Ekaterina Timofeeva TOWARDS LOCALIZATION OF ANGLICISMS: A data-driven analysis of anglicisms on the Best Western Italia website

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1 2 HUMANISTINEN TIEDEKUNTA KIELTEN LAITOS Ekaterina Timofeeva TOWARDS LOCALIZATION OF ANGLICISMS: A data-driven analysis of anglicisms on the Best Western Italia website Pro gradu -tutkielma Englannin kieli Huhtikuu sivua + 52 liitettä The study investigates the ways in which the use of anglicisms on the localized promotional websites of global companies may be beneficial for the companies. The study suggests that anglicisms may be used in a promotional text as a strategic device, and localization of anglicisms is defined as part of the localization process which requires the adaptation of the stylistic, grammatical, and sociolinguistic aspects of anglicisms to the target language. The data came from the Best Western Italia website, and the study focuses on the use of anglicisms in Italian. The data were collected in the period , and the material for the present study consists of 48 web pages that contain words, 490 of which are anglicisms, and, consequently, anglicisms make 4.5% of the total number of words. The study performs data-driven analysis of anglicisms that means that the methods were determined by the data, and those characteristics of anglicisms which were more frequently encountered in the corpus of the present study were analysed. Thus, the present study combines quantitative and qualitative methods. Firstly, the frequency and word class distribution of anglicisms were identified. Secondly, semantic and etymological analyses of anglicisms were performed. Thirdly, grammatical analysis of anglicisms was conducted that focused on the word formation processes, the assignation of gender, the plural formation, word order and agreement of noun phrases, verbs, adverbs, spelling, and false anglicisms. The results of the present study suggest that the use of anglicisms on a localized promotional website may help to designate the target audience of the website, economize space on a website by using shorter English words, avoid the ambiguity caused by homonyms, create an authentic atmosphere of international environment, and enrich the user s vocabulary with new vocabulary items and new concepts. However, it is necessary to acknowledge that the effectiveness of such a marketing strategy depends on certain characteristics of the target market, and the usage of anglicisms might be very popular among a particular speech community, but ineffective and harmful when considering a broader population. Asiasanat: anglicisms. marketing. website localization. hypertext. Italian.

2 7 1 INTRODUCTION As Hill (1998: 4) puts it, the trend toward a more integrated global economic system has been in place for many years. In fact, the rapidly emerging global economy (Hill 1998: 4) creates new opportunities for businesses to expand their revenues and increase their profits. However, the globalization of markets (Hill 1998: 5) dictates its own set of rules. Furthermore, it creates new challenges and threats, and one has to decide, for example, (Hill 1998: 5) how to deal with national differences in culture, language, and business practices, and how to customize products and marketing policies. Therefore, the companies that want to sell their products in international markets (Esselink 2000: 1) should localize, or adapt their products to the needs and requirements of foreign clients. Indeed, localization (Esselink 2000: 3) involves taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target locale where it will be used and sold. The Internet is an effective means of advertising, and many companies recognize that (Payne 2004) a key step in successfully approaching and selling to international customers is through website localization. Website localization is defined as the process of modifying an existing website to make it accessible, usable, and culturally suitable to a target audience (Payne 2004). Website localization includes (Iler 2007) the translation and localization of content, images, icons, and formats to a particular language and culture. Evidently, website localization is not limited to a mere translation of words, and, consequently, a word-for-word translation is not sufficient (Lang 2004). Indeed, some scholars (Raya 2004) suggest that localization is a special kind of translation that takes into account the culture of the location or region where the translated text is expected to be used. Therefore, website localization is sensitive to intercultural differences (Payne 2004), and, consequently, the cultural characteristics of the target audience determine the website s style, register, tone, and vocabulary.

3 8 During my language training period, working as a hotel receptionist in Italy, I was surprised by the fact that many of my Italian colleagues who did not speak English nevertheless used a set of English words in their speech. Furthermore, these English words were complex vocabulary items. In addition, looking through hotel brochures, I found the same phenomenon there, as many English words were used in the Italian text. I became interested in understanding why the Italian language was so rich in English words, or anglicisms, and whether this phenomenon characterized not only Italian but also other languages. In fact, according to Filipovic (1996), the kinds of anglicisms and their number are not the same in various European languages. In addition, Filipovic (1996) points out that this diversity depends on the human activities of various countries and their contacts with the English culture and civilisation. Since, there are many dictionaries of anglicisms in individual languages: for Italian (Rando 1987), for Polish (Manczak- Wohlfeld 1995), for Croatian (Filipovic 1990), for Spanish (Lorenzo 1996, Gómez Capuz 2000), and for French (Höfler 1982). Furthermore, since the 1970s (Zandvoort 1970) linguists have also acknowledged the need to create a comparative dictionary of anglicisms in different languages, and several comparative studies on anglicisms have been conducted (Filipovic 1982, 1990, Görlach 1994). Moreover, Görlach (2002) compiled A dictionary of European anglicisms, which provides a systematic description of the import of English words and phrases into sixteen European languages. Indeed, to be understood, one has to be very cautious in using anglicisms. It is even suggested (Rothenberg 1969: 149) that, when learning a foreign language, one should be informed about the correct usage of anglicisms in this particular language. Undoubtedly, the task is much more complicated than it seems, as the words borrowed from English into other languages (Rothenberg 1969: 149) may have different connotations than the original connotations they have in English. Moreover, their meaning (Rothenberg 1969: 149) might not correspond to the meaning of the original words. In fact, many languages generate pseudo or false anglicisms (Furiassi 2003: 123), which, as Furiassi (2003: 123) puts it, resemble English words but do not exist in English.

4 9 Furthermore, after analysing the content of several hotel websites in Finland, France, Spain, and Italy, I understood that the usage of anglicisms differed not only from one country to another, but also from hotel-to-hotel. Indeed, several websites did not use anglicisms at all, whereas the vocabularies of other websites were full of them. This result made me think that the usage of anglicisms was not arbitrary and chaotic but motivated and systematic. In fact, provided that the primary goal of a hotel website is to generate sales, the website s content (Sterne 1998: 2) should be carefully planned and developed in accordance with the company s marketing strategy. Therefore, according to my hypothesis, the occurrence and use of anglicisms on the websites was also motivated by marketing strategies of hotels. However, because of the enormous amount of data involved, to test my hypothesis proved to be quite a challenging task. For this reason, to test my hypothesis, I decided to restrict my analysis to a particular website. The Best Western hotel chain website was selected for this analysis, because this website is translated into many different languages, which made it possible to compare the usage of anglicisms in the same context. For the purposes of the present study, anglicisms were defined (Moss 1992: 131) as English terms found in another language in their original unadapted form. The analysis has shown that the use of anglicisms on the website of the Best Western hotel chain varies in different countries (see Appendix 1). In fact, the Finnish, French, Italian, and Spanish websites of the Best Western hotel chain tend to use entirely different anglicisms (see Appendix 1). Indeed, it seems that the use of anglicisms is adapted to the customer s needs or localized. Henceforth, granted that anglicisms are used in a promotional text as a strategic device, I define localization of anglicisms as part of the localization process which requires the adaptation of the stylistic, grammatical, and sociolinguistic aspects of anglicisms to the target language. Due to the huge amount of data, it is not possible to compare the use of anglicisms on the Finnish, French, Spanish, and Italian websites of the Best Western hotel chain in the present study. The preliminary analysis has shown that the Italian website of the Best Western hotel chain contains more anglicisms than the Finnish, French, and Spanish websites do (see Appendix 1). That is why the present study is focused on the analysis of the use of anglicisms on the Best Western Italia website.

5 10 The aim of the present study, therefore, is to analyse how and why anglicisms are used on the Best Western Italia website. The present study is a case study. Therefore, its results should not be overgeneralised. However, the results and conclusions of the present study might still be helpful for international companies willing to localize anglicisms on their websites. The material for the present study consists of 48 web pages of the Best Western Italia website. The web pages contain altogether words. The data were collected in the period The study will examine the frequency at which anglicisms occur, the reasons for their usage, and their grammatical characteristics. The study uses data-driven analysis, which means that the methods will be determined by the data, and those characteristics of anglicisms which will be more frequently encountered in the corpus will be analysed.