ASEEES 2012: Russian Lexicology & Lexical Borrowing Roundtable Proposal

[Artemi Romanov]

ASEEES 2012: Russian Lexicology & Lexical Borrowing Roundtable Proposal
Dear SEELANGERs,
I would like to propose a Russian Lexicology & Lexical Borrowing Roundtable for 2012 ASEEES convention in New Orleans. I am looking for interested participants for the roundtable.  Please contact me off-list (Artemi.Romanov at colorado.edu) if you are interested in contributing to the roundtable.
Russian Lexicology & Lexical Borrowing Roundtable
For centuries Russia has been torn between two opposing trends: should she turn for inspiration to the West, and borrow Western words and concepts, forms of government, literature, and art, or should she look into the mirror of her own Slavic culture, based on Slavic linguistic roots, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian folklore, Russian literature and art?
There is no language in the world which is completely free from the influences of other languages since there are no people who, while creating and using a language, live completely isolated and apart. The social character of human speech and the historical features which determine the development of society inevitably lead to the phenomenon of borrowing words of one language by another. Lexical items are more often borrowed from a higher status language into a lower status one. Many loanwords fill a conceptual gap, but many do not.  Some forms of language contact affect only a particular segment of a speech community. Consequently, change may be manifested only in particular dialects, jargons, or registers.
The panel will focus on the discussion of recent trends in lexical borrowing in the Russian language, socio-linguistic factors that contribute to lexical borrowing, connections between lexical borrowing and language policy issues, integration of loan-words, and linguistic constraints of borrowing.
Please let me know by December 15 if you are interested in participating.

Sincerely,

Artemi Romanov
Associate Professor of Russian Studies
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages & Literatures
University of Colorado at Boulder
Artemi.Romanov at colorado.edu

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