featured article of each issue. English occurrences have been classified first according to their generic function and position in the textual unity, and then, according to symbolic value ascribed by English. The statistical data confirms that the use of English in advertising discourse is common; on average 66% of the advertisements contain English words. Cross-reference with the type of function reveals, however, that only 17% of the English used in advertisements adds semantic value to the Bulgarian-English mixing. Therefore, in advertising discourse English remains mainly a tool for adding symbolic value. As far as the journalistic discourse is concerned English usages are not as frequent; nevertheless, great variations are exemplified. Such variation is observed in the heading data where one of the magazines contains no English in the headings while another uses English in all but four of its headings. The findings of the study reject both of the hypotheses although variations are observed and have been described in this study. The analyses demonstrate that advertising discourse uses English in order to exploit the value of English as the lingua franca of the world, while the journalistic discourse draws on the symbolic associations of English as the language of popular culture. The results of this study provide a comparison between advertising and journalistic discourses. Furthermore, it offers a picture of the situation in Bulgaria twenty years after the political changes and a good intermediate point in the process of spread of English, which continues to modify the linguistic situation of the country. Keywords: advertising discourse, journalistic discourse, Bulgaria, English, symbolic value 1 Content ABSTRACT ...........................................................................................................................................1 CONTENT .............................................................................................................................................2 LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................4 LIST OF FIGURES ...............................................................................................................................4 LIST OF PICTURES.............................................................................................................................5 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................6 2 DEFINITIONS..............................................................................................................................8 2.1 Terminology in relation to contact phenomena ...................................................................................... 8 2.2 Use of Bulgarian language quotations and Bulgarian sources................................................................ 12 3 LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................................................... 13 3.1 English in Europe................................................................................................................................... 13 3.1.1 English language in Central and Eastern Europe.................................................................................15 3.2 English in Bulgaria ................................................................................................................................. 16 3.2.1 Linguistic background of Bulgaria .......................................................................................................16 3.2.2 Foreign language learning in Bulgaria: a review of official documents on foreign language policies 19 3.2.3 Context of use, forms, and sources of English words in Bulgaria .......................................................21 3.2.4 Bulgarian-English mixing in plain sight................................................................................................26 3.3 English in advertising and journalistic discourse of the Expanding circle ............................................... 28 3.3.1 English in Bulgarian advertising and journalistic discourse.................................................................32 4 METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................................... 36 4.1 Selection of magazines.......................................................................................................................... 36 4.2 Collecting the data from the magazines ................................................................................................ 37 5 RESULTS ................................................................................................................................... 44 5.1 Advertisements..................................................................................................................................... 44 5.2 Section headings ................................................................................................................................... 49 2 5.3 Titles of articles..................................................................................................................................... 52 5.4 Main featured articles........................................................................................................................... 56 5.5 Comparative results .............................................................................................................................. 58 5.6 Symbolic associations attached to English............................................................................................. 59 6 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................. 64 7 CONCLUSIONS......................................................................................................................... 68 REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................... 70 APPENDIX 1 CITATIONS FROM BULGARIAN SOURCES ..................................................... 74 APPENDIX 2 SUMMARY OF RESULTS FOR EACH MAGAZINE........................................... 77 APPENDIX 3 ABC KINDER CARE CENTRE ADVERTISEMENT........................................... 79 APPENDIX 4 VISUAL EXAMPLES FROM THE DATA............................................................. 80 3 List of Tables Table 1 Terminology section: examples from the data ............................................................ 11 Table 2 Structure of the Bulgarian schooling system............................................................... 20 Table 3 Hours of foreign language classes per year in the compulsory education (Ministry of Education and Science 2008/2009) .......................................................................................... 20 Table 4 Categories of and criteria for the symbolic associations of English ........................... 41 Table 5 Summary of all advertisements in the data by type of language use .......................... 45 Table 6 Summary of all advertisements by type of Bulgarian-English mixing ....................... 46 Table 7 Averages for all headings of magazines by the type of language use......................... 52 Table 8 Examples of loanwords and hybrids ........................................................................... 55 Table 9 Examples of English used within the main