Practical part

CONTENTS 

I. Introduction.

1.1. Common characteristics of the course work

1.2. General definition of homonyms

II. The Theoretical Part

2.1. Shortening of spoken words

2.2. Graphical abbreviations and acronyms

2.3. Abbreviations as the major type of shortenings

2.4. Specific groups of shortening

III. Practical part

3.1. “Cyber-English” for informal text messages, chat room chatting

3.2. The types of abbreviations on the newspaper “The USA today”

3.3. The modern type of shortening to abbreviate the telephone numbers

Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendix 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

     

     INTRODUCTION 

     1.1 Common characteristics of the qualification work 

     The theme of our course work is “English abbreviations: causes and tendencies”.

     Shortening (including abbreviation) in communication is the process or result of representing a word or group of words by a shorter form of the word or phrase. The problems of shortened lexical units as specific language phenomena in modern languages attracted attention of many researchers. These problems are considered to numerous articles and separate researches of Russian and foreign authors. Towards the most circumstantial works of these questions we can outline such scientists as D.I. Alekseeva, E.P. Voloshina, V.G. Pavlova, T. Pilze, M.M. Segal, L.A. SHelyahovsky, R. Walse, O. Jespersen and others.

     The topicality of my work is in the fact that process of creation of abbreviations tendencies like cyber-English and shortening in publications is a less researched modern style of communication (especially written).

     The aim of the course work is giving general characteristics to abbreviated and shortened lexical units and defining the main ways, particularities, causes and tendencies.

     To achieve our aim we have to solve the following objectives:

1. Define the functions of shortened lexical units;
2. Analyze the existing categorizations of the abbreviations;
3. Make the analytical review of the cyber-English and the types of shortening in the newspaper, the new modern style of abbreviating the telephone numbers.

     The object of the work is the shortening of the English language.

     The subject is causes and tendencies of English language.

     The abbreviation is very wide theme to investigate; it has many types and tendencies for today. At our term paper the scientific novelty of the investigation is the shortening in cyber English, exactly text-messages, and shortening in the newspaper.

     The theoretical significance of the work is the usage of shortening in English language reveals its causes and tendencies.

     Abbreviations are very useful in the society. We face to them on the newspapers, advertisements, street posters, magazines, periodicals, television, radio all of them are the mass media and of course at everyday communication.

     The practical significance of the investigation is in the fact that this material can be recommended for widening vocabulary and development of speech and knowledge of English language.

     Material under analyses:

     Researching methodical literature, scientific articles, recent works of methodology scientist; using such methods as analyzing manuals, textbooks and books, educational magazines, training appliances, newspapers and internet.

     This course work can be characterized by the following:

     The actuality of this work caused by several important points. We seem to say that the process of creation of abbreviations is one of the main trends in development of Modern English, especially in its colloquial layer, which, in its turn at high degree is supported by development of modern informational technologies and simplification of alive speech. So the significance of our 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 adequated 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.

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

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

     d) 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 and Russian 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 newality of the work is concluded in including the language of charts to one of the chapter of the course work.

     The structure of my course work consists of introduction, theoretical part, practical part, working out the types of abbreviations on the newspaper “The USA today”, the conclusion, bibliography and appendix. 

     1.2 General definition of homonyms 

     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 shortening of words consists in sub-of words Graphical a part for a whole. 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. (L. ante meridian)—'in the morning, before noon'; p. m. (L. post meridian)—’in the afternoon, afternoon'; i.e. (L. 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 meaning¹ 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—s- 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:

     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.

       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:rsn'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 r'vi: 'dei]Victory Day; H-bomb r'eitj 'bnm] hydrogen Domb; 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. AH 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:

     Words that have been shortened at the end—the so called apocope ['opokop]—апокопа, е. g. ad from advertisement, lab from laboratory, etc.

     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.

     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.

     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.

     1) When performing in the sentence some peculiarities the syntactical functions of ordinary of Clipped words and lexical Abbreviations, abbreviations take on grammatical inflections, e. g. exams, M. P. s (will attack huge arms bill), (Tory) M. P.’s (concern at), 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, nighttime from nightdress (with the diminutive suffix -ie); radar man—оператор радиолокационой 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.

     The term blending is used to de-§ 39. Blending signage the method of merging parts of words (not morphemes) into one new word; the result is a blend, also known as a portmanteau word. The noun smog is an example in point. It is composed of the parts of the nouns smoke and fog (smoke-Hog). 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, sin and go 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 H-crash or dash; flush = flash blush; brunch—breakfast-Ь lunch; 5language=slang-language; amaze smoke haze, etc. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words sometimes bordering on slang, e. g. amaze, brunch, language, politician pollute politician—грязный политикан, etc. There are numerous blends, however, in the terminological sector of the vocabulary, e.g. recon=radar beacon—радиолокационный маяк; transceiver = transmitter-receive—приемное-передающая станция; transistor=transfer resistor—транзистор, etc.

     In considering the diachronic and the formation synchronic approach to language study (see 'Introduction', § 2) 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-trans fusion — 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.

     Sound-interchange is the gradation of e.g. Sound- and stress- sounded occupying one and the same interchange. Place in the sound-form of one and the same morpheme in various cases of its occurrence. Both sound and stress-interchange may be regarded as ways of forming words only diachronically because in Modern English not a single word can be coined by changing the root-vowel of a word or by shifting the place of the stress. Sound-interchange as well as stress-interchange is absolutely non-productive and in fact has turned into a means of distinguishing between different words, primarily between words of different parts of speech and as such is rather wide-spread in Modern English, e.g. to sing—song, to live—life, to breathe—breath, etc. It also distinguishes between different word-forms, e.g. man—men, wife—wives, to know—knew, to leave—left, etc.