On using loanwords : national geographic magazine as an example

Abstract EN

The scientific knowledge is broadening in our contemporary world and the 19th century saw an unprecedented growth in this domain, important discoveries and theories achieved widespread publicity, and introduced new styles of expression to an ever-curious public.

By the end of the century, there was a recognizable variety of scientific English, shaped by the observations of grammarians, the expectations of the burgeoning scientific societies and the style guides of the new academic journals.

National Geographic Magazine which was first published in 1888 by the National Geographic Society is an illustration of this interest in scientific knowledge.

The magazine contains articles about geography, popular science, chemical pollution, global warming history, culture, and photography.

It is now published in thirtytwo different language editions around the world.

It is true that scientific discourse involves facts and information and subject matter takes priority over the style of the language, but even formal scientific language becomes inventive from time to time.

The language of the National Geographic Magazine has developed a special style, which often aims at conveying information in a thrilling and attractive way (supplemented with maps and magnificent photos) to capture the attention of the reader and to influence the opinion of certain sections of the public considering the fact that more than fifty million people receive the magazine every month.

This study examines the use of loan words as a stylistic device in the articles of National Geographic (the English edition) to produce a local environment.

The two expressions (loan words) and (borrowed words) are used interchangeably throughout the study since they both refer to the process where both form and meaning are borrowed or assimilated with some adaptation to the phonological system of the new language.

Before presenting the examples that show the use of loan words and in order to clarify that borrowing is an everlasting process and a means whereby all languages can copy and add new lexical items to their repository, the researcher finds it important to focus on the meaning of loan words as a process, the major reasons behind it and the classes of loan words in three sections.