Canadian, australian English. Semantic changes, metaphor. . Telescopy, back-formation, abbreviation.

CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH.

It should of course be noted that the American English is not. the only existing variant. There are Australian and Canadian English. Each of these has developed a literature of its own, and is charac­terized by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabu­lary. Canadian English is influenced both by British and American English but it also has some specific features of its own. Specifically Canadian words are called Canadianisms. They are not very frequent outside Canada, except shack 'a hut' and to fathom out 'to explain'. The vocabulary of all the variants is characterized by a high percentage of borrowings from the language of the people who in­habited the land before the English colonizers came. Many of them, local animals, plants or weather conditions, new social relations, new trades and conditions of labour. The term international words is used to denote words borrowed from one language into several others simul­taneously or at short intervals one after another. Similar examples, though perhaps fewer in number, such as boomerang, dingo, kangaroo are all adopted into the English language through its Australian variant. They denote the new phenomena found by English immigrants on the new continent. A high percent­age of words borrowed from the native inhabitants of Australia will be noticed in the sonorous Australian place names. Otherwise an ample use was made of English lexical material. An intense development of cattle breeding in new conditions necessi­tated the creation of an adequate terminology. It is natural there­fore that nouns like stock, bullock or land find a new life on Austra­lian soil: stockman 'herdsman', stockyard, stock-keeper 'the owner of the cattle'; bullock v means 'to work hard', bullocky dray is a dray driven by bullocks; an inlander is a stock-keeper driving his stock from one pasture to another, overland v is 'to drive cattle over long distances'. At present there is no single " correct" English and the American, Canadian and Australian English have developed standards of their own. It would therefore have been impossible to attempt a lexicological description of all the variants simulta­neously: the aim of this book was to describe mainly the vocabu­lary of British English.

Semantic changes, metaphor.

Have been variously classified into such categories as: narrowing, extension, generalization, specialization, transfer, amelioration, pejoration, irradiation and many others. Metaphor - is a deep semantic transformation of a word going far beyond its primary semantic range. -speech: the door is singing; - language: the foot of the hill, the foot of a man. 1. living: the door is singing, 2. trite (faded): the foot of the hill, 3. dead: hooligan. Metaphor forms part of our way of thinking, of understanding the world. At times, it lexicalises (that is, it becomes very common), and we are not aware that we are using a metaphor: Life is not a bed of roses. We base on previous models to produce communicative units, and a transmitter, a receiver and a channel are necessary. Nevertheless, it doesn’t imply that these units are not creative. A metaphor can be defined as an incomplete simile. - She is (as pretty as) a rose. - My friend is (as strong as) an ox. In a metaphor there are two terms: the real one (my friend) and the evoked or imaginary one (ox). There is, then, some similarity between the two terms. If only the evoked term appears, we have a pure metaphor. 1) similarity of shape: head of a cab­bage, nose of a plane; 2) similarity in function or use: hand of a clock, finger on the balance, wing of a plane; 3) similarity in temperature: hot scent, cold reason, warm heart; 4) likeness in colounorange for colour and for fruit; 5) analogy between d ration of time and space: long distance vs long speech; 6) transition of proper? imes into com­mon ones: an Adonis, a C: ero, a Don Juan; 7) likeness in position: foot of a man vs foot of a hill; 8) Zoosemy- used when names of animals are used metaphorically to denote human qualities (he is such a bear, a pig of a friend, a tiger (cruel fellow)).

Telescopy, back-formation, abbreviation.

The term blending is used to the method of merging parts of words (not morphemes) into one new word; the result is a blend, also know as a portmanteau word. The noun smog is an example in point. It is composed of the parts of the nouns smoke and fog (sm/oke+f/og). Thus blending is in fact compounding by means of clipped words The result of blending is an unanalysable, 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. Many blends are short-lived. A fair proportion, however, have become established in the vocabulary: clash=clap+crash, dash; brunch= breakfast + lunch; slanguage= slang+language; smaze=smoke+haze. In most cases blends belong to the colloquial layer of words sometimes bordering on slang: smaze, brunch, slanguage. There are numerous blends, however, in the terminological sector of the vocabulary: racon= radar+ beacon, transistor=transfer+resistor. B. F. In considering the diachronic and the synchronic approach to language study reference was made to the verb to beg derived from the noun beggar was later presumed to have been derived from from a shorter word on the analogy of the derivative correlation of the “speak - speaker” type. This process of word-formation is called backformation and has diachronic relevance only. The examples are numerous: to burgle from burglar, to edit - editor, to enthuse - enthusiasm, to sculpt - sculptor. 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: to blood - transfuse from blood - transfusion, to rush - develop(ment), to baby - sit(ter).. The term abbreviation may be also used for a shortened form of a written word or phrase used in a text in place of the whole, for economy of space and effort. Abbreviation is achieved by omis­sion of letters from one or more parts of the whole, as for instance abbr for abbreviation, bldg, for building, govt for government, cdr for commander, doz or dz for dozen, ltd for limited, N. Y. for New York State. Sometimes the part or parts retained show some alteration, thus oz denotes ounce and Xmas denotes Christmas. Doubling of initial letters shows plural forms as for instance pp for pages, ll for lines or cc for chapters. These are in fact not separate words but only graphic signs or symbols repre­senting them. 1. If the abbreviated written form can be read as though it were an ordinary English word it will be read like one. Many examples are furnished by political and technical vocabulary. U. N. E. S. C. O., alUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; U. N. O., also Uno - United Nations Organization. Words belonging to this group are often isolated from the prototypes. 2 . The opposite subgroup consists of initial abbreviations with the alphabetic reading retained. They also retain correlation with prototypes. The examples are well-known: B. B. C. - the British Broadcasting Corporation; G. I. - for Govern­ment Issue, a widely spread metonymical name for American sol­diers on the items of whose uniforms these letters are stamped.