Abbreviation and other types of shortening in the aspect of their functions in Modern English language

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The theme of my diploma work sounds as following: “Abbreviation and other types of shortening in the aspect of their functions in Modern English language”. The actuality of this work caused by several important points. It is safe to say that nowadays the shortening of the words is one of the main trends in the development of Modern English language, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree is supported by constant development of modern informational technologies and simplification of speech with no loss of its informative content. So the significance of this work can be proved by the following reasons: a) Shortening of words is one of the developing branches of lexicology nowadays.

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Introduction……………………………………………………………… 1

I. General definition of abbreviation…...…………………………....... 3

II. Main types of abbreviation……………………………..………….. 10
2.1. Shortening of spoken words ……………………………….....……. 10
2.2. Graphical abbreviations and acronyms ………………...…………...20
2.3. Abbreviations as the major type of shortenings ………..…………. 25

III. Secondary ways of shortening…………………………………….. 29
3.1. Blending of words ………………………………………………….. 29
3.2. Back formation ……………………………………………………... 30
3.3. Back formation as a source for shortening of words …………..….. 31

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 36

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………. 37

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Autonomous nonprofit organization

of higher education

“International Slavic Institute”

Department of Foreign Languages

Teaching Methods Subdepartment

 

 

 

D I P L O M A    W O R K

on     the    subject

“Abbreviation and other types of shortening

in the aspect of their functions in Modern English language.”

 

 

 

 

 

made by the student  Shikov A.A.

group

Scientific supervisor

 

 

 

 

 

Moscow 2013 

Annotation

 

This diploma thesis deals with

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS


 

Introduction……………………………………………………………… 1

 

I. General definition of abbreviation…...…………………………....... 3

 

II. Main types of abbreviation……………………………..………….. 10

2.1. Shortening of spoken words ……………………………….....……. 10

2.2. Graphical abbreviations and acronyms ………………...…………...20

2.3. Abbreviations as the major type of shortenings ………..…………. 25

 

III. Secondary ways of shortening…………………………………….. 29

3.1. Blending of words ………………………………………………….. 29

3.2. Back formation ……………………………………………………... 30

3.3. Back formation as a source for shortening of words …………..….. 31

 

Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 36

 

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………. 37

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction

 

The theme of my diploma work sounds as following: “Abbreviation and other types of shortening in the aspect of their functions in Modern English language”. The actuality of this work caused by several important points. It is safe to say that nowadays the shortening of the words is one of the main trends in the development of Modern English language, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree is supported by constant development of modern informational technologies and simplification of speech with no loss of its informative content. So the significance of this work can be proved by the following reasons:

a) Shortening of words is one of the developing branches of lexicology nowadays.

b) Shortening reflects the general trend of simplification of a language.

c) Shortening is closely connected with the development of modern informational technologies.

d) Being a developing branch of linguistics it requires a special attention of teachers to be adequate to their specialization in English.

 

Having based upon the actuality of the theme we are able to formulate the general goals of our qualification work.

a) To study, analyze, and sum up all the possible changes happened in the studied branch of linguistics for the past fifty years and to forecast possible development of this language phenomena.

b) To analyze the usage of different types of shortening in such spheres of social life as mass media, newspapers and Internet.

c) To teach the problem of shortening to young English learners.

d) To demonstrate the significance of the problem for those who want to brush up their English.

e) To mention all the major of linguists’ opinions concerning the subject studied.

If we say about the new information used within our work we may note that the work studies the problem from the modern positions and analyzes the modern trends appeared in this subject for the last ten years. In particular, the shorten language of computer chats was taken into consideration.

The practical significance of the work can be concluded in the following items:

a) The work could serve as a good source of learning English by young teachers at schools and colleges.

b) The lexicologists could find a lot of interesting information for themselves.

c) Those who would like to communicate with the English-speaking people through the Internet will find a shortened language of chats in our qualification work.

Having said about the linguists studied the material before we can mention that our qualification work was based upon the investigations made by a number of well known English, Russian and some other lexicologists as A.I. Smirnitsky, B.A. Ilyish, N. Buranov, V.V. Vinogradov, O. Jespersen and some others.

If we say about the methods of scientific approaches used in our work we can mention that the method of typological analysis was used.

The newness of the work is concluded in including the language of chats to one of the chapter of the qualification work.

The work is composed onto three major parts: introduction, main part and conclusion. There are two points in the introductory part: the first item tells about the general content of the work while the other gives us the general explanation of the lexicological phenomenon of shortening in a language. The main part bears the six points in itself. The first point explains the shortening of spoken words in particular. The second item analyzes the phenomenon of graphical abbreviations and acronyms. In the third point we study abbreviations as the major way of shortening. The fourth paragraph takes into consideration the question of blending of words. The fifth item shows us the back formation examples. The last paragraph of the main part considers back formation as a source for shortening of words.

There is also one part that can be designated as practical and includes real examples from such kinds of mass media as online news channels and analyses them on the basis of preceding analysis of different types of shortening.

The conclusion of the qualification work sums up the ideas discussed in the main part (the first item) and shows the ways of implying of the qualification work (in the second item).

 

I. General definition of abbreviation

 

Word-building processes involve not only qualitative but also quantitative changes. Thus, derivation and compounding represent addition, as affixes and free stems, respectively, are added to the underlying form. Shortening, on the other hand, may be represented as significant subtraction, in which part of the original word is taken away. The spoken and the written forms of the English language have each their own patterns of shortening, but as there is a constant exchange between both spheres, it is sometimes difficult to tell where a given shortening really originated.

 

The process оf shortening is not confined only to words; many word-groups also become shortened in the process of communication. Therefore, the term "shortening of words" is to be regarded as conventional, as it involves the shortening of both words and word-groups.

Distinction should be made between shortening of words in written speech and in the sphere of oral intercourse. Shortening of words in written speech results in graphical abbreviations which are, in fact, signs representing words and word-groups of high frequency of occurrence in various spheres of human activity; note, for instance, “RD” for “Road” and “St” for “Street” in addresses on envelopes and in letters; “to” for “tube”, “are” for “aerial” in Radio Engineering literature, etc. English graphical abbreviations include rather numerous shortened variants of Latin and French words and word-groups, e.g. “a.m.” (Lat. ante meridian) — “in the morning, before noon”; “p.m.” (Lat. post meridian) — “in the afternoon, afternoon”; “i.e.” (Lat. widest) — “that is”; “R.S.V.P.” (Fr. Repondez sil vous plait) — “reply please”, etc.

The characteristic feature of graphical abbreviations is that they are restricted in use to written speech, occurring only in various kinds of texts, articles, books, advertisements, letters, etc. In reading many of them are substituted by the words and phrases that they represent, e.g., Dr. - doctor, Mr. - mister, Oct. - October, etc., the abbreviations of Latin and French words and phrases being usually read as their English equivalents. It is only natural that in the course of language development some graphical abbreviations should gradually penetrate into the sphere of oral intercourse and, as a result, turn into lexical abbreviations used both in oral and written speech. That is the case, for instance, with M. P. - Member of Parliament, S.O.S. - Save our Souls, etc. Lexical Shortened variants of words and shortening, phrases are used as independent lexical units with a certain phonetic shape and a semantic structure of their own. Some of them occur both in oral and written speech, others only in oral colloquial speech, cf. bus, mike, phone, on the one hand, and trig, math’s, sis, on the other.

In most cases a shortened word exists in the vocabulary together with the longer word from which it is derived and usually has the same lexical meaning differing only in emotive charge and stylistic reference. The question naturally arises whether the shortened forms and the original forms should be considered separate words. Some linguists hold the view that as the two units (e.g. exam and examination) do not differ in meaning but only in stylistic application, it would be wrong to apply the term word to the shortened unit. In fact, the shortened unit is a word-variant (e.g. exam is a word-variant of the word examination).

Other linguists contend that even when the original word and its shortened form are generally used with a difference in the implied tone of feeling they are both to be recognized as two distinct words. If this treatment of the process of word-shortening is accepted, the essential difference between the shortening of words and the usual process of word-formation (such as affixation, compounding, etc.) should be pointed out. It will be recalled that words built by affixation, for instance, are of a more complex character both structurally and semantically, cf. teach — teacher, develop — development, usual — unusual, etc. It is not the case with word-shortening; shortened words are structurally simple words and, as was mentioned above, in most cases have the same lexical meaning as the longer words from which they are derived. Another peculiarity of word-shortening if treated as a derivational process is that there are no structural patterns after which new shortened words could be coined. At any rate, linguistic research has failed to establish any so far.

Among shortenings of the lexical type distinction should be made between lexical abbreviations and clippings – lexical abbreviations are formed by a simultaneous operation of shortening and compounding, which accounts for the Russian term “сложно-сокращенные слова” universally applied to them in Soviet linguistic literature. They are made up of the initial sounds or syllables of the components of a word-group or a compound word usually of a terminological character. There are two ways to read and pronounce such abbreviations:

 

1. As a succession of the alphabetical readings of the constituent letters, e.g.: В.В.С,['bi:'bi:si:] = British Broadcasting Corporation; T.V. ['ti:'vi:] = television; etc.

2. As a succession of sounds denoted by the constituent letters, i.e. as if the abbreviations were ordinary words, e.g. UNO ['ju:noy] = United Nations Organization; NATO ['neitou] = North Atlantic Treaty Organization; laser [‘leiza] = light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation; etc.

As a rule, lexical abbreviations do not include functional words (prepositions, articles, etc.), although there are some exceptions, e.g. R. and D. [ 'a:rn'di:] research and development program.

In some cases only the first component of a two-member word-group or the first two components of a three-member group are shortened, the last one undergoing no change at all, e.g. V-day [vi: 'dei] = Victory Day; H-bomb ['eitj'bom] = hydrogen Bomb; V.J.-Day ['vi'dgei'dei] = Victory over Japan Day, etc.

As a general rule, lexical abbreviations first make their appearance in written speech, mostly in newspaper style and in the style of scientific prose, and gradually find their way into the sphere of oral intercourse. 1

Clipping consists in the cutting off of one or several syllables of a word. In many cases the stressed syllable is preserved, e.g. sis from sister, Jap from Japanese, doc from doctor, etc.

Diminutives of proper names are often formed in this way, e.g. Al from Alfred, Ed from Edward, Sam from Samuel, etc. Sometimes, however, it is the unstressed syllable that remains e.g. phone from telephone, plane from airplane, dome from aerodrome, etc. Traditionally clippings are classified into several types depending on which part of the word is clipped:

  1. Words that have been shortened at the end — the so called apocope ['opokop]—апокопа, е. g. ad from advertisement, lab from laboratory, etc.
  2. Words that have been shortened at the beginning—the so-called aphaeresis [a'fiansisj — аферезис, е. g. car from motor-car, phone from telephone, etc.
  3. Words in which some syllables or sounds have been omitted from the middle — the so-called syncope ['sinkapi] — синкопа, е.g. math’s from mathematics, pants from pantaloons, specs from spectacles, etc.
  4. Words that have been clipped both at the beginning and at the end, e.g. flu from influenza, tic from detective, frig from refrigerator, etc.

It is typical of word-clipping in Modern English that in most cases it is the nouns that are shortened. There are very few clipped adjectives all of them belonging to jargonize, e.g. add from ardent, dilly from delightful and some others. As for clipped verbs it is usually a case of conversion from clipped nouns, e.g. to taxi from taxi, to phone from phone, to perm from perm — “a permanent wave”, etc.

When performing in the sentence some peculiarities the syntactical functions of ordinary of Clipped words and lexical Abbreviations, abbreviations may take on grammatical inflections, e.g. exams, M.P.’s, etc.

These two categories of shortened words may be used with the definite and the indefinite article, e.g. the В. В. С, a bike, the radar, etc. 2

They may be combined with derivational affixes and also be used in compounding, e.g. “Y.С.L.-er” — “member of the Y.C.L.”; “M.P.-ess” — “woman-member of Parliament”; “hanky from handkerchief”, “nightie from nightdress” (with the diminutive suffix -ie); radar man — оператор радиолокационной станции, etc.

Clipped words are characteristic of colloquial speech. The number of clipped words used in everyday speech is rather considerable and newly clipped words keep entering the vocabulary.

In the course of time many clipped words find their way into the literary language losing their stylistic coloring, though not infrequently they still preserve the stamp of colloquial words and, as a result, are restricted in use.

Blend words are words which are comprised of parts from two other words.  Portmanteau is French for suitcase.  Portmanteau words have two parts folded into one; much like the two parts of a suitcase fold into one unit. The noun smog is an example in point. It is composed of the parts of the nouns smoke and fog (smoke + fog). Thus blending is in fact compounding by means of clipped words. The result of blending is an unanalyzed, simple word, for the parts of words blended by the word-coiner (for instance, “sm” and “og” in “smog”) are not morphemes at all in terms of the English language. Therefore a blend is perceived as a simple word unless speakers have received the extra-linguistic information about its composition. Many blends are short-lived. A fair proportion, however, have become established in the vocabulary, e.g. clash = clap + crash or dash; flush = flash + blush; brunch = breakfast + lunch; etc. There are numerous blends, however, in the terminological sector of the vocabulary, e.g. recon = radar + beacon — радиолокационный маяк; transceiver = transmitter + receive — приемно-передающая станция; transistor = transfer + resistor — транзистор, etc.

In considering the diachronic and the formation synchronic approach to language study reference was made, in particular, to the verb “to beg” derived from the noun “beggar” borrowed from Old French. The noun “beggar” was later presumed to have been derived from a shorter word on the analogy of the derivative correlation of the "speak—speaker" type. This process of word-formation is called backformation (or back-derivation) and has diachronic relevance only. It does not affect the derivative correlation for present-day speakers who do not feel any difference between the relationship "speak— speaker", on the one hand, and "beg—beggar", on the other. Examples of backformation are numerous: to burgle from burglar; to edit from editor; to enthuse from enthusiasm; to sculpt from sculptor, to liaise from liaison, etc. At the present time backformation combined with conversion seems to be active in the formation of verbs from compound nouns mostly of a terminological character, e.g. to blood-transfuse from blood-transfusion — переливание крови; to rush-develop from rush-development — быстрое проявление пленки; to finger-print from finger-printing — взятие отпечатков пальцев; to baby-sit from baby-sitter –  приходящая няня, etc.

Summarizing the introduction, we can point out several general concepts about some types of shortening:

1. Shortening of words is typical of present-day English occurring in various spheres of oral and written intercourse. Graphical abbreviations are restricted in use to written speech. Lexical abbreviations and especially clippings are peculiar to the sphere of oral communication

  1. The result of blending which is a compounding of clipped words is always a simple word. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words. There are, however, numerous blends in the terminological section of the vocabulary.
  2. The process of back formation is of diachronic relevance only.

 

II. Main types of abbreviation

 

2.1. SHORTENING OF SPOKEN WORDS

 

As a type of word-building shortening of spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment, is recorded in the English language as far back as the 15th century. It has grown more and more productive ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development is particularly intense in English.

Newly shortened words appear continuously; this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as dub v., a cinema term meaning 'to make another recording of sound-track in a film in a different language' (from double); frig or fridge n. from refrigerator; mike n. from microphone; tellie, telly or T.V. n. from television set; etc.

Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of "the strain of modern life" as the mainspring of this development. This is, obviously, only one of the reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.

When dealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings are involved into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabic goes farther in English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words sound more like native ones than their long prototypes. Curtailment may therefore be regarded as caused, partly at least, by analogical extension, i.e. modification of form on the basis of analogy with existing and widely used patterns. Thus, the three homonyms resulting from abbreviation of three different words, van 'a large covered vehicle', 'a railway carriage', the short for caravan (by aphesis); van 'the front of an army', the short of vanguard which in its turn is a clipping of the French word avant-garde; and van — a lawn tennis term, the short for advantage, all sound quite like English words. Cf. ban n. and v., can, fan, man, ran (Past Tense of run), tan, etc.

Shortening of spoken words or curtailment consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own.

The part retained does not change phonetically, hence the necessity of spelling changes in some of the examples above (dub :: double; mike :: microphone, etc.).

The change is not only quantitative: a curtailed word is not merely a word that has lost its initial, middle or final part. Nor is it possible to treat shortening as just using a part for the whole as Hackett suggests, because a shortened word is always in some way different from its prototype in meaning and usage. Moreover, every kind of shortening differs from derivation, composition and conversion in being not a new arrangement of existing morphemes, but often a source of new ones.

Shortening may be regarded as a type of root creation because the resulting new morphemes are capable of being used as free forms and combine with bound forms. They can take functional suffixes: "Refs Warning Works Magic" (the title of a newspaper article about a football match where the referee called both teams together and lectured them on rough play). They also serve as basis for further word-formation: fancy n (from fantasy), fancy v, fancier n, fanciful adj, fancifully adv, fancifulness n, fancy-ball n, fancy-dress n, fancy-work n, etc.

It is interesting in this connection to compare the morphemes “tele” in television and telecast. They are homonymous but not identical. Tele- in television is derived from “tele far”, it is a combining form used to coin many special terms denoting instruments and processes which produce or record results at a distance, such as telecommunication, telemechanics, telepathy, telephone, telescope and television itself. Tele- in telecast does not mean 'far', it is a new development — the shortened variant of television rendering a special new notion. This becomes obvious from the following simple transformations: television - vision at a distance, tele(broad)cast – a broadcast at a distance, a television broadcast. In this new capacity tele- enters many combinations: telefilm, tele-prompter (an electronic device that slowly unrolls the speaker's text, in large print out of sight of the audience), televiewer – 'one who uses a television set', telestar (Anglo-American satellite used as television relay station).

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