Anglicisms in the Chilean sporting press.

This entry has been dedicated to Anglicisms used in the sporting language. As we already known, in technology, economy and modern life in general it can be found many loanwords coming from the English language. However, sports is the one which has called the attention to many linguists who are interested in this phenomenon. In 2008 for example, Kmotrikova carried out a research about the presence of Anglicisms in the Spanish sport. In this study, he points out that one the most remarkable features of the sporting language is the presence of foreign words. Virtually, most of them come from English language (adrenalina,ace, bádminton, birdie, club, coach, chut, derbi, dopar, fairplay, fan,gol, handicap, jockey, líder, open, penalty, polo, rally, ring, rugby, sponsor, sprint, team,tenis, tie break, water polo, etc). He also mentions that the high prevalence has several reason. Firstly, England was the cradle of many modern sports; therefore, they established the rules and create the first sporting organizations. Secondly, the supremacy of the English language facilitates the spread of those words in the sporting field, which are rapidly adopted by recipient languages like Spanish. Accordingly, the results showed that the sports with the highest level of Anglicicims were Football, Golf and Tennis, all of them invented in England.

In our country, no one has carried out yet any study related to Anglicisms in the sporting language. However, it is known that the presence of English words in sports is highly prevalent, especially in Football, Basketball,Tennis and Boxing. As evidence of that, I have conducted a little research about Anglicisms in the sporting Chilean press on Internet. The findings are surprising!

Please, take a look and leave your comments.

The presence of English in our modern life.

As it was already mentioned, the presence of English in Chile is very noticeable, an evidence of that is the growing number of Anglicisms that Chilean Spanish has adopted in the last decades. In comparison to the case of Spain and many other Latin American varieties of Spanish, the Chilean one is even more open towards these English words (Glass, 2006); in many cases, trying to conserve their original pronunciation. For example, the word surf is pronounced /surf/ in Spain, but /sɜʳf/ in Chile; also, in Spain, it is common to hear the word "ordenador" for computer, while in Chile it is said "Computador". In this sense, according to Saez Godoy, that reflects how this influx of foreign words can be linked to the “American Way of Life”, which seems to be seen as a desirable model for many young Chileans who are immersed in this modern world. Thus, In technology, many words such as pen drive, CD, DVD are also pronounced in the original way (/si:di:/ and /dividi:/), as opposed to the Iberian Spanish pronunciation, which adapts the letters to the Spanish alphabet. Saez also made a connection between the way in which language change (in terms of new lexical items) and the cultural change. He provided examples such as cinemas in shopping malls, Halloween celebrations, park cemeteries, donuts and jeans, the different music styles of English-speaking origin, such as Hip Hop, Rock, Grunge and Funk, and other observations that prove how strong and significant English is in the commercial and technological side of the Chilean modernity.
Other studies have shown that in certain Chilean business and academic circles, there is a tendency towards an increasing "intra-national use of English" (Larraín, 2009), especially in Economics and Business Studies where it seems that the title in English gives a "Scientific aura" that is necessary to communicate certain topics. In a nutshell, the presence of English language has become so strong that many economists and scholars consider that the language of business and economy in Chile is English.




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