Nauji naujųjų skolinių norminimo klausimai

L. Vaicekauskienė. new issues in the rating of new debt 65 Loreta Vaicekauskienė Institute of Lithuanian Language new standards for new scholars Introduction In the last couple of decades, both linguists and society have constantly expressed the need to professionally evaluate new foreign words as a phenomenon that clearly marks the current Lithuanian language. At the beginning of the restored independence, data on the functioning of such words in usage was collected, but later this work stagnated and was no longer consistently worked on. During this period, there was no clear methodology for such work, foreign words were often assessed based on prescriptive provisions, rather than the results of research, and there was a great lack of research on the use of foreign words. The gap in the publicly available recommendations on the usage of foreign words and their standardization has been attempted to fill with the consultation databases of the Lithuanian Language Institute and the State Lithuanian Language Commission (VLkk), but there are not many new borrowings in them and they are mostly described only from a normative point of view, with the reference “not to be used” and the Lithuanian equivalent. This article analyzes the measures of debt standardization approved by the VLkk, presents new principles of debt standardization and updated and methodologically strengthened data collection work on the use of foreign words. The article aims to show how the combination of prescriptive and descriptive methods can improve the quality of normative work. Measures for the Standardization of Foreign Lexicon In Lithuania since 1998, the most important official standardization measures for foreign lexicon of the period of restored independence are VLkk resolution no. 66 kaLbos kuLtūra | 81 žijų kalbos klaidų sąrašo“ and its section „Dictionary errors“, which contains lists of „new foreign words not to be used“ and „foreign words and their derivatives not to be given“ (VŽ 1998), as well as the VLkk-reviewed booklet Kalbos patarimai 4. Lexicon: use of borrowed words (kP (L1) 2005). The VLkk list of new foreign words includes 61 niches of mainly English words, the list of non-presentable foreign words consists of 144 niches of mainly Russian words, and the Language Advice Booklet contains over 3000 non-grouped into word niches borrowed words and foreign words of various origins. Lists of foreign words are a means of implementing negative codification, and in the Language Tips, in addition to strongly negatively evaluated, milder negative codification and secondary norm variants, equivalent to Lithuanian borrowing words are also presented. In preparing the aforementioned normative measures, the authors relied on the general principles and criteria for the standardization of the Lithuanian language and foreign vocabulary, which were published by Lithuanian linguists (especially Aleksas Girdenis, Pranas Kniūkštas, Jonas Palionis, Aldonas Pupkis) mainly in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as on the guidelines for the preparation of the 3rd edition of the Language Practice Advices (see Gairės 1998). A separate system of norming criteria for new debtors did not seem to have existed, but the analysis of language recommendations (miliūnaitė 2004) and the protocols of the VLkk and its subcommittee from 1993–1997 (Vaicekauskienė 2007: 129–144) suggests that there was probably an attempt to follow the traditional direction. Unfortunately, both studies found that the standardisation criteria were not applied in a methodologically consistent and systematic manner and that there was a lack of relevant studies1. Systematics and consistent concepts, both in terms of selection and evaluation, are particularly lacking in the newest and most broadly targeted tool, Kalbos patarimai, into which the entire part of the dictionary of the list of major errors has been transferred and which essentially reflects the tradition of Lithuanian normative linguistics of correcting the dictionary of foreign origin. Alongside well-known (literary) dialectal words of foreign origin (e.g.: pečius, sarmatlyvas, sermėga, smala, zupė, etc.) and archaisms of old scripts (žemčiūgai), here you can find the universally established in common language cepelinai, rūbai, dumplings, etc., the dumb, Soviet and current jargon or slang of the domestic colloquial language (ciogas, ryžas, liuks, lūzeris), the ornament of all similar recommendations sausage with various spelling and morphology 1 Interestingly, in international works on norming theory the problem of applying systematic norming criteria is often recognized as insoluble (see cooper ²1996; Vikør new taste norming principles). ²1994). L. Vaicekauskienė. new questions for the standardization of new loanwords in 67 variants, strictly corrected new English foreign words (nonsense, office, surfing, supermarket) and common international words (e.g.: broccoli, cellulose, ceremony, sexual, etc.). therefore, the object of standardization here is considered to be any unit of borrowed vocabulary. On the one hand, the evaluations presented in the publication are based on a rather complex and – it would seem – flexible system of evaluation degrees, and on the other hand, on a very vague concept of alienation that can be negatively codified. In this context, an inexpressible foreignness is considered to be “a word originating from another language, contrary to the norms of common language and having a correct Lithuanian equivalent” (mikulėnienė 2005: 5). as objecting? what, as understood, norms? what is considered to be an ‘available’ equivalent? the most negative grade ‘ntk’ (not available) per se received by new (English) borrowers; about them, following the guidelines of the Language Practice Advice, the introduction says that they are evaluated extremely strictly. international words are at best considered equivalent variants of the common language norm or – often – possible but less suitable words for use. For example, the secondary variant of the norm here is considered relic, regress, and the preference is given to remnant, survival and offspring. a big problem of language advice is the notion of equivalents, acceptability and identity. The equivalents provided often have additional components of connotative meaning, or shades, differ the boundaries of borrowing and proposition usage, semantics do not coincide (for example, the borrowed francophone is codified as not to be given, because it is probably assumed that having an identical equivalent would be French-speaking). also in several cases the principle of matchmaking is applied uncritically, that synonyms of matchmaking should be avoided when there is an established match. As you can guess, the following are considered to have come into force: grynis, pasauga, spirgintuvas, saldukas, traputis, tubuli, etc. The broad definition of the normative object, the uneven value of the debts and the relationship with the common language, its use and the user raise doubts about the authority of this official publication. both this and other mentioned lexical standardization measures are characterized by excessive prescriptivity, disregard for usage. 68 Language Culture | 81 Principles of New Debt Standardization" (2007). It is hoped that this document should become a supporting tool for further regulatory measures. The draft in question first defines the criteria for the selection of standardised debts: it states that the data for general standardised recommendations should be collected from the public written usage, and words of specific usage (jargons, professionalisms, special terms) should not be drawn into the standardised lists. This selection criterion relates to the reasons for borrowing and the functions of the borrowers. New borrowings that are subject to norming are words that enter the Lithuanian language because of the need to name a (partly) unknown, new reality or concept and for which there is no (completely identical) equivalent in the Lithuanian language at the time of borrowing. Borrowings used for stylistic or socio-psychological reasons, which aim to have a stylistic effect or which show a certain social identity of the user, are not evaluated from the point of view of the norm and are not drawn into normative recommendations. Such foreign words also differ in their functions in the text – they usually perform an expressive, emotional, social or metallinguistic function. In addition to the area of usage, the frequency of usage is raised as a criterion for selecting debts to be regulated: the principles recommend selecting debts of more frequent usage for regulated instruments, while individual debts are drawn only with reservations. The new guidelines also provide for the rate-based assessment of debt. First of all, the definition of the international word is finally clarified and it is said that the new borrowed words used in several major languages (English, German, French, Russian) whose form does not contradict the rules of spelling and morphology of the Lithuanian language or who have the usual endings of unchangeable international words are new international words and therefore are considered normative just as those that are made up of the roots of words of classical languages. unadapted words, i.e. words that do not comply with the spelling or grammar requirements of the Lithuanian language, are classified as non-normative, except in cases where they can be considered (international) lexical quotations; Most often these are two-word constant combinations of figurative meaning, for example: new age „such a cultural direction, movement“, carte blanche „complete freedom to act at will“ and so on. The evaluation of borrowed words from the point of view of the norm, of course, must be based on the general principles of the Lithuanian language (Principles 1997): in the case in question, the tradition is followed and it is stated L. Vaicekauskienė. new issues in the standardization of new debt 69 be the principle of lexical purity. where appropriate equivalents are available, they should always be provided in the usage guidelines, also in the context of new international words. another principle that is recommended to be followed is the systematicity of Lithuanian grammar and spelling. This principle aims at reducing the number of foreign words written in non-Lithuanian and not repeated in usage. The general norming principles provide for two ways of norming new borrowings: 1) norming by adapting a foreign word (i.e. by Lithuanianizing its spelling and morphology) and 2) norming by substitution. The first method is based on the natural integration of the borrowed word into the system of the borrowing language, which is familiar to both Lithuanian dialects and the common language. Although it is not recorded anywhere in writing, this method of standardization is well known to the standardized Lithuanian language practice. the second method has been used in the preparation of the normative measures referred to in the article; It has been criticised by both language users and scholars for the fact that the proposed substitutions are not always appropriate or the number of standardised units is severely limited (see Vaicekauskienė 2007: 145–152; Girčienė 2007). that priority must always be given to the meaning of the word. the criterion of the prevalence of the equivalent in usage, which is relevant for codification and which reveals the competition between borrowed and substituted words, is not mentioned in the principles; nor does it emphasise the importance of self-generated matches2. After the VLkk approved the principles of debt standardization (2007), the work on data accumulation on debts was revived. The commission approached the Department of Language Culture of the Lithuanian Language Institute with the proposal to prepare a project on this topic and in the same year the following goals and tasks of the future project were formulated: 2 The analysis of the substitution discussion forum established by the Norwegian Language Commission in 2000 shows that the prevalence of substitution in usage is a very important factor. It has also been noted that the success of substitutes is directly related to the extent to which they have been developed in accordance with the criteria for a good substitute established by research (see torp 2007). 70 Language Culture | 81 – to conduct a study of the written use of foreign words over a decade (1998–2008), by compiling a large corpus of texts from various printed and electronic sources as representative as possible and by describing the foreign words selected from it in a data bank according to several different characteristics; – based on the principles of foreign word standardization approved by the VLkk, to prepare and submit to the commission for consideration recommended standardized lists of foreign words with basic data on the use of foreign words. At the end of 2007, a group of five researchers3 was granted funding under the State Language Standardization, Use, Education and Dissemination Programme 2006–2015 to carry out a study on the use of foreign words in the new Lithuanian language: 2008. The Lithuanian Language Institute provided additional funding for the development of the computer data bank and frequency measurements in the Google search engine. It is planned that by the end of 2008 the computerized foreign word database (sdb), which has been tested and is fully functional, will contain almost 800 individual foreign words and their consonant nests and about 3000 examples of usage from public political, specialized, cultural, youth periodical press, Internet, non-periodical press, public information sources and documents; the data will be described according to the principles of the investigative foreign word description model approved by the working group. During the first year of the project, methodological guidelines for foreign words collection were prepared and the necessary technical base was created – a computer data bank program and a special query forming system in Google tool for determining the frequency of foreign words use. Based on the principle of representativity raised by sdb, this tool creates highly accurate search strings of word forms, both by including as many forms of the changing paradigm and different spelling variants as possible, and by narrowing the search field due to the ambiguity of results in English or Lithuanian forms. frequency is determined by the median, i.e. the number that represents the center of the frequency variation line, derived from the first couple of hundred words, separately for nouns and verbs. the relative frequency is calculated by quartiles (they divide the row into four equal parts, and the second quartile coincides with the median): rare nouns, which were found up to 800 times, and 3 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 2 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 3 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 2 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 3 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 2 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 3 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 4 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 5 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 6 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times, and 7 nouns, which were found up to 1000 times; project manager Loreta Vaicekauskienė. L. Vaicekauskienė. 71 verbs up to 400 instances, medium frequency – nouns from 800 to 30 000 uses and verbs from 400 to 5000 uses, and frequent – nouns found more than 30 000 times and verbs found more than 5000 uses (for more information about Google search options see aleksandravičiūtė 2008: 266–282). As it is evident from the objectives and theoretical and methodological preparation, the project is primarily aimed at the scientific study of foreign words coming into the Lithuanian language on the basis of usage. The systematic selection of foreign words and usage data aims to measure the amount of new foreign words used in the less studied written Lithuanian language in 1998–2008 and to answer the question about the nature of the influence of English: what effect do new English (American) foreign words have on the Lithuanian language, how many of them are borrowed, in which texts do they occur most often (electronic media, youth language or general usage), what is their relationship with Lithuanian grammar and spelling, and whether the borrowing process in the period under consideration differs qualitatively and quantitatively from what was observed only after the restoration of independence in 1991–1997 (cf. Vaicekauskienė 2007). The part of the study is dedicated to the lexical changes of the administrative language and should provide data on new international words used in state documents and their meanings. on the other hand, the database of new foreign words is designed to have an applicable value and to provide representative material for the preparation of normative measures. as mentioned, the general principles of the current sdb formulate two main criteria for the selection of foreign words – public written use and frequency of use. The concept of public written usage has to be slightly refined when sampling from sdb data. In addition to the national periodical press, the Internet is an important source of data. In particular, on the Internet there are many corrective and sometimes primary data on the use of foreign words. In principle, the entire publicly accessible textual part of the Internet can be considered as public written use, but it is very heterogeneous in terms of the nature of the communication. In addition to the above-mentioned requirement 72 Language culture | 81 sources sdb conditionally divided into two parts – information and communication. In defining the boundaries of the public written usage, such a division allows us to distance ourselves from the communicative part of the Internet, since it is more like a written form of (more or less) private spoken language. as it is necessary to confine ourselves to the most relevant words, the most commonly used in general usage, it is also possible, at least at the beginning of the compilation of the lists, to draw boundaries around certain areas of public written usage and to postpone for later administrative language, non-periodical press, perhaps also specialized areas of periodical press (here we mean cultural, professional, youth press, as well as men's or women's press, etc.) and to take data first from the public political press. such a restriction would allow to exclude borrowed words with clear equivalents, but used to achieve stylistic effect or to distinguish another identity (a large part of them are slang, jargon words less commonly used in the public, more standardized written medium). Thus, to standardize, as recommended in the principles, in the first place would be selected such borrowers who have come into the Lithuanian language due to the need to name (partly) new realities or concepts and who at the time of borrowing do not have a completely identical equivalent. that the foreign words selected for standardization should be used frequently, the principles allow derogations in order to increase the effectiveness of the standardization work, i.e., probably in those cases where the recommendation is unquestionable, it is not difficult to make it (possibly when a good substitute is available) and it is believed that there is a possibility of spreading borrowing. However, the first stage of codification should probably focus on common or at least medium-frequently used words. The borrowed words selected according to the standardization principles of the spoken language are further evaluated from the point of view of the norm and may be recognized as normative if they can be granted the status of a new international word, as well as if they fill a gap in the Lithuanian language vocabulary and conform to the Lithuanian language spelling and morphology norms or are easily lituanized. Non-normative are considered to be borrowed words that compete with a Lithuanian equivalent of similar meaning or have a specially created good substitute, as well as words that do not comply with the spelling or grammar requirements of the Lithuanian language. such seemingly simple rules are in fact only very general guidelines for the codification work. further evaluation of each of the selected words is quite complicated and the decision must necessarily be based on L. Vaicekauskienė. 73 descriptive data: to take into account the spread and establishment of the debt in usage, adaptation to the Lithuanian language system, integration into it, thus, among others, consider the following questions: 1) spread in usage: in how many areas is the debt used? 2) establishment in the consumption: the loan has a tradition of several years of consumption? 3) Compliance with Lithuanian spelling and morphological norms: what is the degree of adaptation of borrowed words, is it always used adapted, or does usage vary in this respect? is the borrowed word graphically distinguished from the Lithuanian text (by quotation marks, with a different font)? 4) establishment in the Lithuanian lexical system: how much of the borrowed root has branched out through Lithuanian derivatives? 5) establishment in the subsystem of international or foreign words of the Lithuanian language lexicon: how many common-root borrowings and their nests are borrowed? As sufficiently representative, the foreign word database can provide relatively reliable data on the issues listed here and be a good aid in assessing the VLkk in debt. His data show that even the most relevant, frequent or medium-frequency borrowed words found in the public political press differ greatly in terms of codification. some of them could be considered new international words, such as drifting “controlled lateral slipping of the wheels of a car; a form of motorsport in which a car drifts along a track and has to perform certain tasks (maintaining a certain speed, taking turns, etc.) funk "a style of popular dance music with elements of blues and soul, characterized by a particularly sharp rhythm" camper “a travelling vehicle that can be used for overnight stays in campsites” (camper) (these words are borrowed from Russian, German, French languages). often such new borrowed consonants are included in international dictionaries, e.g.: tŽŽ drifting „ship for fishing with drift nets“; tŽŽ camping "autotourist camp". the normative recommendations should also specify the available descriptive Lithuanian equivalents of the new terms, e.g. drifting – controlled lateral slip; car skating competitions; campervan – mobile home, tourist car. Lithuanian and borrowed derivatives of the codified root must also be evaluated, e.g. driftingas: driftinti, driftas, drifteris. as provided for in the general principles for the standardization of loanwords, if the