José A Sánchez Fajardo | University of Alicante / Universidad de Alicante (original) (raw)

Papers by José A Sánchez Fajardo

The wide variety of pseudo anglicisms shows that a number of categories are also found. This arti... more The wide variety of pseudo anglicisms shows that a number of categories are also found. This article is aimed at sketching these classifications more comprehensively, and to group pseudo loans according to prior studies and revisions (Görlach, 2002; Rodríguez, 2003; Onysko, 2007; Furiassi, 2010; Furiassi and Gottlieb, 2015). These typologies are mainly accompanied by indigenous examples, extracted mostly from differential Cuban Spanish dictionaries and glossaries (Sánchez-Boudy, 1999; Haensch and Werner, 2003; Sánchez, 2017). This research analysis is also aimed at depicting the sociolinguistic causes and semantic evolution of English-induced pseudo loans, based on a compilation of these lexical units, and a brief account of the shifting socioeconomic and political scenarios in Cuba. Some major processes have also been attested and described: ‘hourglass-shaped’ and ‘pyramid-shaped’ semantic evolutions of loanwords, and ‘metaphorical calquing’, which might shed some light on how polysemy and semantic extension, in both source and recipient languages, are involved in the lexical coinage of pseudo loans.

English Today, 2018

Teenage slang has been traditionally connected to lexical creativity and subculture, which is ref... more Teenage slang has been traditionally connected to lexical creativity and subculture, which is reflected in the ungrammaticality of some English units. This article attempts to explore the morpho-phonological variations and linguistic motives underlying the formation of a group of back-clipped words that result from the respelling of consonant clusters representing the fricative /ʃ/ in final position, e.g. sesh < session, nutrish < nutritional, fash < fashion. The analysis covers (a) the examination of thirty-two words extracted from teen websites and dictionaries; and (b) the reassessment of the phonaesthetic and phonotactic features of /ʃ/ in the process of lexical ‘slangification’ through a questionnaire containing some nonexistent words, which is intended to measure the cognitive perception of ‘slang-sounding’ units. The findings show that there is a correlation between the final position of the fricative -sh /ʃ/ and the slangification of teenage slang.

This article is intended to explore the linguistic means of anglicization in Cuban Spanish. Thus,... more This article is intended to explore the linguistic means of anglicization in Cuban Spanish. Thus, a corpus-driven database or glossary of this variant of Spanish has been elaborated to examine these English-induced units quantitatively and qualitatively, entailing a morpho-syntactic and semantic analysis of the anglicization process. This research study is based on two major stages: data collection and data processing of the lemmas compiled. The resulting glossary is used in this part of the study to unravel the morphological and syntactic features of the English-induced units, in particular those of gender and number. A compilation of these Cuban-Spanish units allows for a better understanding of morphological changes and lexical creativity, in keeping with the historical socioeconomic conditions of the island. The collection of colloquialisms, vulgarisms or obsolete words corroborates the diastratic and diaphasic evolution of lemmas, and unveils some distinctive word-building patterns.

This article is intended to explore the linguistic means means of anglicization in Cuban Spanish.... more This article is intended to explore the linguistic means means of anglicization in Cuban Spanish. Thus, a corpus-driven database or glossary of this variant of Spanish has been elaborated to examine these English-induced units quantitatively and qualitatively, entailing a morpho-syntactic and semantic analysis of the anglicization process. This research study is based on two major stages: data collection and data processing of the lemmas compiled. The resulting glossary of this part of the study is used to unravel the semantic traits of the English-induced units, chiefly related to the processes of polysemy and calquing. A compilation of these Cuban-Spanish anglicisms leads to a better understanding of meaning extension and lexical creativity, in keeping with the historical socioeconomic conditions of the island. The collection of colloquialisms, vulgarisms or obsolete words corroborates the diastratic and diaphasic evolution of lemmas, and unveils some distinctive word-building patterns.

American Speech, 2018

This article looks into the nature of the base -porn through the analysis of the semantic and mor... more This article looks into the nature of the base -porn through the analysis of the semantic and morphological structures of some units such as torture porn and show porn. A compilation of the units has allowed for a better understanding of the motives and word-formation patterns, which is reflected in the pragmatic and semantic variations of the resulting constructs.

Lingua, 2018

This research study is intended to delve into the process of clipped personal names in various la... more This research study is intended to delve into the process of clipped personal names in various languages, with the aim of deciphering convergent motivations underlying the formation of clipped names, and analogous morphological variations. The first step in the analysis is data collection: a number of 720 given names have been collected from a total of twenty-three languages, based on previous publications and questionnaires filled out by multiple native speakers and linguists.

The aims of this volume are twofold: to contribute to the study of English as a contact language ... more The aims of this volume are twofold: to contribute to the study of English as a contact language and its various manifestations in World Englishes, and to explore the causes and effects of the influence and diffusion of English in several languages, with particular reference to Spanish.

A diachronic study of the Anglicization process in Cuban Spanish necessarily entails an account o... more A diachronic study of the Anglicization process in Cuban Spanish necessarily entails an account of the shifting socioeconomic and political scenarios between the island and the United States. As to linguistic and cultural borrowing, three major periods have been allotted: Colonial Period, Neocolonial Period, and Post-1959 Period. This distribution is fundamental to comprehend how semantic and linguistic variations have been tightly linked to these changing conditions. A relevant finding indicates that eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Colonial Period) were characterized by a higher influence and deeper assimilation of anglicized forms than previously thought. However, the first half of the twentieth century (Neocolonial Period) represented the most productive era in terms of anglicization, in which the influx of the English language reached its highest influence over the Cuban Spanish. After 1959, with Fidel Castro’s Revolution, the borrowing of these English-induced units continued but their assimilation channels and semantic structures changed significantly. A historical study of this sort is vital to have a better understanding of how the process of linguistic borrowing echoes the existing pragmatic variations.

The impact of English on Cuban Spanish results from a profound process of acculturation which is ... more The impact of English on Cuban Spanish results from a profound process of acculturation which is due to the historical connections and spatial proximity of the island to the US. This empirical study is intended to examine the anglicization of Cuban Spanish by determining anglicizing patterns or strategies on the phonological, morphological, lexical and semantic levels. Thus, the article demonstrates the variability of word-building mechanisms and semantic transparency dia-synchronically. This analysis is also accompanied by brief contrastive commentaries on divergent and common aspects between Cuban Spanish and European Spanish, illustrated with examples extracted from prior corpora and dictionary revision. The research has shed more light on the universality of certain morpho-phonological patterns in Spanish, as well as the correlation between pragmatic or extralinguistic aspects with lexico-semantic variation, revealing significant changes in sociolects and attitudes.

Neologica, 2018

This paper intends to explore the origins of clipping, revealing a multifaceted phenomenon in whi... more This paper intends to explore the origins of clipping, revealing a multifaceted phenomenon in which expressive or speaker-related motives are highly relevant. Therefore, this study addresses the typology of such motives based on the communicative functions of language in general and expressive and textual ones in particular. The examples used are taken from Spanish and English corpora (BNC; COCA; CREA) and dictionaries (Alvar & Miró 1983; Antoine 2000; Martínez 1984; MWD11; OED3; Rodríguez 2005, 2011) to prove how these functions might be significant in the two languages, and how their common grounds might lead to universal patterns.

Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2018

Clipping and linguistic variation are inexorably interconnected. Shortened or elliptical words re... more Clipping and linguistic variation are inexorably interconnected. Shortened or elliptical words reflect a great deal of variability of the language, especially in the morphological and phonological levels. The object of this study is precisely to explore the phono-graphemic and grammatical variations occurred in the visible changes undergone by clipped words in Spanish and English. A contrastive analysis of this type reveals both expectedly different correspondences in terms of gender and number, and surprisingly parallel lexico-syntactic features. This suggests that clipped or elliptical units are not only necessarily dependent on intrinsic morpho-grammatical and phonological traits, but they are also characterized by regularities and universal patterns that might show disruptive or ‘corrupted’ constructs. This analysis confirms the peculiarities of clipping and linguistic variations in both languages, in an attempt to comprehend the interconnection between functional motivations, and morphological and phonological changes.

International Journal of Language and Culture, 2018

The concept of ‘cultural borrowing’ has been associated with the concept of interlinguistic borro... more The concept of ‘cultural borrowing’ has been associated with the concept of interlinguistic borrowing, and not necessarily cultural diffusion, which might reveal typological disparities and conceptual incongruence. This article is thus aimed at examining the concept of cultural borrowing, in which its referential component is essential to determine the degree of cultural impact. To have a better understanding of this concept, a multidimensional categorization has been established to describe the leading features and components of the process of cultural assimilation. These dimensions, namely ‘unknown referent’, ‘semantic novelty’, ‘semantic plasticity’ and ‘pragmatic plasticity’, have been used to depict the cultural anglicization of Cuban lexis. Also, based on a dictionary-based compilation, a ‘cultural index’ has been established to shed more light on the multifaceted nature of cultural borrowing and ‘cultural density’, suggesting that such an index is not proportionally related to lexical productivity and frequency, but to the importation of unknown-referent-based cultural loans.

Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, 2017

This article describes the sociolinguistic traits of Cuban-American Spanish, especially in south ... more This article describes the sociolinguistic traits of Cuban-American Spanish, especially in south Florida. By revising already-built corpora and dictionaries, the study aims at examining the correlation between linguistic borrowing, and sociocultural and pragmatic elements in an attempt to shed more light on the concepts of Spanglish and code-switching. This revision is complemented by a historical account of Cuban-American migration, a normative study of this dialectal Spanish variant, and the collection of indigenous multiword phrases. Some of the earlier findings indicate that Cuban-American Spanish reflects the variability of this form of Spanglish as its usage and conventions are highly reliant on the pragmatic features of Cuban-American Spanish speakers. Culturally speaking, Miami-based Spanish reveals the existence of a differentiating sentiment, which contrasts with the inevitably assimilated American codes, i.e. a strong sense of bicultural identity.

The geographical proximity and socioeconomic dependence on the United States brought about a deep... more The geographical proximity and socioeconomic dependence on the United States brought about a deep-rooted
anglicization of the Cuban Spanish lexis and social strata, especially throughout the Neocolonial period (1902–1959). This study is based on the revision of a renowned newspaper of that time, Diario de la Marina, and the corresponding elaboration of a corpus of English-induced loanwords. Diario de la Marina particularly targeted upper social class, and only crónicas sociales (society pages’ columns) and print advertising were revised because of their fully descriptive texts, which encoded the ruling class ideology and consumerism. The findings
show that there existed a high number of lexical and cultural anglicisms in the sociolect in question, and that the sociolinguistic anglicization was openly embraced by the upper socioeconomic stratum, entailing a
differentiating sign of sophistication and social stratification. Likewise, a number of the anglicisms collected, particularly those related with social events, are unused in contemporary Cuban Spanish, which suggests a major semantic shifting in this sociolect after 1959.

Books by José A Sánchez Fajardo

RESUMEN Este estudio tiene como objetivo principal el análisis de las actitudes del sociolecto es... more RESUMEN Este estudio tiene como objetivo principal el análisis de las actitudes del sociolecto estudiantil univer-sitario hacia la adaptación grafémica de los anglicismos. Es precisamente el estudiante universitario el reflejo de la concreción de la modernidad, y sus cambios referenciales, y de la universidad como institución académica, y sus normas tradicionales de expresión escrita. Para un mejor estudio de la ti-pología de actitudes, nos hemos propuesto la realización de encuestas, ya que las mismas permitirían agrupar y cuantificar los datos obtenidos, según las características del encuestado (rasgos socioeco-nómicos, familiares y académicos), y su percepción de varios ejemplos de voces inglesas, y su posible 'corrección'. De esta manera, hemos encontrado que el grado de aceptación podría verse afectado por el nivel de inglés del hablante, o el tipo de carrera, y que existen ciertos tipos de cambios grafémicos y tipográficos más sensibles a los cambios de actitud. Una de las principales conclusiones sugiere que existen diferencias más significativas entre los estudiantes de carreras técnicas y de humanidades que entre los estudiantes con niveles diferentes de inglés. Además, los estudiantes de carreras técnicas, y los estudiantes con niveles B2-C1 de inglés muestran una mayor tendencia a categorizar los préstamos adaptados ortográficamente como mal escritos.

The phenomena of globalization and code-switching have undoubtedly had a significant influence on... more The phenomena of globalization and code-switching have undoubtedly had a significant influence on language variation and diversity, particularly in areas where English has come into sustained contact with other languages. Existing interest in the connection between language contact and the variability of World Englishes has been motivated principally by the need to establish universal linguistic models, patterns or categories, or by the growing interest in language change and the reasons underlying it. Thus, the proposed volume seeks to gather both theoretical and empirical works that explore issues relating to language and dialect contact in World Englishes.