English Language Flexibility – The Tendency To Enrich The Vocabulary

INTRODUCTION

Nelson Mandela said “Without language, one cannot talk to people and understand them, one cannot share their hopes and aspirations, grasp their history, appreciate their poetry, or savour their songs”. Communication is the key factor that creates relationships, reinforces skills and gives power to our abilities. Nothing can exist if we are not able to express it. We do it through language, it uses words and we just use speaking as our most important weapon against time passing.

I have chosen to create a paper called “English language flexibility – the tendency to enrich the vocabulary” because English language is a worldwide network that people use in order to enlarge and give life to the phenomenon called globalisation. There is an urgent need to the four C – Cooperate, Communicate, Coexist, and Create a common universe. Only through language we can share experiences, results of debates, opinions, thoughts, researches and thus, have the open gate for the changing and evolving process.

How has English become the most spoken language in the world? How was it able to win the battle against French and Spanish? The process was a large, long and elaborate one. Some of the causes were the power of the British Empire along the 19th century and The United States of America’s power along the 20th century. Other advantages that lead to this linguistic leadership were the invention and the development of the Internet. The speed of information traveling along the entire world, lead to a fast spread of this communication code.

It is said that the language we use influences the way we think. If we chose to use English, that means we use a flexible, open, creative, world-wide language. Nowadays information means power, speed means energy and fluency means freedom. So, using English, speaking it fluently and being part of its modifications are just privileges of the modern era we are part of.

The present paper aims to collect and analyse data about the way in which English language evolves, the means that offer the flexibility of this common universal language and the methods that are used to enrich its vocabulary. We all use words to communicate and the information era in which we live needs new vocabulary to emphasize the discoveries that make our lives easier. Starting from this assumption, I divided the paper into two major parts – the theoretical approach to the subject and the applied methodology, the novelty of the research.

The first chapter, “Communicating through language” deals with definitions of communication and the actors of the model of communication. We need factors like sender, message, code, channel and receiver. They are obligatory elements in order for a message to be created and transmitted. Then I used the language functions in order to prove that language contact is a reality that changes the vocabulary. Speakers interact and influence each other languages, thus evolution is a normality that coexist with civilisation.

In order to arrive to the present times vocabulary, I considered it necessary to create the context, that is to present briefly the evolution of the English language from old times to the present moment. This chapter. “English language evolution” underlines examples of words that were created, changed and added in accordance with the historical steps of British civilisation. Evolution is described as “a ​gradual ​process of ​change and ​development” and this is the basis from which we can talk about English language flexibility. There are a lot of variations of the term evolution and different attitudes from the part of the speakers with which I worked in this chapter. I also used a study case in this part of my paper, trying to answer, together with my students, why they consider the flexibility the most likeable feature of English language.

“Flexibility in the process of creating new words” is the chapter that deals with various ways of enriching the vocabulary – borrowings, derivation, back formation, compounding, clipping, blending, abbreviations, acronyms, eponyms. This part of the paper is a collection of data, examples and concrete vocabulary that evolved from various sources and through different means.

The Internet new words have a special chapter that presents examples of words that have appeared recently, were already introduced into the dictionary and are still being modified in accordance with the evolution process we are part of. Where are the new words from? and How are they introduced into the vocabulary? are two questions that find the answers in this part of the paper.

Chapters number V and VI are the novelty of my research. In “Vocabulary didactics” I created a lesson plan, o model for the way in which we, the teachers, can introduce and present to our students new words that are constantly added. When a lesson deals with reality and passion for their daily activities, the students are completely different – they are open minded, receptive and interested in the subject. The teaching project emphasises various entertaining and captivating ways of teaching vocabulary by and with pleasure. I started the lesson with an authentic document exploitation – a video that students must listen and watch. The vocabulary used in it is the one needed in the present lesson and the choice of the document was directed by the difficulties that Romanian students encounter when they deal with native speakers. The activities presented in this lesson plan – complete the blanks, match the words with their definitions, make up short stories are ways of learning new vocabulary and adapting to the technological era.

The final chapter of my degree project is a touch of mixing theory and practice. I realised an interview with Alina Cincan, the co-founder and Managing Director of a Translation Company in London. She was eager to answer my questions, that were especially designed to underline the beauty and the advantages that flexibility offers to English language. Alina answered as a translator and a non-native who knows how the vocabulary is learned by Romanian students and how it is acknowledged by the English people. Each questions deals with features of flexibility and every answer is an opened window for further research. I consider this part of my paper the most relevant one because it deals with reality, with the pragmatic way in which we use and transform the vocabulary. We verbify, we invent new words, we play with the vocabulary in order to create and recreate it every second.

After presenting the transcript of the interview I also realised an analysis of the answers received in order to find the most attracting, interesting and intriguing solutions to accept this language flexibility and use it as an advantage. I have chosen some of the expressions that my interviewee offered to me and by using various means of analysis I draw the conclusions of the present research.

I. COMMUNICATING THROUGH LANGUAGE

I.1. Communication

I.1.1. Definitions of communication

Communication is considered to be the process of transmission of information, ideas and opinions from one individual to another and from one social group to another. Generally, human relations create and are based on communicative interactions. Even if you do not accept the view of those who say that the relationships and interactions between people are communicative nature, we must recognize that all human relations have a symbolic dimension: human interactions would be impossible without the transmission and reception of messages.

"The very existence, operation and organization of society would be unthinkable without the communication processes. We exist for one another and interact with each other to the extent that we communicate with each other, send and receive signals, encode and decode messages. "

Nowadays, all activities organized by people have their source in communication. All media are more and more aware that a company, an educational institution, or enterprise shall be created and maintained through their numerous processes and communication links that give them cohesion and interaction. Things are the same for all human relationships. Communication has become a process because everything communicates; we use words to transmit messages, to make statements, to communicate impressions, ideas or feelings, we use expressions to make connections between the physical word and our senses, between the reality and our way to perceive it.

There are various definitions offered by linguists, lexicographers, researchers in language domain. Tubbs says “Communication is a subject so frequently discussed that the term itself has become too meaningful – that is, it has too many different meanings for people” and Griffin suggests “Communication is the relational process of creating and interpreting messages that elicit a response”.

When we communicate, we exchange information between two or more people – we have at least one person who transmits the message (expresses it), one who receives it (understands the information) and o code (that must be the same in order to avoid interferences). There is a “vehicle” that we all use, that is the tool, the language. We may talk about a good communication in the moment when we realize a harmonious combination of verbal language (reading, writing, speaking, listening) and nonverbal language (symbols, signs, drawings, pictures, gestures).

Generally, the process of communication is considered to be an easy one, the reality is that we have a real complex process because the man builds his personality through what he transmits and what he receives via understanding the messages. Communicating means expressing thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, experiences, receive and impart information, this being a prerequisite for the process of building interpersonal relationships and social integration.

Figure 1.1

Source of the figure:  John Robinson Pierce (1980). An Introduction to Information Theory: Symbols, Signals & Noise. Courier Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-24061-4.

I.1.2. The communication model

“Adler and Towne describe communication as a process between at least two people that starts when one person wants to transmit something to another person or to an audience. Communication begins as mental images within a person who desires to convey those images to another. Mental images can include ideas, thoughts, pictures, and emotions. The person who wants to communicate is named the sender (see figure). To transmit an image to another person, the sender first must transpose or translate the images into symbols that receivers can understand. Symbols can be words, pictures, sounds, etc. Only through symbols can the mental images of a sender have meaning for others. The process of translating images into symbols is called encoding.”

The sender is the one creating the message, using a certain code and a channel of transmission. In order for the message to be well obtained and decoded by the receiver there should be at least two rules applied – the code must be the same (the one used by the sender and the one used by the receiver) and the channel should not suffer from noise disturbances. There are many rules that should be applied in order to have a perfect exchange of information, yet in order for the message to be transmitted we should keep in mind at least three :

The presence of a sender, a message, a code, a channel and a receiver,

The code should be the same – for the sender and the receiver too,

The channel should not be altered by noise or other disturbances.

I.2. Language

“Language is a system of conventional spoken, manual, or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. The functions of language include communication, the expression of identity, play, imaginative expression, and emotional release.”

Language is a system of symbols through which the members of a community express themselves, their identity, ideas and feelings. It makes the necessary connections to create and sustain social life. It is through it that cultural information are transmitted and conceptualized in order to be used. It is defined as a mental activity between people through words, as also emerges from the definition of Rubinstein: "the language is the language in action". Language represents the centreline of the human psychic system, making possible the phenomenon of consciousness; the work of language does not stop with the interruption of communication with others, it continues to store during daily processes.

The language makes it possible to define the man, with all its attributes and contribute to the creation of a certain status within society, giving them individual features. Through language, humans have the ability to cooperate, to communicate their experience, to secure the social-historical experience, to organize ideas and activity, to form as personalities and to develop individual and social consciousness, the language being the highest form of expression and manifestation of the individual human being. The language preserves previous generations’ experience, becoming the property of mankind. Language is a social phenomenon, it enriches, and it develops continuously, both in terms of the expression and the multiple influences acting upon him.

I.2.1. Language functions

Many people consider the communication to be an easy process because the majority of people can act in a simple way. Yet, the process in itself is a complex one, the ability to communicate is a prerequisite to the process of building the interpersonal relations and social integration. By communication we express thoughts, feelings, desires, intentions, and experiences, receive and provide information. From the dynamics of these exchanges, through learning, man builds himself a personality

Communication is carried out on three levels, the logic one (of words), account for only 7% of the total, 38% takes place at the para verbal level (tone, volume, speed of recitation) and 55% at nonverbal level (facial expression, the position of the body, movement, etc).

Roman Jakobson’s work on phonetics was a first foray into the structural function of language and he knew and influenced many other famous linguists and linguistic anthropologists throughout his career, including Claude Lévi-Strauss, Benjamin Whorf and Leonard Bloomfield. In 1960, his writings distinguished between six functions of the language: referential, poetic, emotive, conative, phatic, and meta-lingual one, underlining that each text has one dominant function.

The referential function – it refers to the description of things, situations, feelings in each and every situational context. It is used to communicate, to ask for indications, to express what you feel, to describe places or events.

The emotive function – it is connected with expressing. Language needs to be real and personal, this can be made through interjections and emotional linkers that give life to your conversation.

The conative function – it is what we use when commanding. Efficient and effective communication needs imperatives in order for the speaker to get someone attention. This can be made only be mastering language in a way that make the speaker be a skilful one.

The poetic function – it means having the ability to choose the words according to the context. For a high level of communication, we need to have a wide range of vocabulary where to choose from. We may speak about formal or informal situations, the ability to interact using the right contextual words give a poetic structure to our discourse.

The phatic function – it is centred on the channel of communication. It is of a vital importance to be able to establish, maintain, sustain, and interrupt the physical and linguistic contact with your interlocutors. When we are engaged into a conversation, we are exposed to the other’s vocabulary.

The metalingual function – it means language used to describe language. This function is centred on the code, on the language in itself and it has as a purpose to define the terms, the rules, the spelling and the grammar using the target language.

John Fiske showed that communication involves signs and codes. Signs are acts that refer to something other than themselves, thus being significant construction. Codes are schemes in which signs are organized and which stipulate that signs can be correlated with each other. These signs and codes are transmitted through communication, ant their transmission is a social practise. When we talk about a culture, a country or a community, communication is the central point, without it no culture can survive. Fiske defined communication as a social interaction through messages.

I.2.2. Language contact

Contact linguistic deals with the study of language contact. This happens when two or more languages interact. In today’s world, when we do not have any borders and globalisation is more than a well-known and accepted phenomenon, this process is a reality that changes and modifies languages. Most people all over are multilingual and speakers of different languages interact and influence each other’s languages.

The influences are realised through vocabulary borrowings, adoption of morphology and grammar, the language shift (the replacement of one language by another), development of new varieties of languages and even the creation of new languages. Languages can come into contact in various ways – the most important and known are direct contact ( speakers come into direct contact, they influence the language through invasion, emigration, jobs etc.) and indirect contact ( literature or media).

The transfer may be of two types:

direct transfer – the results are seen immediately, this is an extreme social situation. Words, structures, grammar or even spelling can be modified, enriched and influenced. The changes are seen and used in a short period of time, they are borrowed as part of the new host language.

delayed effect contact – the effect is not immediate in the recipient language. Due to a large bilingual society, the process of penetration of new words, transformed vocabulary is prolonged.

We are in a continuous change, evolution can be seen in every branch of our lives and this has long terms effects. Communication is the way in which we establish contacts, we need to communicate, to exchange messages, to use codes, to influence each other and this is why the language evolves and suffers changes.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE EVOLUTION

II.1. Preliminary sequences – The history of English language

English language is a part of the West Germanic languages, from the Indo-European family. The closest siblings of English are Scots and Frisian. Frisian is a language used in the Dutch province of Friesland, in nearby areas of Germany, and on a few islands in the North Sea.
The history of the English language comprises three main periods: Old English (450-1100 AD), Middle English (1100-circa 1500 AD) and Modern English (since 1500). It a normal phenomenon that English has suffered the influence of many other languages, during long periods of historic modifications. Wars, invasions, immigration are things that caused modifications at all levels that can be seen at the linguistic level.

Old English (450 – 1100 AD) – In 5th century AD, the Saxons, the Angles and the Jutes – all of them Germanic tribes came to the British Isles from various parts of northwest Germany as well as Denmark. These tribes were warriors and they managed to oblige the most of the original, Celtic-speaking inhabitants to relocate to the Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language. During the years, the tribes mixed their dialect into what is now called Old English or Anglo-Saxon.

Before the Romans came to Britain (54-5BC) various Celtic languages were used. Latin was brought in Britain by the Romans, during their occupation for over 400 years. Many words that entered in that period were used by the merchants and soldiers:

win (wine), candel (candle), belt (belt), weall (wall).

Celtic influence was a small one, place and river names have Celtic origins: Kent, York, Dover, Cumberland, Thames. When Christianity was introduced, more Latin words entered into the English language, such as 

church, bishop, baptism, monk, eucharist and presbyter.

Around 878 AD, the Vikings invaded the country and some new words appeared –

sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, husband, fellow, skill, anger,  odd, ugly, give, take, raise, call, die.

Middle English (1100 – 1500 AD) – In 1066 AD, William de Conqueror Duke of Normandy invaded and conquered England. The new government was made up of his nobles speaking French. Thus, the Old French became the language of the nobles used in administration, culture and law. In that period three languages were used – French (considered the high class language) by the nobles, English (considered the vulgar one) by the lower class and Latin (the written language) by the Church

Around 1200, when England and France split, English language had changed a lot because of its usage. It was mainly spoken for about 300 years, and now a lot of French words have been added into the vocabulary. The new language was called Middle English and contained words like:

crown, castle, court, parliament, army, mansion, gown, beauty, art poet, romance, duke, servant, peasant, traitor and governor.

If we analyse the domain, we will see that words connected with power, art and high life are of French origin and words like ox, cow, sheep, deer are English because they were the lower class, they were cooking for the upper class. Another interesting aspect is that the meats derived (pork, bacon, beef) are of a French origin.

During the same period, that is Middle English, we should mention the sound change in the long vowels that took place then. The long vowels shifted upwards; that is, a vowel that used to be pronounced in one place in the mouth would be pronounced in a different place, higher up in the mouth. The Great Vowel Shift occurred during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.

Modern English (1500 to the present) – A crucial point in English language, like in many other languages, was the invention of the printing press. In Germany, Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450, but William Caxton brought it at Westminster Abbey in 1476. That is the moment when Modern English started to exist.

There were a lot of notable changes – valuable manuscripts were printed, the Bible became accessible for the people, the books were cheaper, more people started to learn how to read etc. Printing also brought standardization to English. By the time of Shakespeare's writings (1592-1616), the language had become clearly recognizable as Modern English.

There are three remarkable moments to be mentioned at the starting point of Modern English – the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the British Colonialism. It was during the English Renaissance that most of the words from Greek and Latin entered English. This period sometimes named “Shakespeare’s age” or “the Elizabethan era” was a flourishing era, an explosion of culture, art, poetry, voyages, and beauty.

During the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution brought up a lot of changes along with language development because the vocabulary had to adapt or to transform according to the new rapid technological inventions. New technical words were added to the vocabulary as inventors designed various products and machinery. These words were named after the inventor or given the name of their choice:

trains, engine, combustion, electricity,telephone, telegraph, camera

Britain was an Empire for 200 years between the 18th and 20th centuries and English language continued to change as the British Empire moved across the world – to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, India, Asia and Africa. People were sent to live in the new conquered places and they interacted with natives, they talked and the vocabulary suffered changes, new words were added, some old ones were transformed. For example, words like boss, cookie and lottery are borrowed from Dutch; vampire comes from Serbian; bistro, cosmonaut and vodka come from Russian; candy, orange and sugar come from Sanskrit.

English continues to change and develop, with hundreds of new words arriving every year. But even with all the borrowings from many other languages the heart of the English language remains the Anglo-Saxon of Old English.

II.2. Language evolution, variations of the term

Evolution is described as “ a ​gradual ​process of ​change and ​development”, “the way in which ​living things ​change and ​develop over millions of ​years:” in Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus© Cambridge University Press. The word comes from the Latin verb “evolvere” which was related to movement, now it contains the sense of gradual development, continuous change in order to adapt. The theory sustains the idea that everything that is not static can transform, its features are developing and changing according to the environment, to the contacts with outer world. There are connotations of improvement and progress in the interior core of the term.

Saussure argues that “language is a structured system of arbitrary signs. On the other hand, symbols are not arbitrary. A symbol may be a signifier, but in contrast to a sign, a symbol is never completely arbitrary. A symbol has a rational relationship with what is signified”. He draws the distinctions between langue – language and parole – the process of speaking. When people talk they create an individual personal activity, yet the language that they use is a “social manifestation of speech”. According to his theory, the listener receives a product from the part of the speaker, the result of signs communication.

According to Saussure, “diachronic linguistics” is the study of the history or evolution of language. Diachronic change originates in the social activity of speech. Changes occur in individual patterns of speaking before becoming more widely accepted as a part of language. Language is the set of rules by which individuals are able to understand each other.

Language is not a fixed product, it is connected with communication, with people, with the environment, with the time and thus it suffers transformations. We may say that language travels because it is part of people who travel abroad, who learn abroad, who relocate from different reasons. Thus, a feature of English language that must be taken into consideration is its flexibility, the power to change and adapt according to various reasons.

II.3. English language flexibility

We live in a continuous speed, in the era of technology and of permanent changes. Information travels, changes, adapts, creates, and recreates the world we live in. Someone said that the moment we say second, we are older with one second. I would add that we are wiser, we are more informed, and we are others.

English has become a must, it is a passport that we need to live. We discover everyday people who have never thought of learning it because they considered that it was not a main reason for their careers. Yet, when they started working, learning, traveling, they discovered that they lack the passport for flexibility. When did English gained so much importance. The moments and the reasons are many and they are not our purpose for the moment. What we need to know and accept is that it is no longer an option, an advantage, it has become a necessity without which we cannot say that we are part of todays’ world.

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines flexibility as “the ability to change or to be changed according to the situation”. Thus, English can be compared with a complex organism that has the power and the ability to change itself, it has the tools to adapt and to be ready to be used by those who use it in various, different, changeable environments, situations, moments of time. Meanwhile it is so flexible and open minded as to let itself changed. This is not a sign of weakness, it a sign of intelligence and adaptability in the same time. English language knows, if we can personify it, that only through this feature it ensures its power, its long life and widespread.

“Every living language is in a state of dynamic equilibrium. Infinitesimal changes occur in every act of speech, and mostly make no impression. Now and then a scintillation is captured and held. We hear a novel expression and like it. It is adaptive – fits a style or names a new object or expresses an idea succinctly. Others take it up and it "becomes part of the language." The equilibrium is temporarily upset but reestablishes itself quickly. The new expression, like an invading predator, marks out its territory, and the older inhabitants defend what is left of theirs. The vast open-endedness of language that results from multiple reinvestment is what makes it both systematic and receptive to change. The parts are intricately interwoven, and this maintains the fabric; but they are also infinitely recombinable, and this makes for gradual, nondestructive variation”.

What Dwight Bolinger tries to underline is the major difference between static and flexible, between norms and evolution, between reticent attitude and flexibility when we talk about whether English is a standard language or not. Lexicologists reached the conclusion that there are too many dialects, too many inflections and a large variety of contexts in which English is used. There are a lot of factors to take into consideration – native and non-native speakers, the process of globalisation, international markets, multinationals, students studying abroad, travellers reaching far areas. Communicability is the most important characteristic that underlines that modifications occur and will occur without being possible to be stopped.

We all know that there is a huge difference between formal and non-formal English, between academic usage and normal familiar one, between native and non-native speakers. Yet, a person who uses a language, being it a native one or not, cannot do it without his natural, personal background. When we speak, we also use our own pronunciation (altered by physical problems), our culture, our heritage, our mood, our purpose and we are being influenced by factors that cannot be eliminated. It is a utopia to believe that, even purists (who insist to use only the superior no altered language) could be able to speak a language without being influenced.

English is a living language that evolves continuously and keeps modifying its vocabulary first. It is an international language, with no barriers or boundaries, evolution and flexibility cannot be ceased because due to his usage, English needs to be pliable and adaptable to its speakers needs and demands.

"The rhythmic transitions from synthesis to analysis and from analysis to synthesis," Potter states, "are the systole and diastole of the human heart in language . . . In the resuscitation of old affixes and in the creation of new ones English is showing these synthetic powers. Without growth and change there is neither life nor vigour in language."

II. 4. Speakers’ attitude towards English flexibility

II. 4. 1. Different attitudes towards vocabulary changing power

In order to analyse how speakers react towards English language flexibility, first of all, we have to establish a definition of “attitude”. Psychologists reached to the conclusion that attitude is the internal position that we adopt when confronted with an external social situation, event or person and it determines the way in which we are reacting, responding or acting. In this case, English flexibility is the source of the attitude, the cause that creates a reaction.

In real life, a positive attitude creates a positive reaction and a connection between our inner self and the real outer world. When we succeed to create a balance, an equilibrium we can say that we live in harmony with all that surround us. Language is a real entity that exist around us, we use it, we transform it, we need it to express ourselves, to communicate our needs and to interrelate with others.

Speakers’ attitude towards English flexibility is different according to their nationality, job and even age. Generally, native speakers consider this flexibility a weak point of their language, even if they recognize it as an important open feature. They consider that adolescents, for example, using their “new-fangled slang” are ruining the real value of their language. The purists (someone who underlines and militates for precision, rightfulness in the use of words) say that English flexibility may be the beginning of the decline and fall of the language. Yet, the history of all languages, vocabularies and grammar rules proved that it is a wrong way of seeing things.

Language specialists say that it is due to this flexibility that English is renewing all the time and that the ways of transforming language are innovating and enriching the vocabulary. They consider it not a knowledge gap, but more like a form of adapting to the speed information era in which we are living. After all, their conclusion is that everyone wants and likes to be addressed in a way that they can understand. It is all about communication, about sending and receiving messages.

Lexicographers and dictionaries writers consider that all languages are alive and their existence is due to people using them. Biologist Mark Pagel consider that language is a piece of “social technology” that allowed people to evolve through a complex language system in order to obtain a powerful new tool: cooperation. English has become a global language and its use is a sign of normality, we live in a modern society in which globalisation is a must. Anne Curzan speaks about what makes a word real. She underlines the idea that speakers are the ones who decides what word and when shall enter in the pages of the dictionary.

II. 4. 2. Study case (data and analysis)

When talking about age, things change a little bit. In order to have a clear, real perception over the language life, I used a simple questions for some of my students. The question was “What do you like best about English language?”. According to their answers, I split the research after having the result from the first step.

I used the experiment on 25 students aged 16-18 years old. I told them that they do not have to submit their names, so to be as sincere as when talking to themselves.

What do you like best about English language?

The grammar

The vocabulary

The international usage

The spelling

The pronunciation

The results were as follows:

Figure 2.1.

Step number 2 was to pick up the 10 papers with “vocabulary” as an answer and to ask them to try to enlarge upon the subject. I was interested to see what determined them to say vocabulary, because all teachers know that this is the hardest thing to teach. Whenever students have poor marks or weak performances at the exams, they say it was because of their vocabulary. They feel the need to reinforce it but they find it difficult to do it.

And here are some of the answers that I received:

The conclusion of my study was that English language flexibility is a source of renewing it, a fountain full with new, great words that just wait to be used. There are no limits when inventing new words, the rule is to be accepted and used by the speakers. There is a great funny short talk TED presentation offered by lexicographer Erin McKean, who tries to convince her audience to make up new words. She considers that the role of lexicographers is to follow the people needs and choices – the new entries in dictionaries are the words chosen by English speakers.

FLEXIBILITY IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING NEW WORDS

Word formation is the process of creating new words. There are various ways of doing it, a number of methods that helps renewing and enriching the vocabulary.

III.1. Borrowings or loanwords

Borrowing is the word formation process through which a new word from one language is borrowed directly into another language with which it entered into contact. This process is a normal result when cultures, people or languages interrelate. Loanwords are taken and incorporated, they become part of the new adoptive language. Sometimes the source language is not even known or lost in time, or even if we know it, there is no need to

Sometimes, the loan words keep their spelling and/or pronunciation or they adapt according to the new language rules. Usually a word is borrowed when a new concept, idea or thing cannot be expressed easily and directly using an already existing word.

III.2. Derivation through prefixing and suffixing

Derivation is the word formation means through which affixes (prefixes or suffixes) are attached to the core of a word in order to create a new word. The word that suffers the changes is called the base and the affixes are bound morphemes. The morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit bearing a meaning. Free morphemes may stay by themselves forming a unit with meaning. Yet, bound morphemes cannot act like this. They need to be attached to bases.

Through the process of derivation, words can preserve their grammatical class or they may change it – e.g. beauty (noun) – beautiful (adjective), happy (adjective) – happiness (noun).

III.2.1. Word formation with prefixes

III.2.2. Word formation with suffixes

III.3. Derivation through back-formation

The process of back-formation is exactly the opposite of derivation. While during the derivation process we add affixes to the base word, back-formation means to detach an affix from the base form of a word in order to create a new one. In etymology, back-formation is the process of creating a new lexeme, usually by removing actual or supposed affixes. In 1889, James Murray called the resulting neologism, a back-formation.

Back formation is a process of shortening words, thus it may be considered a sub type of clipping.

It is very difficult for a person who does not have etymological background knowledge to size the difference. Basically, when you are in front of a word you should decide (with no preliminary data) if it is the base where we can attach affixes or where you took the affix from. For example the verb “obligate” is a back form from “obligation”. One could have misinterpret the linguistic phenomenon and could have said that the process was { obligate (base) + -tion (suffix) = obligation}.

Some examples of English back formation:

III.4. Compounding

Compounding is a means of creating new words through which two or more words are joined to make a longer word. The meaning of the resulting word may be similar with or different from the meaning of the words that were joined. The components may be part of the same class, part of speech as in notebook (noun + noun) or they may be different as is blackberry (adjective + noun). Usually, during pronunciation, the stress is on the first part of the resulting compound.

We may divide compounds according to different criteria

Meaning

Compositional – the meaning of the compound is determined by combining the meaning of the words that were used: earache (it is the ache of the ear), blackberry (it is a berry that is black), goldfish (it is a fish that is made of gold), snowflake (it is a flake made up of snow), redwood (it is a tree with red wood).

Noncompositional – the meaning of the new word has no connection with the sense of the words that were combined to obtain it: a ringworm (it is not a worm under the form of a ring), ladybug (it is not a bug that behaves like a lady), butterfly (it is not a fly made of butter, not even a flying butter).

Word class of the lexemes associated

Noun + noun compound – bedtime, brainstorm, catfish, cottontail, cowboy, daylight,

dayflower, daydream, doghouse, doorman, dishcloth,

earphone, eyeglass, fireball, footprint, handbag.

Preposition + noun compound – afterbirth, backfire, backhand, crossroad,

downstairs, downhill, downfall, invoice

Adjective + noun compound – smallpox, blueberry, blackberry, heavyset,

heavyweight, gentleman, nobleman, safeguard

Verb + noun compound – workroom, cry-baby, daredevil, killdeer, parkway,

password, copyreader, crossbones, scarecrow

Noun + verb compound – cowhide, horselaugh, sidewalk, sportswear, thunderstruck,

toothpick, typewriter,

Verb + preposition compound – countdown, cutup, cut-off, cutback, knockout, layoff,

touchdown, turnout,

Preposition + verb compound – bygone, bypass, counterbalance, countersink,

crosscut, income, outfit, outgo, overbuy,

III.5. Clipping

Clipping is another means of forming new words by shortening the existing word, without altering the sense in any way. This is the main point that differentiates it from back-formation, which is considered by some specialists a subtype of the former. The part of the word that is eliminated may be from the beginning, the middle or the end of it – thus we have 4 types of clipping: back clipping, fore-clipping, middle clipping and complex clipping.

III.6. Blending

Blending is the word formation process through which parts of two words combine in order to obtain a new word that carries in its meaning the meanings of the words source. They are also called portmanteaus.

Some examples:

III.7. Abbreviations

Abbreviations are short forms of words. They differ from acronyms that are a type of abbreviations that can be pronounced as an unique word. Usually, abbreviations are used in spoken English, most obvious in informal language. Yet, it depends on the word, some of them being specifically and generally accepted, thus used in written English too.

Examples of abbreviations according to specific classes:

III.8. Forming new words through acronyms

PIN, NASA, LAN, GPRS, ASAP, OMG, FAQ – we all know and use them. Yet, not everybody knows that they are called acronyms and that they are part of the system that creates new words.

Acronym is the process through which an initialism is pronounced as a word. The process is related to that of abbreviation. In order to create an acronym, we take the initial letters of a set of words and we pronounce them together as a single word (capitalized UNESCO or un-capitalized laser) or as a set of letters HIV.

Examples of some of the most known and used acronyms:

III.9. Forming new words through eponyms

Eponyms are real or fictional persons or things after which a certain word is created, named or thought to be named.

INTERNET NEW WORDS – AN ENDLESS SOURCE OF ENRICHING THE VOCABULARY

IV.1. Where are the new words from?

Nowadays, communication is vital for our existence. We need to transmit information in a very fast way, we need to keep in touch without taking into consideration the kilometres between us. Time is our worst enemy and distances are no longer what they used to be. The most useful tool that we have and use is the Internet. Thought it we can be in various many places in the same time. We communicate less face to face, do not have time to do it. Yet, we communicate via technological devices – Messenger, Facebook, Twitter are only some channels that we constantly access.

Is this an advantage or a disadvantage over the real, normal, face to face communication? It is not the purpose of our study to establish that. Yet, what we have to admit is that vocabulary changes because of these means of communication. This development is a positive of a negative one? This is also an aspect to be analysed. What is for sure is that it evolves, it develops, the vocabulary is enriched.

IV.2. How are new Internet words added to the vocabulary?

Figure 4.1.

Source of the figure: http://www.trackmyfone.com

What is, in fact, this slang vocabulary used by teenagers when talking on the Internet? They are just examples of acronyms used in order to avoid wasting time, long explanations and because it is cool to do it. Language evolves every day, it is in a continuous speed, and Internet slang words will change it completely.

“Language itself changes slowly, but the Internet has sped up the process of those changes so you notice them more quickly”, David Crystal, honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Bangor, told BBC News. Julie Coleman, author of The Life of Slang completes: “It's not necessarily that language is changing more quickly, but technologies have developed and they allow the transmission of slang terms to pass from one group to another much more quickly.”

Lexicologist and researchers made an attempt to see how new words appear online and how they spread all over it. It is almost impossible to discover the real source of a slang word, yet every year hundreds of new words are added to the big map. In order for a new word to enter the dictionary, it must be used for at least five years. Thus, the secret for a new entry is its longevity. When a word becomes wide spread, common, well-known and simple to be used in everyday life, it starts its life, it become real and worth to be part of the Big Book.

“Dictionaries are fantastic resources, but they are human and they are not timeless”, language Historian Anne Curzan reminds us. “If you ask dictionary editors, what they'll tell you is they're just trying to keep up with us as we change the language. They're watching what we say and what we write and trying to figure out what's going to stick and what's not going to stick.”

The words we choose to utter express more than what we want to say, they also carry the inner meaning. So when people say OMG or LOL, they do not only want to say something, but they also imply a hidden completion.

The new words are a network which comprises abbreviations like BRB, HRU, CUL; completely new words like selfie, cyberbullying; and nouns that are verbified in order to transform the word into actions – I am testing you a message, I will google it.

Examples of “slang words” used in short messages:

Examples of slang created from combinations of meanings

The process of verbification – using old words in new ways

Verbification is the process of using a noun as a verb. There are many and various reactions to this means of creating new vocabulary – some consider it an innovative manner and some say it is outrageous.

VOCABULARY DIDACTICS

V.1. The purpose of the teaching project

During the entire process of collecting and analysing the data for this academic paper, I discovered a lot of interesting, intriguing and new facts about English language flexibility. The way in which vocabulary is enriched, the stages that are part of the complex system, the various means in which new words are created and added – this is an amazing network that creates the empowering results. The most interesting and worth to analyse, from the didactics point of view, is, in my opinion, the list of new words that are added through Internet devices, texting, messaging via Facebook, Messenger etc.

The most important and prolific factor in this process is represented by the people who create new words, due to various causes (lack of time, speed, fashion). The persons involved are especially the teenagers. Taking into account this aspect, I consider that a good innovation to be part of this paper, is the creation of a lesson plan, a teaching new vocabulary lesson. I am sure that the interest of our students is higher when the subjects discussed have a direct connection with their daily life and activities. It has been proved that when students like the topics, the way of presenting new information, their cooperation is higher too.

V.2. Lesson plan – teaching acronyms

LESSON PLAN

TEACHER: Violeta CĂLIN

DATE: the 8th of March 2016

SCHOOL: Technical College Gheorghe Lazăr, Plopeni, Prahova

CLASS: Xth

LEVEL: Intermediate

TYPE OF LESSON: Vocabulary

LESSON TITLE: Acronyms used on the Internet

TIME: 50 minutes

GENERAL AIMS

to enrich vocabulary

to practise new words (acronyms) in daily life communication

to provide oral practice and to encourage conversation based on an assigned topic

to encourage the students to look for information and bring their own arguments to support their answers

to determine students to act mini dialogues in front of the class

to stimulate conversation, to create interest in the topic and to initiate discussion

to give the students a chance to practise their listening, speaking and writing skills

OBJECTIVES:

to get students talking using acronyms used on the Internet

learn and practise the new vocabulary

practise the acronyms in different interactive and written activities

be able to integrate the new vocabulary in meaningful communicational contexts

to make students match new words with their definitions

to get students work in pairs to create / recreate short conversations using new words

to give practice in listening techniques;

TYPES OF INTERACTION: T – Ss; S – S (pair work);

MATERIALS

laptop

blackboard;

notebooks;

video- projector;

ANTICIPATED PROBLEMS:

Some students may not understand the text while listening and they may need the video script in order to do the task;

Some students may be reluctant to speak and express their own points of view.

SKILL FOCUS: speaking, listening, writing

METHODS: conversation, explanation, pair work, independent work, elicitation

Worksheet 1

Worksheet 2

VI. CASE STUDY – THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE FLEXIBILITY (analysing an interview)

VI.1. Transcription of the interview with Alina CINCAN (Co-founder and Managing Director of Inbox Translation, London, United Kingdom)

In order to bring the information into life, to realise the connection between knowledge and reality, the following case study brings into light an interview with Alina Cincan, Co-founder and Managing Director of Inbox Translation, a translation agency in London, United Kingdom. See www.inboxtranslation.com

Alina agreed to help me in this research and accepted to receive my questions via email and after she concluded her answers, she emailed me back the following data.

Hello, Alina! Thank you again for you kindness to share a part of your time with me. Tell us a few words about your own company and about the translation world.

Inbox Translation is a product of love – it started as a school project for one my partner’s master degree modules and then it became a natural step. I had been working as a full-time teacher and part-time translator and interpreter for years, loving both jobs. In the end, I decided to dedicate myself completely to the latter.

The translation world in the UK is completely different from the one in Romania. Here are some of these differences:

First and foremost, translators here translate only into their mother tongue (or language of habitual use as defined by the Chartered Institute of Linguists and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting).

Certification: in Romania, only a sworn translator can issue a certified translation. The concept does not exist in the UK. A translator can certify a translation by issuing a letter stating they know the languages and that the translation is accurate and complete.

There’s a lot of emphasis on Continual Professional Development (CPD) and linguists here have access to a plethora of courses, conferences and events dedicated to the industry.

Can you describe English language in one sentence? What are three adjectives that you would use? What made you pick up these three ones?

If I were to characterise English using three words, I’d say it’s beautiful, dynamic and friendly. Why these three adjectives in particular?

Well, for the first one, I am clearly biased, as I simply love this language; besides, you know what they say, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, it’s not something that can be explained logically.

Why dynamic? For one thing, it’s a language that changes constantly, just look at how many words are added to the dictionary each year (approximately 1,000 – not to mention that the process that goes behind this is absolutely compelling – you can watch a truly riveting video from Oxford Dictionaries at http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-a-new-word-enters-an-oxford-dictionary)

Last but not least, it’s a friendly language because, at least in terms of grammar, it is easy to learn and quite logical. I’m sure there will be people to contradict me, but I’m not budging There’s another aspect to its friendliness. Knowing English will give you access to a lot of information, it will help expand your horizons.

When did you start your love story with English language?

Almost 30 years ago (that kind of makes me sound ancient, doesn’t it?). It was in school I got acquainted with English and I must admit it was simply love at first sight. Of course, I was lucky that during my journey through this enchanted forest, I had wonderful teachers to guide me. Without them, the story would have had a different outcome.

Do you love English vocabulary? I know that there is something that fascinates you – its flexibility. Can you enlarge upon this subject?

The flexibility of English is indeed something I find fascinating. It’s so easy to create new words when the situation imposes (even if they don’t end up being added to the dictionary).

One of my favourite suffixes is ‘-able’. Something you can drink – drinkable, something you can do – doable, something you can attain – attainable… Not so easy to achieve in other languages.

And, if I’m allowed (we are over 18 here), I cannot not mention the most flexible word in English – yes, it’s the F word. Just think about it, it can be anything: a verb (to f***), a phrasal verb (to f*** something up), an adverb (This is f***ing serious!), an onomatopoeia (F**!), a noun (I don’t give a f***), an adjective (No one can help you this time, you’re f***ed!). Not to mention its emphatic role: This is unf***ingbelivable!, or He’s just a f***tard! Now, what word in Romanian would be able to convey all these?

Let’s look at this from a different angle: when reading ‘The Canterbury Tales’, how easily do we understand it? How much of that vocabulary is still used today? How many words have changed their meaning?

Consider Shakespeare: he is said to have invented around 1,700 words (though some people disagree). Would he have been able to do the same if his native language was not English?

Another aspect that I find intriguing is how meanings of words change over time. For example, ‘nice’ used to mean ‘silly, foolish, simple’ – quite different from the positive connotation it has today.

5. Do you consider this flexibility an advantage or a disadvantage?

Since this is an aspect I love when it comes to English, I’m inclined to say it is an advantage. However, there are a few disadvantages as well. One advantage is that I feel it gives me the freedom to express myself more freely and with more ease than I’d be able to do in other languages, including my mother tongue. The fact that I can easily make up words or use a noun as a verb, or adjectify it (see, I just verbified a noun here, twice now ), this is invaluable for a linguist.

However, for translators working out of English, some words/expressions may be problematic. Of course, good translators always manage to find the perfect word. If it doesn’t exist, they can create it. This is/may be actually needed for new words. Some (such as ‘selfie’) will simply be adopted in their English form and then adapted to Romanian grammar rules.

For others, it may not be so simple. One example that comes to mind is ‘askhole’ (not yet in any official dictionary, but used in everyday language). As defined by the Urban Dictionary, an askhole is a person who constantly ask for your advice, yet always does the opposite of what you told them. Imagine you come across this word in a translation. What do you do? You could use the definition, but the effect won’t be the same. Creating a new word would be a good solution, but the translator needs to ensure everyone will actually understand it. In English, anyone can tell this is a portmanteau between ‘ask’ and ‘arsehole’.

6. If you were to make a comparison between the Romanian and the English way of creating new words – is there any difference that draws your attention?

As I mentioned earlier, approximately 1,000 words are added to the English dictionary every year. Unfortunately, I have not been able to find any information on what happens in Romanian, but from my experience I’d say the number is much lower.

I feel that English is more open and ready to adapt and adopt new words than Romanian. I am for example fascinated by portmanteaux (which, despite its seemingly French origin, it is an English coinage). There are numerous examples in English (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_portmanteaus), but a lot fewer in Romanian, be it imported ones (such as ‘smog’) or local ones (such as ‘aprozar’).

Compounding, coining, blending, borrowing etc.– which way of enriching vocabulary do you consider the best? Why?

There’s no ‘best’ method in my opinion. Each of them contributes to enriching the vocabulary and this is what matters at the end of the day. But, as I mentioned above, blending word particles to create portmanteaux is one phenomenon that I find quite fascinating.

I know that you are watching TED. Have you found something connected with vocabulary flexibility worth to be mentioned here?

YES! I love TED (I translated some of their videos as well) and their contribution to culture, education and general knowledge. When it comes to language and vocabulary, one aspect that may be worth mentioning is text-speak (also known as SMS language, textese, txt-speak, chatspeak, txt among many others – please note how some of these words are actually invented specifically for this, not all of them having yet entered the dictionary).

Most people would argue that it is harming the language as we know it, but one linguist, John McWhorter, disagrees. His presentation for TED, very aptly called ‘Txtng is killing language. JK!!!’ (you can watch it at – http://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk/transcript?language=en), looks at the evolution of language (he calls texting ‘fingered speech’).

I also know that you are also a conference presenter, have you tried to lecture something about the vocabulary flexibility? How was it (if yes)… why (if not)?

I haven’t (yet). My main focus has been the translation industry and more precisely professionalism – what it means to be a professional translator, how to come across as one, dos and don’ts of dealing with clients (be it direct or agencies). But I am not excluding the possibility to present on this topic in the future.

What is the impact of new words that enter the vocabulary on the translation process?

As discussed above, English is a lot more flexible and adds more words yearly than Romanian for example. This clearly has an impact on translations, as not all these changes will have appeared in Romanian at the same time.

Of course, there no such thing as ‘untranslatable’ concepts, at least not to an absolute degree. But not all concepts or words have a perfect correspondent, so adapting is necessary. Take ‘Google’ for example – apart from the popular search engine we all love and which has made our lives a lot easier – it can also be used as a verb in English (Longman dictionary only lists its meaning as a proper noun, but Cambridge lists both). In Romanian, one can only say ‘a căuta pe Google’. In a translation context, this will not only have an impact on the length of the resulting text, but it can take away from the effect. Somehow, a translation of ‘[…] Just Google it!’ will not sound as sharp in Romanian.

Some words have been quickly adopted in Romanian (e.g. ‘selfie’), others not yet. Here are a few words and expressions that entered the language in 2015: on fleek, bae (which I personally hate, but that’s a different story), fam, AF, yas. While they can be translated, somehow existing words just do not cut it.

What makes the difference between a good translation and a bad one when we speak about choosing the best word to express something?

There’s no ‘best’ way to translate something. Give two translators the same text and they will come up with two very different translations. Will one be ‘the best’? Most likely not. Each will be valuable in its own way. Have you heard of translators duels? It’s captivating to watch how two experienced linguists will approach the same text.

For example, such a duel (no blood was shed though) took place during the Edinburgh International Book Festival, as part of its Art of Translation series of events. Cath Smart-Cellier (a French to English translator) gives a few examples on her blog. The two duelling translators (Adriana Hunter and Ros Schwartz) presented their translations of the same text. Everything was different including the title (‘L’air sentait l’ilang-ilang’ was interpreted as ‘The air was fragrant with ylang-ylang’ [Ros] and ‘The Air Smelled of Ylang-ylang’ [Adriana]. One may be included to like one version more than the other, but it’s a matter of personal taste.

Of course, if we speak about technical or legal translations, being precise is paramount and there’s usually no room for interpretation. I say usually because, especially in legal translations, a term may not have a correspondent in the other language, especially where the legal systems are very different.

Which is, according to you, the most difficult aspect of learning new English vocabulary?

Probably keeping up with it. Pronunciation may also pose some difficulties, as it is pretty irregular, as illustrated in the poem ‘English Pronunciation’ by G. Nolst Trenité:

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

How would you describe the difference between learning English in school and learning English through real life experience?

Learning English through total immersion (for example living in an English-speaking country) will for one speed up the process. Moreover, one will notice that spoken English can be quite different from what the text book says. For instance, it will not be unusual to hear people says ‘There’s a few problems with this’ instead of the grammatically correct ‘there are’. A good read on this topic is Stan Carey’s article for MacMillan – ‘There are plurals, and then there’s plurals’ (http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/there-are-plurals-and-then-theres-plurals).

How do you see English language future, its place into the wide range of languages?

English is the language of business and it is still the main language of communication on the Internet. While studies have shown that other languages are gaining popularity (mainly because businesses are become more global and are translating their websites in other languages to reach a wider audience), I think English will continue to reign as the queen of languages.

Can you please offer some advice for the students that have the impression that only by learning grammar they will succeed?

While grammar is an important aspect of learning a language, being able to recite the uses of Present Perfect will not help you communicate. What you say (the message) is more important than how you say it.

I remember a great example from a course I attended at The Language Show a few years ago (unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the tutor or of the seminar). This focused on the right way to correct mistakes as teachers. The situation was (approximately):

Teacher: Tell me about your weekend.

Student: My dog die.

Teacher: When talking about an action in the past, and we know when it happened, we use the Past Simple. Can you try again?

Student: My dog did died.

Teacher: We only use ‘did’ for negative and questions. For affirmative, we only use the verb in the past tense, without an auxiliary. So, what happened this weekend?

Student: My dog died this weekend.

Teacher: Good!

….

OK, so the student managed in the end to produce a grammatically correct sentence, but hadn’t (s)he in fact communicated the message from the beginning? Of course, teachers need to correct students, but in a gentle manner. In the above example, the student must have been a bit confused by the teacher’s final reply: was the teacher happy that the dog died?

My advice: don’t be afraid of making mistakes, embrace them learn from them.

Note to self: Listen to your own advice! (I am now trying to learn a new language, Brazilian Portuguese)

Imagine that you are a fairy and you have the power to create 5 new words – what is your choice?

I don’t have to be a fairy to create new words, I do it every time the situation imposes it. Sure, they don’t end up in the dictionary, but still… On a serious note though, I am fascinated with foreign words with no perfect equivalents in English or other languages for that matter (we have already established that everything and anything CAN be translated one way or another), so I will choose five words for which I’d like to be able to come up with perfect counterparts in English:

cafuné (Brazilian Portuguese) – the act of tenderly running one’s fingers through someone’s hair (see how poetic this is? That’s why I’m learning the language!)

Backpfeifengesicht (German) – a face badly in need of a fist

Ilunga (Tshiluba) – a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time. (Definitely a lesson to be learnt here!)

Age-otori (Japanese) – to look worse after a haircut (We’ve all been there, haven’t we?)

Pålegg (Norwegian): Anything and everything you can put on a slice of bread. > Would ‘breadable’ be an appropriate made-up word for this? How about ‘pâinibil’ in Romanian?

Thank you so much, Alina! It was a pleasure talking to you and discovering many interesting and intriguing facts from the inside!

It was a pleasure for me too! Vocabulary has always fascinated me and I really loved the questions, it was nice spending some time trying to explain to myself why I love so much this system of words.

VI.2. Analysis of the answers

In this analysis of the interview, I want to state from the very beginning that I will stop only on some points of the answers given, points that drew my attention connected with the topic of the present research.

One important aspect is represented by the three adjectives that Alina has chosen in order to describe English language – beautiful, dynamic and friendly. Why “beautiful”? I must admit that it is strange to hear about a language that is beautiful, yet she gave us the argument: “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”. When we first hear a language, we like it or not. It depends on the way that is sounds to our ears, the way in which the connection between mind and soul is made or not. English is heard all around us, we hear it on TV, in the music that we listen, in the films that we watch, in the media and in various researches that we need in our daily life and activities.

It is also dynamic because it changes continuously, 1,000 words are added in the dictionary every year. It is a worldwide spread vehicle of communication; it is the language of arts, sciences, technology, companies, businesses and interpersonal relationships. “Friendly” is the third word used by the Co-founder of Inbox Translations. I believe that this is a metaphor that includes its flexibility, there are cases when we learn a word and we have the possibility to use it as a noun and as a verb too. This is the way friends act, they adapt to new environments, problematic situations.

The ability to change nouns into verbs is a thing mentioned by Alina. She offered us the example of Google (noun and verb) as an interesting word that shows English flexibility. Making a comparison with Romanian, the effects are not as surprising and the game of changing grammatical classes cannot be as easily applied in any other language.

When she was asked to exemplify the most flexible word in English, she gave us an example that first shocked me, the F*** word. I had doubts whether to keep this answer or not. Why? At first view, I considered it not appropriate for the formalism of this research. Then, analysing the phenomenon, the various many translations that this word has in different contexts, I decided it is worth to be mentioned. When making a comparison with Romanian, the word does not have the same strong impact, just because it can enter in various other compounds and transform completely the meaning. It starts as a bad word, an abuse and then it changes into a way of underlining the superlative form of an adjective. It can be a verb, a part of a phrasal verb, an adverb, an onomatopoeia, a noun, an adjective. Romanian is also a flexible language, a word can have various meanings in the context, yet I cannot think of a word as flexible as that.

Since Alina Cincan started her career in the translation domain as a linguist, she felt the need to underline the fact that English flexibility has advantages and disadvantages too. The fact that she states “it gives me the freedom to express myself more freely and with more ease than I’d be able to do in other languages, including my mother tongue.” is a strong argument in favour of the good aspect of this language feature. A major point worth to be mentioned is the easiness to transform nouns into verbs, in this way having an invaluable advantage for a linguist. Yet, a translator can encounter difficulties when finding old versions of words that changed the meaning over time.

The funny example Alina offered to us, the teacher who tries to determine her student to use grammatically correct structures is also connected with English flexibility, even if we talk now about grammar rules. Yes, there are rules, they should not be avoided, but pragmatics deals with sense in the context. So, her advice is not to be afraid of making mistakes and to have the courage to create new words, linguists are ready to analyse them and include them into dictionaries.

In the context of her argument that everything can be translated in one way or another, she offered us some “tasty” examples of words shat she would like to create: cafuné, Backpfeifengesicht, Ilunga, Age-otori, Pålegg.

Language is a fascinating machinery, a process that changes, evolves and influences daily activities, life in general. The conclusion is more than obvious and encouraging – “I think English will continue to reign as the queen of languages.”

CONCLUSIONS

It is said that learning and speaking another language is as if you were another person. “The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination; it is the property of the language itself.” (Derek Walcott).

We all learn English in order to communicate, to express ourselves and finally to be part of the greatest miracle – today’s big world. The reasons for which we must be able to use this common worldwide system are well known and they need no argumentation. It is just an ability, a skill that we are supposed to master in order to manage to live, work, travel and create interpersonal relations. Yet, English language flexibility is a subject worth to be mentioned and discussed because it is due to this feature that we learn this language so easily and we are not only its users, but also its creators in a certain measure. This characteristic was a theory that became a fact, a way of explaining English evolution and a way of creating new bridges.

The purpose of this thesis was to establish a chart containing elements of English history, language development and open gates for the future of English vocabulary. In order to achieve this, I started by presenting elements of communication, the communication model with its elements – the sender, the message, the code, the channel and the receiver. Each element has its important part in the right function of the system. Another aspect that I considered worth to be discussed was Roman Jakobson’s six functions of the language: referential, poetic, emotive, conative, phatic, and meta-lingual one, underlining that each text has one dominant function.

The theoretical part of the thesis contains two main parts, starting from early old English vocabulary, until modern usages of the words. Chapter II deals with English language evolution and I divided it into Old English, Middle English, and Modern English in order to emphasize the modifications that took place in the vocabulary. The world is in a continuous change, evolution can be seen in every branch of life, and this has long terms effects. Communication is the way in which we establish contacts, we need to communicate, to exchange messages, to use codes, to influence each other, and this is why the language evolves and suffers changes.

The fact that I started my presentation with examples from Old English made me interested in defining, creating, developing, and analysing ways of discovering English language flexibility causes. To see if I was correct when thinking that words are the most important tools when learning a foreign language, I made a case study, using a simple question “What do you like best about English language?”. In order to restrain the answer field, I used variants: the grammar, the vocabulary, the international usage, the spelling, the pronunciation. Ten from my 25 interviewees said “vocabulary”. What I did was to continue the survey and to ask them why. Their answers made me conscious that I have chosen the right word – flexibility is the key. Students learn English because they find it flexible, because the words are created daily without being conscientious of this, without realizing that we do it, without trying to prove something. It is as if words are there in other dimension, just waiting for us to call them in use.

The second theoretical part of my study is a well-documented list with words. Word formation is a long, difficult, elaborate means of enriching the vocabulary. It has various possibilities to do it – borrowings, prefixes, suffixes, back-formation, clipping, blending, acronyms, eponyms etc. This chapter may be compared with a large glossary of words that appeared like the product of these means of creating new words. Collecting all those words was a complex process that made me more interested in finding and analysing new possibilities of creating a varied vocabulary.

A source of this means of enriching the vocabulary, that I consider to be endless, is the Internet usage of totally different variations of words. How words appear and start to be used is impossible to discover. Because it takes five years for a word to be used in order to enter in the dictionary, the secret is in its longevity. People borrow a new entry if it is easy, simple to be pronounced, sometimes funny and even strange if this can draw the others’ attention.

In order to realize the practical research part of this paper I started from the key words – flexibility, language, nowadays and I realised a lesson plan in order to combine all the interesting and intriguing information that I have discovered through my research. The lesson is called “Acronyms used on the Internet” – it is a vocabulary teaching lesson having as main aims: to enrich vocabulary, to practise new words (acronyms) in daily life communication, to provide oral practice and to encourage conversation based on an assigned topic, to encourage the students to look for information and bring their own arguments to support their answers, to determine students to act mini dialogues in front of the class, to stimulate conversation, to create interest in the topic and to initiate discussion, to give the students a chance to practise their listening, speaking and writing skills.

The purpose was to put into practice the data collected through the theoretical means that I had at my disposal. The parts of the lesson were varied and organised in such a way to observe different directions. After presenting along the paper all the means via which English flexibility is outlined, the activities from the lesson plan had as goals to see how students see and react to this flexibility. It is a phenomenon that cannot be felt or touched, it just happens without any notice. My purpose was to get students talking using acronyms used on the Internet, learn and practise the new vocabulary, practise the acronyms in different interactive and written activities, be able to integrate the new vocabulary in meaningful communicational contexts, make them match new words with their definitions, get students work in pairs to create / recreate short conversations using new words.

The conclusion of this chapter was that English language is an endless source of new means of enriching the vocabulary, teenagers being able to perceive this idea in daily activities that they act without being aware of the phenomenon. The symmetric relationship between the speaker and the code is a strong tool in order to communicate freely ideas, feelings, information that need to be transmitted. The beauty of the discourse resides in the way in which words create themselves in order to help both speakers and receivers to get the correct meaning of the text, be it oral or written.

Another direction of my analysis can be seen and analysed in the interview that I have obtained with Alina Cincan, Cofounder and Managing Director of Inbox Translation, a translation agency in London, United Kingdom. The idea of inserting this part in the paper appeared as a factor of novelty that I wanted to bring in this research. Talking about a language flexibility without connecting this to reality is a superficial way of perceiving things. We need to find and discuss the pragmatic means of the way in which this phenomenon affects real communication. When I created the questions, I had in mind all the problems that I had encountered through my research – why is English so world wide spread?, is it considered easy to be used and learned?, is this flexibility an advantage or a disadvantage for its users?, which way of enriching vocabulary is the best?, what is the impact that English flexibility has over the translation process?, which is the most difficult aspect of learning English vocabulary?.

The analysis of Alina’s answers discovered new directions of seeing this flexibility aspect. English is a beautiful, dynamic and friendly language because it has a power over its learners. People are attracted to master it due to its ability to change. We learn nouns that we can use as verbs, we discover prefixes and suffixes that we use to make up new words, we can get along people all over the world, we can transmit and receive messages and solve problems without taking into account physical distances. When a person starts learning English he or she thinks that it can be used when reading, working or travelling. Yet, you start thinking into English because it gives you freedom, you can play with words, ideas, and aspects.

From my point of view, the interview that represents the practical part of my paper is the perfect means to express the advantages of English language flexibility. Reading and developing the answers give us the possibility to open more gates about this phenomenon of a language that is continuously changing, growing and transforming those who use it.

In conclusion, communicating through language means the ability to learn, use, adapt and change it. English is the most used and appreciated language in all domains – political, economic, social, touristic and in daily life activities. It is a tool that we need in order to say and feel that we are part of nowadays changing world. So, people should master a code, a word wide one, understood and accepted in order to make themselves part of the big today. English language flexibility is a subject that was, is and will be discussed through various means and directions of research. The most important aspect is to acknowledge its advantages and to use them in our favour, for the sake of a correct communication.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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