guest Editors of ELoPE Vol. 19, No. 2: Mark richard LaUErSdorf and Monika KaVaLIr Journal Editors: Smiljana KoMar and Mojca KrEVEL University of Ljubljana Press Založba Univerze v Ljubljani Ljubljana, 2022 Vol. 19, No. 2 (2022) nglish anguage verseas erspectives and nquiries ENgLISh IN CENtraL EUroPE CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica, Ljubljana 811.111:81(4-191.2)(082) ENgLISh in Central Europe / guest editors Mark richard Lauersdorf and Monika Kavalir. - Ljubljana : University of Ljubljana Press = Založba Univerze, 2022. - (ELoPE : English language overseas perspectives and enquiries, ISSN 1581-8918 ; vol. 19, no. 2) ISBN 978-961-297-053-6 CoBISS.SI-Id 135183875 3 Contents Part I: INtrodUCtIoN Mark Richard Lauersdorf, Monika Kavalir 9 Introduction: English in Central Europe Part II: SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Nada Šabec 15 The role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia Vloga angleščine pri oblikovanju slovenske jezikovne krajine Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko 35 “The first Language in My head”: Student attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene »Prvi jezik v moji glavi«: stališča študentov do angleščine kot drugega in slovenščine kot prvega jezika Adela Böhmerová 63 historical aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English Zgodovinski vidiki zgodnjih stikov Slovakov z angleščino Martin Ološtiak, Soňa Rešovská 87 Neologisms of English origin in Present-day Slovak Neologizmi angleškega izvora v sodobni slovaščini Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn 109 The role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing discourse Vloga angleščine v oblikovanju poljskega marketinškega diskurza 5 Markéta Malá, Gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků 127 reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice academic Writing glagoli poročanja v začetniškem znanstvenem pisanju v angleščini kot J1 in J2  Eva Maria Luef, Pia Resnik, Tomáš Gráf 149 diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods Širjenje fonetičnih novosti znotraj fonoloških soseščin Jiřina Dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná 169 The role of English Literature in teaching Englishes: Moving towards Educating transcultural Communicators Vloga angleške literature pri poučevanju angleščin: premik proti izobraževanju transkulturnih komunikatorjev Part III: VarIa Fatmah Al Thobaiti 197 Portraying the Male abuser in Contemporary Women’s fiction Lik nasilneža v prozi sodobnih pisateljic Anja Mrak 211 Liminal femininity: Magical realism and the abject in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks Liminalna ženskost: magični realizem in abjektno v romanu Louise Erdrich Sledi LISt of CoNtrIBUtorS 225 7SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Part I Introduction 9 Mark Richard Lauersdorf University of Kentucky, USa Monika Kavalir University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Introduction: English in Central Europe1 With its international prominence in today’s world, English is in contact (to greater or lesser degrees) with most languages and societies around the globe. The results of that contact vary from location to location, depending on both the linguistic and the socio-cultural factors of the particular local context. This special issue of ELOPE focuses on the presence of English specifically in Central Europe and its interaction with the languages and societies of the region. English began its global spread in the 18th century with the rise of the British Empire and its colonization practices, where English was the language of power and opportunity in the colonies. The rise of English to the status of a truly international language began after the Second World War, in part due to the influence of the economically powerful USa. But what is perhaps surprising is how quickly English has spread around the world to date (McKenzie 2010, 1). The majority of English speakers today learned English as a second language – the ratio of speakers of English as a first language to non-first language speakers is estimated to be 1:3 (Peterson 2020, xvi). In continental Europe, English is now widely used in private and public life and education, and is therefore, in many locations, more an additional language than a foreign language (Phillipson 2007, 124). Contributing to this status are the facts that: English has become the most widely taught foreign language in the world (Peterson 2020, 131); it is currently the most widely used language on the internet (Jeon, Jullien, and Klimenko 2021); and it is highly dominant in the music and entertainment industry (hjarvard 2004, 86). In Europe, pupils start learning English at school mostly between the ages of 6 and 12 (Peterson 2020, 4). English was the most widely spoken foreign language in 19 of the 25 EU countries surveyed in 2012 that did not have it as an official language. as many as 67% of Europeans considered English to be one of the most useful languages, and 79% saw English as the most useful language for their children’s future (European Commission 2012, 5–7, 21, 69, 80). This special issue seeks to provide a series of vignettes of the role, status, and influence of English in Central Europe. We readily acknowledge that Central Europe is a concept that is difficult to pin down geographically, socially, and politically, since it is in some cases defined by historical roots (despite differences in 20th-century social and political developments; see, for example, Becker and Wheatley 2021; Caragliu 2022), while other conceptualizations build specifically on more recent commonalities of experience (in the last 50–100 years; see, for example, Berend 1996; Labov 2019). at the same time the concept persists precisely because 1 We gratefully acknowledge the textual and bibliographical contributions of Ina Poteko to paragraphs two and three of this introduction. INtrodUCtIoN 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 9-11(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.9-11 10 Mark richard Lauersdorf, Monika Kavalir Introduction: English in Central Europe it is a useful one, in that it captures an area with some common socio-cultural traditions that in many ways create a recognizable milieu and a feeling of familiarity. The contributions to this special issue on “English in Central Europe” span the present- day geo-political space of Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, the Czech republic, and austria; and they cover a disciplinary span from phonetics to discourse, and from linguistic landscapes to experimental psycholinguistics. What is common across this geographical and disciplinary variety and scope is a focus on the effects of English in contact with local languages and in the context of local cultures. This special issue brings together research that includes the history of English language use in local contexts; variation and change in linguistic structures of local languages induced by contact with English; English in competition with local languages across societal domains of use; societal reception of the use of English in local contexts; as well as acquisition of English conditioned by local L1s, which can perhaps be seen as resulting in contact varieties of English developed through contact with local languages. The papers are organized according to the language(s) with which English is in contact. Nada Šabec guides us through the linguistic landscape of Maribor, Slovenia, drawing our attention to the increasing presence of English in Slovene public signage and the potential legal and societal ramifications of that phenomenon. Monika Kavalir and Ina Poteko report on a large-scale survey of the attitudes and practices of Ljubljana university students toward the significant presence of English across many facets of their daily lives in Slovenia. adela Böhmerová assembles a diverse array of scattered historical information to weave together the story of the earliest contacts of Slovak speakers with English, taking us from Slovakia to the United States and back again. Martin ološtiak and Soňa rešovská then demonstrate some of the present-day outcomes of English-Slovak language contact, giving a thorough linguistic description of the borrowed lexicon of English words in the most recent 30 years of Slovak language development and change. The effects of English on present-day Polish are the focus of Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn’s examination of dominant English discourse practices in the societally influential world of capitalist marketing. Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, and Kateřina Vašků then turn to the field of economics to investigate the acquisition of international English academic writing conventions in the use of reporting verbs by Czech university students. Continuing in the field of language acquisition, Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, and tomáš gráf deploy psycholinguistic experimentation to study the learning of new phonetic detail in English by Czech and austrian university students. and last, but certainly not least, Jiřina dunková and Veronika Quinn Novotná offer a plaidoyer for a more extensive and inclusive view of the world of literary production in English in the teaching of English as a Second Language in the Czech republic (and beyond). The range and variety of the work in this volume provide strong evidence of the significant presence of English in the social and linguistic fabric of the Central European region, and also evidence of the vibrant community of researchers investigating that presence of English in the region. We are grateful to the authors for their dedicated work on the articles that appear in this special issue, and we would like to thank the following scholars who contributed to the volume by reviewing manuscripts: Kozma ahačič, Jason Blake, gregor Chudoba, Biljana Čubrović, Markus giger, adam Jaworski, helen Kelly-holmes, Vesna Lazović, Christina Mark Richard Lauersdorf, Monika Kavalir Introduction: English in Central Europe 11Mark richard Lauersdorf, Monika Kavalir Introduction: English in Central Europe INtrodUCtIoN Manouilidou, robert McKenzie, Sonja Novak Lukanovič, antonio ostarić, Mariana Pascual, Jasna Potočnik topler, tvrtko Prćić, Veronika rot gabrovec, anna ruskan, Eva Sicherl, Sonja Starc, andrej Stopar, Nada Šabec, Branka Živković, as well as one reviewer who chose to remain anonymous. We are also grateful to the editors of ELOPE for accepting our special issue proposal for publication as volume 19.2, and especially to the technical editor, andrej Stopar, for his patience, diligence, and expertise in shepherding the issue through the production process. References Becker, Peter, and Natasha Wheatley. 2021. Remaking Central Europe: The League of Nations and the Former Habsburg Lands. oxford: oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198854685.001 .0001. Berend, Ivan. 1996. Central and Eastern Europe, 1944–1993: Detour from the Periphery to the Periphery. New York: Cambridge University Press.  Caragliu, andrea. 2022. “Better together: Untapped Potentials in Central Europe.” Papers in Regional Science 101 (5): 1051–85. European Commission. 2012. Europeans and Their Languages: Report. accessed december 19, 2022. https://op .europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/f551bd64-8615-4781-9be1-c592217dad83. hjarvard, Stig. 2004. “The globalization of Language. how the Media Contribute to the Spread of English and the Emergence of Medialects.” Nordicom Review 25 (1–2): 75–98. Jeon, doh-Shin, Bruno Jullien, and Mikhail Klimenko. 2021. “Language, Internet and Platform Competition.” Journal of International Economics 131: 103439–67. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2021.103439. Labov, Jessie. 2019. Transatlantic Central Europe: Contesting Geography and Redefining Culture Beyond the Nation. Budapest: Central European University Press. McKenzie, robert M. 2010. The Social Psychology of English as a Global Language: Attitudes, Awareness and Identity in the Japanese Context. Berlin: Springer. Peterson, Elizabeth. 2020. Making Sense of “Bad English”: An Introduction to Language Attitudes and Ideologies. London: routledge. Phillipson, robert. 2007. “English, No Longer a foreign Language in Europe?” In International Handbook of English Language Teaching, edited by Jim Cummins and Chris davison, 123–36. New York: Springer. 13SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Part II Special Issue Articles 15SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Nada Šabec University of Maribor, Slovenia 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 15-33(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.15-33 UdC: 811.163.6’272:811.111 The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia aBStraCt The issue of visible written language used in Slovene public spaces is addressed. This is rapidly changing under the influence of English as the lingua franca of today. The names of stores, restaurants and other establishments as well as graffiti and other signs in Maribor, Slovenia’s second largest city, are examined. four different locations are compared: the old city center, the city’s largest shopping mall, the drava riverfront, and the student campus. differences and similarities with regard to the ratio of different languages used are discussed in light of Slovenia’s language policy. They are also analysed from the linguistic perspective, focusing on lexical, syntactic and orthographic aspects. It is suggested that Slovenia should invest more effort both in the actual implementation of its language policy and language planning so as to guarantee that Slovene retains its status as official and state language not only de jure but also de facto. Keywords: Slovene linguistic landscape, language policy, English as a lingua franca Vloga angleščine pri oblikovanju slovenske jezikovne krajine PoVZEtEK Prispevek obravnava problematiko javnih napisov v slovenskem prostoru. Predvsem zaradi vpliva angleščine kot lingue france ta v času globalizacije doživlja hitre spremembe. raziskava se osredinja na imena trgovin, restavracij in drugih lokalov ter na druge vrste napisov, kot so oglasi in grafiti. Primerja štiri lokacije v Mariboru, drugem največjem slovenskem mestu: staro mestno jedro, največje nakupovalno središče, gostinski/turistični predel ob dravi in študentski kampus. Primerja jih v smislu prisotnosti različnih jezikov na napisih in jih predstavi s perspektive jezikovne politike. dodatno jih analizira z lingvističnega vidika (besedje, skladnja, pisava). rezultati raziskave kažejo na nujnost dobro premišljene jezikovne politike in jezikovnega načrtovanja, da bi slovenščina v Sloveniji ohranila status uradnega in državnega jezika ne le na papirju, ampak tudi v praksi. Ključne besede: slovenska jezikovna krajina, jezikovna politika, angleščina kot lingua franca 16 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia 1 Introduction Linguistic landscape is a term referring to a multifaceted phenomenon encompassing all types of “the visible display of written language in public space” (gorter 2013, 190). It can be studied from various perspectives and by various disciplines, from anthropology to applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. It first attracted the attention of researchers a little over forty years ago, when it was perceived as particularly suitable for the study of societal multilingualism, revealing contact and conflict between different languages as well as their hierarchy and variation. The most quoted definition of linguistic landscape in the literature is perhaps that of Landry and Bourhis (1997, 25): The language of public road signs, advertising billboards, street names, place names, commercial shops signs, and public signs on government buildings combines to form the linguistic landscape of a given territory, region, or urban agglomeration. Since then, new types of signs have emerged due to recent technological developments such as electronic interactive touchscreens, scrolling banners, flat-panel displays, signs and slogans on stationary and mobile vehicles, etc. These as well as graffiti should be considered if we are to obtain a maximally comprehensive picture of the linguistic landscape of a particular public space. globalization trends over the past two decades have spurred a rapidly growing interest in linguistic landscape studies (e.g., Macgregor 2003; Backhaus 2006; Ben-rafael et al. 2006; Cenoz and gorter 2006; agnihotri and McCormick 2010; Barni and Vedovelli 2012; Manan et al. 2015; dressler 2015; Moriarty 2014; Nikolaou 2017; amos 2017; Shang and guo, 2017; Karam et al. 2020; Bolton, Botha and Lee 2020). globalization as a cultural, economic and political force, often associated with “americanization”, can be observed in its significant impact on all areas of life, in particular through popular culture and consumerism as a preferred lifestyle. Increased mobility, both physical and virtual, is therefore a noteworthy factor, while linguistically, globalization means the spread of English throughout the world as a universal means of communication. It is thus not only multilingual regions and societies that constitute fertile ground for linguistic landscape studies, but also formerly monolingual ones that now see the presence of English alongside the local language as, in the words of Kingsley Bolton (2012, 1), “through globalization, we now inhabit a familiar universe in most destinations throughout the world, ...”. With English as a lingua franca, it is now indeed all but impossible to find a country where national language(s) do not co-exist with English at least to some extent in certain areas/domains. The linguistic worlds of the young in particular are becoming increasingly diverse. Central European countries, Slovenia included, are no exception in this respect, which is why the aim of this article is to provide an insight into the way English contributes to the shaping of Slovenia’s linguistic landscape. More specifically, both the sociolinguistic and the linguistic aspects of this phenomena will be addressed, the former in light of Slovenia’s language policy and the latter in terms of Slovene-English language contact as manifested on various linguistic levels from vocabulary to spelling and syntax. 17SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia 2 Slovene-English Language Contact through Time The first contact of Slovene with English can be traced back to several centuries ago, when a few individual words were imported into Slovene via german as an intermediary language. Words such as keks and šport from the English cake and sport were fully adapted to Slovene both phonologically and morphologically. It was only in the second half of the 20th century, however, that the influence of English began to be truly felt in Slovenia. That was the period when the former Yugoslavia (and Slovenia as one of its republics), following the end of WWII, increasingly turned to the West, partly for political reasons, partly due to its fascination with the technologically advanced, and therefore modern nature of Western society. This fascination and pragmatism also manifested itself in the introduction of English as a foreign language to be taught in elementary schools, which contributed to the systematic spread of English. greater mobility in business and personal spheres and the ever-increasing influence of media and entertainment (in particular american) in the ensuing years only served to increase the influence of English. however, what was crucial in terms of the role English now plays in Slovenia was the emergence of the internet. over the last few decades this has contributed to the status English enjoys today, that of an unprecedented lingua franca. No other language exerts such an influence on other languages, Slovene included, as English. 3 Linguistic Landscape in Light of Slovenia’s Language Policy In as far as language policy legally regulates language use in the public domain, the degree to which it shapes the linguistic landscape of a given country may vary; in Slovenia, language policy plays an important role, although it does not always correspond to actual language practice. Thus the Slovene Constitution1 proclaims Slovene to be the official and state language on the national level (with Italian and hungarian also being official languages in the municipalities with residents belonging to Italian and hungarian ethnic minorities). furthermore, the act on Public Usage of Slovenian Language (aPUSL),2 passed by Parliament in 2004, provides specific rules with regard to Slovene being prioritized in the public domain in Slovenia and as the language by which Slovenia is represented in international contacts. and yet despite the specific instructions on the implementation of aPUSL and the penalties for violating it, such violations seem to occur on a fairly regular basis. In order to understand the protective nature of the state’s legislation toward Slovene, it is necessary to take a brief look into the past. Throughout their history, Slovenes lived under foreign rule, such as the austro-hungarian Monarchy, where the use of Slovene was restricted to domestic contexts. Even in the former Yugoslavia, the Slovenes’ ambitions to have their own state were denied, and while Slovene was one of the three official languages along with Macedonian and Serbo-Croatian, it was in reality the latter that played a more important role in certain domains and functioned as a lingua franca on the national level. In addition, due to their geographical position, Slovenes were exposed to very strong and direct german, Italian, and hungarian linguistic influences. as a result, the Slovenes regarded Slovene as a major distinguishing factor 1 See https://www.us-rs.si/media/constitution.pdf (accessed 25 November 2022). 2 See https://www.eui.eu/Projects/InternationalartheritageLaw/documents/NationalLegislation/Slovenia/ lawonpublicusageofslovenianlanguage.pdf (accessed November 25, 2022). 18 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia and the core of their ethnic identity. “In the absence of other sources of political power – i.e., state administrative mechanisms–language and culture functioned as a frame of reference for national unification” (Nećak Lük 2017, 58). This unification and statehood finally happened in 1991, when Slovenia became an independent state and, in 2004, also a member of the EU. It was expected that the elevated status of Slovene, which even became one of the official languages in the EU, would enhance its prestige as far as the language practice and language attitudes of Slovene speakers are concerned. however, paradoxically, just the opposite is often the case. It seems that the absence of the previously very real sense of endangerment has contributed to the development of a somewhat looser attitude toward language, and that a sort of self-complacency both on the part of many speakers and institutions has set in. It could perhaps be argued that, to some, language awareness no longer matters. This is in marked contrast with some situations in which Slovenes fought passionately for their language (e.g., during WWII, when it was forbidden to speak Slovene in the occupied Slovene territories; in 1989, when the prospect of a court trial against Slovene dissidents in Serbo-Croatian triggered mass demonstrations and the eventual disintegration of the former Yugoslavia) as well as with the present-day struggle of the Slovene minority in austria for bilingual signs and schools. Not to mention that even descendants of Slovene immigrants in North america express frequent regret that they did not have the chance to learn the mother tongue of their ancestors (Šabec 2021). It is thus only in recent decades in Slovenia that the discrepancy between the formal status of Slovene and its actual use in the public domain has appeared, and that Slovene is frequently found to be losing ground to English in certain domains as a more prestigious language (cf. Shaligram and Connor-Linton 2006, 294). 4 Methodology Linguistic landscape studies may be confined to various specific geographic areas, from small ones such as just one street or neighborhood to bigger ones such as towns or cities and even whole countries. In my case, I decided to focus on Maribor, the second largest city in Slovenia, which, I believe, is similar and comparable to other urban environments in Slovenia. The study will complement earlier studies conducted in the capital city of Ljubljana (e.g., Schlick 2003; gliha Komac et al. 2016; ahačič et al. 2017; Snoj 2018). The fieldwork for this study was carried out in the period from January until May 2022 in four locations in Maribor: the old city center; Maribor’s largest shopping mall, Europark; Lent, the entertainment section of the drava riverfront; and the main student campus. The objective was to obtain as comprehensive a picture of Maribor’s linguistic landscape as possible, which is why I was interested in establishing whether these locations differ in terms of the language(s) used in public space and if so, in what way and why. While the emphasis will at all times remain on the presence of English and its impact on Slovene, other languages in as far as they appear will also be included in the study. I thus set out to do the following: • Examine names according to the types of stores, restaurants, services and the like to see whether the choice of language for a name is associated with a particular type of establishment. 19SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia • Compare the names of the establishments located in the old city (gosposka Street, Poštna Street, part of Slovenska Street, and part of Partizanska Street, and The Main Square, Castle Square, Liberty Square, and Slomšek Square, all interconnected and forming an integrated urban center) with those in the Europark shopping mall, which in a way constitutes a modern mini-city in itself. These two areas are an ideal location for fieldwork, as they are both pedestrianized and extremely busy, with masses of people passing through them on a daily basis. • Examine various signs such as advertisements and slogans in the old city center to determine the ratio of monolingual vs. bilingual vs. multilingual ones, paying special attention to specific languages and their discrete or hybrid/mixed forms. • Examine the linguistic landscape of the Lent riverfront and the student campus. In addition to names and signs, I intend to focus on graffiti, as I expect to find more of those in these two locations (the former being a popular entertainment area, the latter populated by young people). Individual streets and squares were visited and re-checked several times during the period of data collection. all of the signs and names were photographed and handwritten notes about each of them were made. The language, type and size of fonts and the order in which the languages appeared were all recorded. however, the information relating to fonts and the order are not included in all cases, as this would exceed the scope of the paper. The data are presented numerically and some typical examples listed for illustration purposes, while the more interesting cases are singled out and commented on in detail in the Linguistic analysis section. 5 Data Presentation and Analysis 5.1 data Presentation The results of my study of the linguistic landscape in Maribor are very telling. of 204 names of stores and other establishments in the old city center, only 41% are Slovene (e.g., Zlata nitka), 24% are English (e.g., M’Queen BoUtIQUE), 21% are partly in English and partly in Slovene (e.g., Metražne tkanine Elegance), and 14% in some other language (e.g., Papagayo) or are coinages that do not belong to any specific language (e.g., Q Qulto; aJdaS). The comparison with Europark, the largest shopping mall in Maribor, shows an even greater ratio of English names (of 85 names altogether only 23% are Slovene, 45% are English or partly in English and partly in some other language, and 32% in other languages or artificial coinages), likely because of the greater concentration of stores as opposed to the more varied structure of establishments and businesses in the old city center. The situation on Lent, the drava riverfront, and on the main student campus is slightly different for reasons which will be explained later. as for possible association of establishment types with the choice of a particular language, English features most frequently in the names of clothing stores and restaurants, cafes and bars (e.g., Boutique trend; CLC City Light Cafe). restaurants, cafes and bars as well as 20 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia clothing stores, various services from car washes to shoe repairs, and tourist attractions, are also among those whose names are most often combinations of Slovene or some other language and English (e.g., Steakhouse rožmarin Vinoteka; Le Vino Wine Bar; okay najbolj pisana trgovina; Wash Car avtopralnica; Čevljarstvo Lady M; Mariborski grad–Maribor Castle). Italian, for instance, is a frequent element in the names of restaurants and clothing stores (e.g., La Pizza al taglio; Intimissimi). german, on the other hand, is very rare despite the proximity of austria (e.g., dravska kolesarska pot v Sloveniji–drauradweg in Slowenien– drava cycling route in Slovenia; incidentally, I found a single german sign Wir Sind Jones in the Jones outlet store in old city center). There is one business type that is surprisingly very multilingual, hair salons (e.g., MIČ StYLINg with the word “hairdresser” in ten other languages), a business which we do not expect to be frequented by many foreign visitors. another example of multilingualism with signs in even more languages is the Pikapolonica ice cream kiosk in Liberty Square (see figure 1). The same is true of the souvenir store Zakladi Slovenije. Examples of languages other than Slovene or English are also Baščaršija and fudo, both restaurants, the former offering Bosnian cuisine, the latter very diverse international dishes and named after a Japanese Buddhist deity. The names of drugstores are also almost all foreign (e.g., LUSh fresh handmade Cosmetics, Müller, Bottega Verde). as for shoe and luggage stores, it is interesting that of the seven located in Europark, six have English names (e.g., office Shoes; Bags & More) and the seventh one is a hybrid form consisting of the greek word gEo, the letter “X” signifying technology and the Italian word rESPIra. all three shoe stores in the old city center, on the other hand, have Slovene names (e.g otroška obutev Pika; Čevlji Janez; Čevlji Kisilak). So what about Slovene? Exclusively Slovene names are typical of pharmacies, newsagents, and watch and jewellery stores (e.g., Zlatarna Šeligo; trafika 3dVa; Zlatar Šeligo), and florists (e.g., Mestna cvetličarna; rožica–Cvetličarna). Bakeries are also typically Slovene (e.g., hlebčkova mala pekarna; Pekarna Miška), and only two, both in the old city center, have foreign words added to indicate the type of business (e.g., hiša kruha–pekarna–bakery–bäckerei–panificio). While this is but a sample of all the stores included in my study, the few examples presented show how Slovene names are mostly associated with small businesses and services aimed at the local population, and English ones primarily with franchises of multinational companies, hospitality services (see figure 2), and tourist attractions. This partly accounts for the greater ratio of English names in Europark, as small local businesses find it hard to compete with large multinational companies and/or cannot afford to rent the premises there. Moreover, the number of multinational companies doing business in Slovenia is on the increase, another palpable sign of globalization, and understandably, they have English or other foreign names (e.g., Peek and Cloppenburg; Zara). More controversial, in that they are in conflict with the country’s language policy regulations, are those with completely English names even though they are owned and run by Slovenes (e.g., atelier dh fashion, which stands for david hojnik’s fashion boutique). With no Slovene whatsoever I can only assume that the owner is hoping to reach out to international consumers, while taking local ones for granted. Many others do the same, putting tourists and international visitors ahead of the local population and, not so infrequently, displaying their non-standard linguistic formulations (e.g., the name of a baby clothes store alladin, or a sign that reads “don’t push 21SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia the door!!! They are electric”). an interesting example of that is the sign “hot wine” instead of “mulled wine”, possibly based on the analogy with “hot chocolate”. In either case such names represent an obvious infringement of the rules specified in articles 17 and 18 of the act on Public Usage of Slovenian Language cited below. Article 17 (designation of legal persons governed by private law) (1) a business name or the name of legal persons governed by private law and natural persons engaged in business activities shall be entered in Slovenian in the company register or other official evidence, if it exists, in accordance with sector-specific laws. (2) a translation of a business name or the name into a foreign language may be used in the territory of the republic of Slovenia only together with the business name or the name in Slovenian. The translation shall not be printed in a graphically more prominent manner than the business name or the name in Slovenian. Article 18 (1) Establishments, shops, catering establishments and other establishments, or other business spaces that are not designated by the registered name or the business name of a legal person governed by private law or the name and surname of a natural person, shall be designated in Slovenian. FIGURE 1. Multilingual sign on an ice-cream kiosk in the old city centre. While this is but a sample of all the stores included in my study, the few examples presented show how Slovene names are mostly associated with small businesses and services aimed at the local population, and English ones primarily with franchises of multinational companies, hospitality services (see Figure 2), and tourist attractions. This partly accounts for the greater ratio of English names in Europark, as small local businesses find it hard to compete with large multinational companies and/or cannot afford to rent the premises there. FIGURE 2. Entrance to a craft beer store in the old city centre. figure 1. Multilingual sign on an ice-cream kiosk in the old city center. FIGURE 1. Multilingual sign on an ice-cream kiosk in the old city centre. While this is but a sample of all the stores included in my study, the few examples presented show how Slovene names are mostly associated with small businesses and services aimed at the local population, and English ones primarily with franchises of multinational companies, hospitality services (see Figure 2), and tourist attractions. This partly accounts for the greater ratio of English names in Europark, as small local businesses find it hard to compete with large multinational companies and/or cannot afford to rent the premises there. FIGURE 2. En rance to a craft beer store in the old city centre. figure 2. Entrance to a craft beer sto e in the old city center. 22 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia (2) Irrespective of the provision from the previous paragraph, the name of an establishment, shop, catering establishment and other establishment, or other business space may contain words in a foreign language if these words are an internationally used expression for an individual type of business space, if they include a foreign trademark or service mark or in the case of abbreviations known to the majority of consumers due to habitual use, if they are a component part of the overall image. Not only are English names frequently more prominent than Slovene ones, as in the case of the much bigger “SoCKS” above the much smaller “nogavice” in square brackets (see figure 3), as if the latter was an explanation for those not sophisticated enough to understand English), more often than not there are no Slovene equivalents. Some blame for this must also be attributed to the very ambiguous wording of article 18, which refers to “foreign trademark[s] or service mark[s] or in the case of abbreviations known to the majority of consumers due to habitual use”. This allows for a very arbitrary interpretation and all but prevents the Ministry of Culture, which is, according to article 26, in charge of monitoring the implementation of the rules, to take action in case of violations (Zelnik 2017).3 a partial answer to the question as to why the formulation of article 18 is so vague lies in article 34 tEfU (treaty on the functioning of the European Union),4 which relates to intra-EU imports and prohibits “quantitative restrictions and all measures having equivalent effect” between Member States. I believe, however, that the part that reads “Quantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect shall be prohibited between Member States” is given too much weight by the Slovene authorities. By interpreting it extremely narrowly, they are leaving the decisions on language use more or less up to market forces and commercial interests. Instead, I believe that they should take a more proactive stance, protecting Slovene with more self-confidence and, above all, with the national interest in mind. The situation is even more alarming in the case of other signs, especially advertisements. out of 129 signs in the old city center only 28% are Slovene, 18% are English and the remaining 54%, while in Slovene, also contain English words and phrases. Lent and the student campus are comparable in this respect. The language of advertisements is regulated in article 23 of aPUSL, stating that: 3 There was at least one case in which the court ordered the removal of such signs, as reported by Snoj (2018, 52). 4 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/tXt/?uri=celex%3a12012E%2ftXt (accessed November 25, 2022). habitual use”. This allows for a very arbitrary interpretation and all but prevents the Ministry of Culture, which is, according to Article 26, in charge of monitoring the implementation of the rules, to take action in case of violations (Zelnik 2017).3 FIGURE 3. A sign for a store selling socks in Maribor’s biggest shopping mall, Europark. A partial answer to the question as to why the formulation of Article 18 is so vague lies in Article 34 TEFU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union),4 which relates to intra- EU imports and prohibits “quantitative restrictions and all measures having equivalent effect” between Member States. I believe, however, that the part that reads “Quantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect shall be prohibited between Member States” is given too much weight by the Slovene authorities. By interpreting it extremely narrowly, they are leaving the decisions on language use more or less up to market forces and commercial interests. Instead, I believe that they should take a more proactive stance, protecting Slovene with more self-confidence and, above all, with the national interest in mind. The situation is even more alarming in the case of other signs, especially advertisements. Out of 129 signs in the old city centre only 28% are Slovene, 18% are English and the remaining 54%, while in Slovene, also contain English words and phrases. Lent and the student campus are comparable in this respect. The language of advertisements is regulated in Article 23 of APUSL, stating that: (1) Public advertising of products and services, a presentation of an activity, and other forms of public information in the territory of the Republic of Slovenia shall be in Slovenian, in accordance with the sector-specific law. If advertising is in particular 3 There was at least one case in which the court ordered the removal of such signs, as reported by Snoj (2018, 52). 4 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A12012E%2FTXT (accessed November 25, 2022). figure 3. a sign for a store selling socks in Maribor’s biggest shopping mall, Europark. 23SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia (1) Public advertising of products and services, a presentation of an activity, and other forms of public information in the territory of the republic of Slovenia shall be in Slovenian, in accordance with the sector-specific law. If advertising is in particular targeting foreign nationals, foreign languages may also be used, however, variants in foreign languages shall not be more prominent than the Slovenian one. In rare cases, this provision is actually observed (see figure 4), but in most it is almost brazenly violated (see figure 5). targeting foreign nationals, foreign languages may also be used, however, variants in foreign languages shall not be more prominent than the Slovenian one. In rare cases, this provision is actually observed (see Figure 4), but in most it is almost brazenly violated (see Figure 5). FIGURE 4. A sign for a restaurant in the old city centre, with Slovene being the more prominent language. FIGURE 5. A sign in the old city centre, with English as the dominant language. Slovenia is not an island and cannot, nor does it wish to, isolate itself. Being situated at the crossroads of Germanic, Romance and Slavic countries, Slovenes have always been in contact figure 5. a sign i the old city center, with English as the dominant language. targeting foreign nationals, f r ages may also be used, however, varia ts in foreign languages shall i nt t n t Slovenian one. In rare cases, this provision is act all served (see Figure 4), but in most it is almost brazenly violated (see Figure 5). FIGURE 4. A sign for a restaurant in the old city centre, with Slovene being the more prominent language. FIGURE 5. A sign in the old city centre, with English as the dominant language. Slovenia is not an island and cannot, nor does it wish to, isolate itself. Being situated at the crossroads of Germanic, Romance and Slavic countries, Slovenes have always been in contact figure 4. a sign for a restaurant in the old city center, with Slovene being the more prominent language. Slovenia is not an island and cannot, nor does it wish to, isolate itself. Being situated at the crossroads of germanic, romance and Slavic countries, Slovenes have always been in contact with other languages. Therefore, due to their geographical location as well as their historical position under foreign rule, Slovenes have always recognized the need to speak other languages in addition to their own. In addition, the act of Public Usage of Slovenian Language allows the usage of other languages when the provisions of international treaties are binding for the republic of Slovenia (article 1 of aPUSL).5 In all other areas, it promotes the use of Slovene as the official and state language. however, the discrepancy between this language policy and the actual state of affairs is far from negligible, and the attitudes of native 5 article 1 of aPUSL reads “The Slovenian language (hereinafter: Slovenian) is the official language of the republic of Slovenia. It is the language of oral and written communication in all spheres of public life in the republic of Slovenia, except when Italian and hungarian are official languages in accordance with the Constitution of Slovenia, and when the provisions of international treaties that are binding for the republic of Slovenia specifically allow also the usage of other languages.” 24 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia speakers of Slovene with regard to this issue differ. Some believe that the language will take care of itself and does not need any regulation, while others are concerned about its survival. The results of an online survey “Languages in Slovenia and the Slovenian Language abroad” carried out in 2017 by ahačič et al. (2017), for instance, shows that as many as 71% of the 3,267 respondents agree with the statement that the Slovene linguistic landscape should embrace the use of Slovene in the names of various institutions, stores, restaurants, public signs and the like. Concern for the status of Slovene is also frequently expressed through other sources, such as tV roundtable discussions and letters to the editors by readers complaining about “corrupt” language. Unhappiness over a condescending attitude toward Slovene, for instance, is reported in a recent magazine article (glücks 2022), highlighting multinational corporations and platforms such as apple and Netflix. These companies were singled out for not offering services in Slovene on their interfaces or Slovene subtitles, in contrast to, say, Samsung with a Slovene interface on their electronic devices, or Microsoft, which offers a Slovene version of Windows. That said, we cannot ignore the rapidly growing impact of americanization and, with it, English as a pervasive language in all spheres of our lives. This undoubtedly has implications for personal, social and cultural identity as well, especially among the young, and will be addressed in more detail in the conclusion. first, however, I will analyse selected names, signs, advertisements and graffiti from the linguistic perspective. 5.2 Linguistic analysis Compared to the 129 signs found in the old city center (only 18% in English and 28% in Slovene, but as many as 54% in English, partly English or in other foreign languages), the numbers on Lent and on the student campus, which are smaller in size than the other areas analysed in this study, are considerably lower. There are also differences in the type of signs. While the old city center is a very diverse area with all kinds of establishments, Lent is fairly homogenous in that it consists primarily of bars, restaurants, and cafes, the only exception being a few tourist and cultural attractions. In comparison, the student campus has the least signs, most of them being posters for various events. Both on Lent and the student campus, we also encounter graffiti. The analysis focuses on the language of the signs, which may be Slovene, English, in some other foreign language or a combination of more than one language. In the case of those containing Slovene and English elements, I will try to determine whether they are in fact bilingual (following the legislation fully as far as the prominence of Slovene is concerned or only to some extent) or in a mixed/hybrid code. furthermore, I will examine them from lexical, syntactic and orthographic perspectives. 5.2.1 Slovene vs. Bilingual vs. Mixed Signs The majority of signs in the old city center are found on store windows and doors, in front of cafes, restaurants and other food and drink catering businesses, but also on other establishments such as clubs, associations, institutes, government offices and the like. Some of the more interesting ones will be commented on in more detail below. 25SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia among the English only advertisements, for instance, we find: Locally roasted Coffee; We serve Costa coffee; fish & Chips old School–New School; Beer from local & other microbreweries–Slovene Wines Cocktails & Snacks; Sticky fingers; green & safe–Safe travels sponsored by World travel and tourism Council; My opportunity–My style; Europcar – moving your way; time to shop–an inspiring lifestyle universe full of carefully selected products for home body soul; Shop tax free; Western Union Money transfer; dress your phone; and, of course, the official tourist slogan I feel sLoVEnia, with the by now well- established wordplay on “love” as part of the name of the country. The slogan appears as #ifeel sLoVEnia on a display advertising Maribor as a tourist destination. In general, hashtags and web addresses are becoming an increasingly common addition to the signs on posters and store windows (e.g., #visitmaribor; www.sonchek.com, the latter with the English spelling “ch” so as to allow for the correct pronunciation of the Slovene word sonček). a notable exception is the C&a store, which displays its website address in both languages. In English this reads “c-a.com”, while in Slovene it is “spletna trgovina na c-a.com” (i.e., “online shop at c-a.com”). two English signs stand out, one for its incorrect spelling of alladin (correct: aladdin), and the other due to its origin. It is seen above the now defunct movie theatre Udarnik and reads “Please be honest now”. The slogan was created by heiko Beck Kos, a german visual artist, in 2012, when Maribor was the European Capital of Culture. The sign remains there, prompting us to take a fresh look at life and break our everyday routines. from the viewpoint of language choice, though, it underscores the omnipresence of English (a german artist, working in a Slovene setting, and the sign in English). Yet another sign on a large ginger heart-shaped souvenir in the window of the Zakladi Slovenije store is special in that it reads “greetings from Slovenija”. here, Slovenija is spelled in its original form rather than in English, giving the souvenir a more authentic or, for international visitors not familiar with Slovenia, perhaps even exotic touch. a sign that is somewhat ambiguous is hahaha Second hand shop, where at first sight we recognize hahaha as a Slovene interjection indicating laughter. This is the most likely interpretation, although both “ha” and “hah” may be used in English as well. a sign that is almost entirely in English is that on the Nana Bistro Kavarna Lounge Bar (with the Slovene name Nanin bistro next to it), where everything from “ice or hot latte to go, pancakes to go, lunch to go, hot chocolate to go, bowl to go, smoothie to go, eggs to go, sandwich to go” is in English, the only exception being “preostala ponudba” (“other food and drinks”) with the Qr code beside it. Incidentally, the term “coffee to go” recurs so often in the Slovene hospitality business that it has become almost a permanent feature. The alternative terms kava to go, kava za zraven and kava za na pot are used as well, but considerably less often. Moving on to bilingual signs complying with aSUPL, I should mention tourist signs with the purpose of providing directions as well as the descriptions of tourist attractions. all are very systematic and transparent, and they are all bilingual, and in some cases even trilingual, with german either in second or third place (see figures 6 and 7). 26 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia another clear example of adhering to aSUPL is the Maribor hotel, with two parallel columns listing the hotel’s services/facilities, the first one in Slovene, the second in English: M hotel–hotel, prjazen dom–friendly home, spa–spa, sprostitev–relaxation, savna–sauna, razgled–view, udobje–comfort, kužkom prijazni–pet friendly, kavica–coffee, klepet–chat, lokalna vina–local wine, pijača–drinks. There are some bilingual signs that strike me as unusual at first, as I expected them to be in Slovene only. I have in mind the following two: Javni medobčinski stanovanjski sklad Maribor–Maribor Public Intermunicipal housing fund Maribor and Skupnost občin Slovenije–association of Municipalities and towns of Slovenia. While it is difficult to find a valid reason for English in the first case, the second one is justified since the association is a member of the Network of associations of Local authorities of South-East Europe. Equally puzzling as the housing fund sign, yet in a different way, is the sign Slovensko panevropsko gibanje–regijski odbor Maribor. Since this is related to the Maribor regional Council of the Paneuropean Movement, I would expect the sign to be bilingual. The same can be said about the advertisement for the European Youth olympics festival, which will take place in Maribor in the summer of 2023. Except for the acronym EYof 2023, the rest of the text is in Slovene only (ENo MESto–ENo SrCE. olimpijski festival evropske mladine 2023). and the same is also true of some traffic-related signs such as odvoz s pajkom, where it would be useful for foreign visitors to know that they are parking in a tow-away zone. Parking in general is a problem both for locals and for international visitors, which is why it is strange that the instructions on the EasyPark parking meters are given only in Slovene. Yet another very practical sign which would likely be appreciated in English by non-Slovene speakers is vleci/rini on the doors, indicating “pull/push”. pancakes to go, lunch to go, hot chocolate to go, bowl to go, smoothie to go, eggs to go, sandwich to go” is in English, the only exception being “preostala ponudba” (“other food and drinks”) with the QR code beside it. Incidentally, the term “coffee to go” recurs so often in the Slovene hospitality business that it has become almost a permanent feature. The alternative terms kava to go, kava za zraven and kava za na pot are used as well, but considerably less often. Moving on to bilingual signs complying with ASUPL, I should mention tourist signs with the purpose of providing directions as well as the descriptions of tourist attractions. All are very systematic and transparent, and they are all bilingual, and in some cases even trilingual, with German either in second or third place (see Figures 6 and 7). FIGURE 6. Bilingual traffic signs in the old city centre. figure 6. Bilingual traffic signs in the old city center. FIGURE 7. A trilingual sign on Lent, with Slovene as the prominent language, followed by German and English. Another clear example of adhering to ASUPL is the Maribor Hotel, with two parallel columns listing the hotel’s services/facilities, the first one in Slovene, the second in English: M hotel– hotel, prjazen dom–friendly home, spa–spa, sprostitev–relaxation, savna–sauna, razgled–view, udobje–comfort, kužkom prijazni–pet friendly, kavica–coffee, klepet–chat, lokalna vina–local wine, pijača–drinks. There are some bilingual signs that strike me as unusual at first, as I expected them to be in Slovene only. I h ve in mind the following two: Javni medobčinski stanovanjski sklad Maribor–Maribor Public Intermunicipal Housing Fund Maribor and Skupnost občin Slovenije– Association of Municipalities and Towns of Slovenia. While it is difficult to find a valid reason for English in the first case, the second one is justified since the association is a member of the Network of Associations of Local Authorities of South-East Europe. Equally puzzling as the Housing Fund sign, yet in a different way, is the sign Slovensko panevropsko gibanje–Regijski odbor Maribor. Since this is related to the Maribor Regional Council of the Paneuropean Movement, I would expect the sign to be bilingual. The same can be said about the advertisement for the European Youth Olympics Festival, which will take place in Maribor in the summer of 2023. Except for the acronym EYOF 2023, the rest of the text is in Slovene only (ENO MESTO–ENO SRCE. Olimpijski festival evropske mladine 2023). And the same is also true of some traffic-related signs such as Odvoz s pajkom, where it would be useful for foreign visitors to know that they are parking in a tow-away zone. Parking in general is a problem both for locals and for international visitors, which is why it is strange that the instructions on the EasyPark parking meters are given only in Slovene. Yet another very practical sign which would likely be appreciated in English by non-Slovene speakers is vleci/rini on the doors, indicating “pull/push”. figure 7. a trilingual sign on Lent, with Slovene as the prominent language, followed by german and E glish. 27SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia other Slovene-only signs primarily advertise merchandise and discounts (e.g., Nova kolekcja korekcijskih očal; Popusti od -20% do - 50% na vse). The fact that a store is a franchise of a multinational company is no obstacle to such an approach, as illustrated by YStyle store (Vem, kaj si ženske želijo. Želijo biti lepe.) or by QVape Shop (Za življenje brez tobaka). There are four signs advertising food, three of them on kiosks and one on a grill and bar restaurant (okusi tradicije–originalne mariborske lepinje; Sveže solate–topli in hladni napitki; to je ta občutek–uživajmo v hrani skupaj–kebab–krompirček–hot dog–hamburger; okusno iz domačih krajev–Zdravo poreklo.) Some events, such as opera Night, are also advertised only in Slovene, as are some general notices, even though they are EU- related (e.g., glavni trg Maribor; Evropska unija–kohezijski sklad. Naložba v vašo prihodnost. Naložbo sta sofinancirala Evropska unija in republika Slovenija. Ureditev Koroške ceste z glavnim trgom). The majority of signs, however, are in a mixed/hybrid code,6 with some words in Slovene and others in English. The size and type of fonts often differ, with English more prominent in many cases. Some examples include: • Ngon–okus Vietnama–Modern Vietnamese cuisine • gurmanski sendviči–Pizze & Burgerji–Pulled Pork–hrustljave Perutničke–Spare ribs–Krompirček • Sladoledi–Smoothie & frapeji–tudi za vegetarijance in vegane • david’s Burgers–dovoljeno št. oseb 40, vstop z masko. dragi gostje za vstop v lokal david’s Burgers se oglasite na okencu takeaway • fotografija na kavi–naredi selfi pri nas ali uporabi sliko iz svojega telefona–Prestige cafe • takšni kot ga imate radi–Bacon Cheese Burger. Zdaj še boljši • Malinovec je spet IN • LoKaLKa–local foods and goods–Coffee to go–KaVa Za ZraVEN–tukaj se kuha kava iz lokalne pražarne–est. 2016–toVarNa KaVE–SPECIaLtY CoffEE– Butično–lokalno–dobro (see figure 8) • doBrINa zadruga za razvoj trajnostne lokalne oskrbe–grocery store with local products (feel the local taste)–Vez med podeželjem in mestom–food from the neighborhood • objekt varuje ProtECt • objekt varuje fIt varovanje 6 We cannot speak of code switching as there is no reason to believe that either the authors of the signs or the target audience are bilingual. in Slovene, describing the purpose and the atmosphere of these premises and the logo of the Maribor student club KŠM (standing for “Klub študentov Maribor”). FIGURE 8. Part of a storefront in the old city centre. A lack of consistency in the mentioned examples is obvious. With no attempt to provide equivalent words in both languages, it is hard to see exactly which customers the advertisers are targeting. Are they assuming that Slovenes will understand the English words? Very likely, even though that assumption may be true with regard to younger people but not for the elderly, at least not for all. And what about English-speaking foreigners? How are they supposed to decipher the Slovene part of the text? The pictures, graphic design and different distribution of words may make the sign a little less confusing, but the message as a whole remains incoherent. This brings us to the student campus, where English is very much present on posters for various events and the like (84%). Some examples include: - Outdoor fitness & Fun - BEST uvodni sestanek - HOCUS POCUS–I need coffee to FOCUS - Coffee & FRIENDS the best BLEND. The number of English or English-influenced names is almost non-existent, though, if I disregard the cafeteria, whose name Piano restavracija follows an English syntactic pattern. All other names and signs relating to institutions (faculties, student union, sports facilities, etc.) are in Slovene. The number of English, partly English and other foreign names of establishments is relatively low on Lent, too, especially compared to the old city centre (32% vs. 72%). A possible reason could be the long tradition of the main restaurants, coffee shops and bars on figure 8. Part of a storefront in the old city center. 28 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia The last two examples contain mixed names of security firms. an interesting case is PISarNa, with a smaller sign that reads “coffee–connect–create” underneath, followed by two paragraphs in Slovene, describing the purpose and the atmosphere of these premises and the logo of the Maribor student club KŠM (standing for “Klub študentov Maribor”). a lack of consistency in the mentioned examples is obvious. With no attempt to provide equivalent words in both languages, it is hard to see exactly which customers the advertisers are targeting. are they assuming that Slovenes will understand the English words? Very likely, even though that assumption may be true with regard to younger people but not for the elderly, at least not for all. and what about English-speaking foreigners? how are they supposed to decipher the Slovene part of the text? The pictures, graphic design and different distribution of words may make the sign a little less confusing, but the message as a whole remains incoherent. This brings us to the student campus, where English is very much present on posters for various events and the like (84%). Some examples include: • outdoor fitness & fun • BESt uvodni sestanek • hoCUS PoCUS–I need coffee to foCUS • Coffee & frIENdS the best BLENd The number of English or English-influenced names is almost non-existent, though, if I disregard the cafeteria, whose name Piano restavracija follows an English syntactic pattern. all other names and signs relating to institutions (faculties, student union, sports facilities, etc.) are in Slovene. The number of English, partly English and other foreign names of establishments is relatively low on Lent, too, especially compared to the old city center (32% vs. 72%). a possible reason could be the long tradition of the main restaurants, coffee Lent, whereas in th old city centre small establishments frequently go out of business and are replaced by new ones. Hence, the greater degree of vulnerability and variation in the names with w ich they try to attract new customers. There is no lack of English or partly English advertisements (e.g Rooster Bar: Weekend Vibes) and other signs (73%) on Lent, however. Moreover, both locations lend themselves to graffiti. These, however, are not only in English but are rather diverse on Lent, ranging from Slovene to English, German, French and Croatian, while they are predominantly in English on the student campus. Examples of some Slovene and English graffiti include: Jogurt ali joga? Torek ali torta?; Bodimno realisti–Zahtevajmo nemogoče; Nothing compares to Havana; Egotrip4EVER; Green Power; Chemtrails; Joke 42; MB Dream and the one seen in Figure 9. FIGURE 9. Graffiti on Lent. 5.2.2 Lexical Aspects Several phenomena can be observed in vocabulary, from introducing completely new words/yet unestablished calques into Slovene to replacing Slovene words with English ones and, finally, to adapting English lexical items phonologically and morphologically in accordance with the rules of Slovene grammar. An interesting example of the first is the advertisement for “a long table” event (Ne zamudi prvega “long table” dogodka v Mariboru 9. junija 2022), where it is not clear what precisely is meant by this phrase. It is only by reading the accompanying text and by Googling it that I learned that it was going to be an exclusive “Velvet Dinner” (“Žametna večerja”) for 150 guests, organized for the first time by Maribor Tourist Board, Factumevent, an events company (Factumevent being another word that looks English in appearance, but is in fact a combination of the Latin Factum and the English event), and several catering and biotechnical schools. The event was planned to take place at the foot of the wine-growing Kalvarija Hill, which stands close to the edge of the city centre. Local chefs from Michelin-starred restaurants would be figure 9. graffiti on Lent. 29SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia shops and bars on Lent, whereas in the old city center small establishments frequently go out of business and are replaced by new ones. hence, the greater degree of vulnerability and variation in the names with which they try to attract new customers. There is no lack of English or partly English advertisements (e.g rooster Bar: Weekend Vibes) and other signs (73%) on Lent, however. Moreover, both locations lend themselves to graffiti. These, however, are not only in English but are rather diverse on Lent, ranging from Slovene to English, german, french and Croatian, while they are predominantly in English on the student campus. Examples of some Slovene and English graffiti include: Jogurt ali joga? torek ali torta?; Bodimno realisti–Zahtevajmo nemogoče; Nothing compares to havana; Egotrip4EVEr; green Power; Chemtrails; Joke 42; MB dream and the one seen in figure 9. 5.2.2 Lexical aspects Several phenomena can be observed in vocabulary, from introducing completely new words/ yet unestablished calques into Slovene to replacing Slovene words with English ones and, finally, to adapting English lexical items phonologically and morphologically in accordance with the rules of Slovene grammar. an interesting example of the first is the advertisement for “a long table” event (Ne zamudi prvega “long table” dogodka v Mariboru 9. junija 2022), where it is not clear what precisely is meant by this phrase. It is only by reading the accompanying text and by googling it that I learned that it was going to be an exclusive “Velvet dinner” (“Žametna večerja”) for 150 guests, organized for the first time by Maribor tourist Board, factumevent, an events company (factumevent being another word that looks English in appearance, but is in fact a combination of the Latin Factum and the English event), and several catering and biotechnical schools. The event was planned to take place at the foot of the wine-growing Kalvarija hill, which stands close to the edge of the city center. Local chefs from Michelin- starred restaurants would be serving gourmet dishes made from local produce, assisted by hospitality students. The name “Velvet” came from the name of the famous vintage wine sort Velvety Black, originating from Maribor’s famed vine, said to be the oldest in the world (some 450 years). The organizers apparently expected potential guests to already know what “long table” would mean in this context, or to search for more information themselves, as they offered no explanation at all as to the nature of the event, perhaps counting on it becoming a tradition and thus self-explanatory in the future. two English words “since” and “est.” (for “established”), commonly used with brand names, have almost entirely displaced their Slovene equivalent (že) od. I found one example of the latter with a jewellery store (Zlatarnica 14k–brezčasni nakit že od 1952) and numerous examples with “since” and “est.”: Meranovo since 1922; Lastovka est. 1976; and even est. 2017 PLaC za kavo in več, a coffee place (PLaC being a colloquial expression for a place/square) established as recently as 2017, thus hardly invoking a sense of tradition. Something similar is beginning to happen in the case of “for sale” or “for rent” signs, with English being increasingly used, either together with the Slovene equivalent or on its own (e.g., Prodamo–for sale e-nepremicnine@nkbm.si). as mentioned above, in some cases English words may undergo phonological and morphological adaptation and are, after a certain period of time, no longer perceived as 30 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia foreign. This is often the case when there are lexical gaps in Slovene which need to be filled.7 The sign “rentaj nas”, seen on a stationary vehicle, is not such a case, however, as there is a perfectly good word for this in Slovene (najemi nas). despite that, the loanword rentaj, due to its adaptation, behaves as any other Slovene word and is becoming quite common (partly due to its seemingly more sophisticated English image, and possibly also to its association with “rent a car”, a term that has all but displaced najem avtomobila). two other signs are examples of loanblends, i.e., words consisting of two parts, one of which is of native and the other of foreign origin. In “Postani datamilijonar z neomejenimi paketi MIo”, the English noun “data” is used instead of the Slovene adjective podatkovni. In “Praktično brezplačno Za dobro počutje uporabi mestno kolo mbajk.” the word mbajk is a blend of “Maribor” and the English word “bike”. “M” is retained and “bike” pronounced and spelled in accordance with Slovene rules. The advertisement is for bicycles that can be rented to cycle around the city. The name was obviously created with a wide audience in mind, especially the young (with their affinity for slang) and also for tourists who should, regardless of the Slovene spelling, be able to recognize the origin/meaning of the word. There are a few other cases of blending. Beautique consists of beauty + boutique and is in fact an example of wordplay, while INdUSINg d.o.o. industrijski inženiring originates from Industrial + engineering. Words ending in -ing such as inženiring, lizing (alternatively spelled as leasing), consulting and the like are the result of morphological blending based on the English model and are now quite common in Slovene (Sicherl and Žele 2018). Still, forms such as the above mentioned INdUSINg or doMINg for an architectural bureau still sound rather unusual. finally, I should mention the sign fIt ŠIQ po vegansko. Novo. This is an odd combination of the English fIt and an artificial form ŠIQ, known as “chic” in English and as šik in colloquial Slovene. The spelling is indeed unusual due to the Slovene letter “Š” in combination with “Q”, which is not part of the Slovene alphabet. 5.2.3 Syntactic aspects The influence of English on syntax has become so widespread that many Slovene speakers no longer notice it. a prominent example is word order, where in Slovene common nouns as a rule precede proper nouns. Many names and signs in this study, however, follow the English pattern of putting proper nouns first (e.g., Pika Poka Žar; tijuana Plesni studio; Kamra nepremičnine instead of Žar Pika Poka, Plesni studio tijuana; Nepremičnine Kamra). It could be argued that such forms are easier to accept compared to English lexical items that stand out more due to their foreign appearance. In as far as the syntactic influence of English on Slovene is thus less salient than the lexical one, it may have more long-term implications for the structure of the Slovene language, i.e., a potential for language change. another sign connected to syntax or perhaps also to stylistics is a bilingual one, “Plačilo možno le z gotovino.–Payment only in cash.” here the influence is reversed, with Slovene 7 for more on the integration of English words into Slovene, see Šabec (2018). 31SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESNada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia influencing the English translation. Instead of “Payment only in cash” a native speaker of English would more likely express this with “Cash only.” further evidence of how English as a lingua franca is by no means immune against transfers from the mother tongue(s) of non- native speakers is the sign Čuvajnica na stolpu, which is translated as The guardroom on the tower instead of “The guardroom in the tower”. 5.2.4 orthographic aspects The orthographic influence of English is a very salient feature of written signs, both in the spelling of individual words and in the use of punctuation. to start with, we see that Slovene letters such as “k” and “ks” are frequently replaced by English “c” and “x” (e.g., aBC Capital, d.o.o.; Extra), and “č” by “ch” (e.g., Svet čaja Chai). We also encounter reduplication of “s” in signs such as Express izdelava ključev. another English feature, where Slovene speakers are expected to understand English, is the creative and/or playful use of letters and figures (e.g., all4kids; fresh 4 life). The ampersand sign has become an almost standard substitution for the Slovene conjunction in meaning “and” (e.g., Za vas pripravljamo burgerje, steake, bbq low & slow, solate, testenine in še več). The cited example contains other English words such as “low” and “slow”, the partly Slovenicized form steake for “steaks” as well as the “BBQ” abbreviation for “barbeque”. English abbreviations and acronyms such as “co.” are a fairly frequent occurrence. The influence of English can be observed in the use of punctuation as well. This is the case in the example CUt’N’go, with two apostrophes marking the ellipsis in the conjunction “and”. The orthographic influence, however, is not a one-directional phenomena. Some English translations are clearly marked by transfer from Slovene. one case in point, where Slovene punctation rules are incorrectly applied to English, is a partly bilingual sign on the through- the-wall book return box at the University Library. It reads: “Vračanje gradiva. Prosimo vse, da knjige v trezor vračate eno po eno.–Please, return the books through the slot one at a time.” The word “please” is followed by a comma, which is correct in Slovene, but not in English. The second case also involves the use of commas. The sign is related to CoVId-19 restrictions and states “Please keep your distance (1,5 m).” The comma is used instead of a decimal point in the number, again in accordance with Slovene punctuation rules. 6 Conclusion The findings presented here confirm the general impression about Slovene signs gradually disappearing, or at least taking a back seat compared to foreign signs on the streets of Maribor. The language primarily responsible for this change is English, which is playing a major role in shaping the linguistic landscape. Even though the present study is limited in scope, I believe that a similar situation is also prevalent in the rest of urban Slovenia. There is of course nothing wrong with the presence of English in Slovenia. In today’s era of globalization, English is indeed indispensable in international communication and we should encourage learning it at all levels. This, however, does not mean that we can neglect our own mother tongue. Just the opposite – the unchecked spread of English should be a cause for serious concern. In that sense there is a need not just for a well-considered language protection policy for Slovene as the state language, but also for stricter monitoring of its implementation 32 Nada Šabec The Role of English in Shaping the Linguistic Landscape in Slovenia in the public domain. Neglecting to do so could have a negative effect on Slovene speakers who, seeing the disarray with regard to the use of the language, may themselves start feeling confused and insecure, gradually losing proficiency in certain domains and ultimately resorting to mixing Slovene with English. It is therefore imperative to make sure that Slovene remains and continues developing as a fully-fledged language capable of complex forms of expression in all contexts and areas of life, including the arts, humanities and science. Left to chance, this unregulated situation, with English perceived by many as a more prestigious language, might, in the long run, lead to diglossia, with Slovene as a low variety and English as a high variety. Such a scenario is completely unacceptable, not just in terms of language vitality, but also from the viewpoint of identity. regardless of the fact that, for some, identity is local, for others, it is global, and for some, it is both, language remains an intrinsic part of our personal, social, cultural and ethnic identities. In that sense language contributes to our self-awareness and boosts our self-confidence, allowing us to work with members of other nations and speakers of other languages on an equal footing. as a matter of language policy and language planning (providing sufficient funding, among other things, for work on digital and other linguistic tools, from dictionaries to language corpora), we should therefore do everything to empower Slovene and to always put it first in the public domain. at the same time, we should encourage and support learning other languages: English as a lingua franca first, but also the languages of the neighbouring countries. 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What Shop Names reveal about Singapore’s Multilingualism.” International Journal of Multilingualism 14 (2): 183–201. https:// doi.org/10 .1080/14790718.2016.1218497. Sicherl, Eva, and andreja Žele. 2018. “Prekrivanke v slovenščini z vidika vpliva slovenskega jezika.” Jezik in slovstvo 63 (1): 75–88. Snoj, Marko. 2018. “Pogled na slovensko jezikovno krajino.” Slavia Centralis 11 (2): 49–56. Šabec, Nada. 2018. “The Integration of English Words in Slovene: orthographic aspects.” In V družbi z jezikom in gorami: zbornik ob jubileju Stanka Klinarja, edited by Eva Sicherl, 65–77. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba filozofske fakultete. —. 2021. Slovene Immigrants and Their Descendants in North America: Faces of Identity. Maribor: Univerzitetna založba. Zelnik, damijana, ed. 2017. Javna raba slovenščine. Ljubljana: državni svet republike Slovenije. https:// www .dlib.si/details/UrN:NBN:SI:doC-IYY9IUoY. 35SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko University of Ljubljana, Slovenia 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 35-61(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.35-61 UdC: 811.111’27:378(497.4) “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene aBStraCt With the global spread of English, young people are exposed to it while still acquiring their first language. as the impact of English in Slovenia is relatively under-researched, this study investigates how often and in what situations university students in Slovenia use English, and what attitudes they have to it compared to Slovene. The results are based on 365 respondents, all students of the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana, who filled out an online questionnaire. The results show that Slovene still dominates in everyday communication, but that English has become an essential skill which goes beyond the traditional function of a foreign language. In addition, many respondents already feel it to be an additional first language, with a sizable group reporting a preference for English as their intimate language. Keywords: English, foreign language, mother tongue, Slovene, sociolinguistics »Prvi jezik v moji glavi«: stališča študentov do angleščine kot drugega in slovenščine kot prvega jezika PoVZEtEK angleščina je danes vseprisotna, mladi pa se z njo srečujejo že med usvajanjem prvega jezika. Ker je vpliv angleščine v slovenskem prostoru relativno slabo raziskan, smo želeli pridobiti podatke o tem, kako pogosto in v katerih govornih položajih študenti v Sloveniji uporabljajo angleščino ter kakšen odnos imajo do nje v primerjavi s slovenščino. rezultati temeljijo na odgovorih 365 študentov filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani, ki so rešili spletni vprašalnik. rezultati kažejo, da slovenščina pri vsakdanji komunikaciji še vedno prevladuje, vendar pa je angleščina nepogrešljiva in v tem oziru že presega funkcijo le tujega jezika v tradicionalnem smislu. Mnogi anketiranci tudi čutijo, da jim je angleščina že nekakšen dodatni prvi jezik, pri čemer pomembno število poroča, da je angleščina celo njihov preferenčni intimni jezik. Ključne besede: angleščina, tuji jezik, materni jezik, slovenščina, sociolingvistika 36 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene 1 Introduction Learning foreign languages has traditionally been popular in Slovenia. This can be attributed to a combination of factors, such as economic interests and the fact that Slovene does not enable successful communication on an international level (Skela 2011, 117). Nevertheless, the situation today is different than at any other time in history as young Slovenes are in constant contact with English through the internet, Youtube, tV, music etc. even while they are still acquiring their first language, which makes their acquisition of English noticeably different from that of previous generations. Thus, it is not only the educational process that influences their English proficiency, but also their environment in the form of the media they consume (cf. Peterson 2020, 3). The pace of technological and societal change that has resulted in the increased presence of English in Slovenia is astounding, but despite some attempts there is a lack of research on the function English has among young people in Slovenia today and on the division of labour between English and Slovene in their everyday lives, as well as on the attitudes that the omnipresence of English engenders. This paper presents empirical data on the frequency and typical contexts of use for both languages among the student population at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana, the extent of code-switching, and the affective factors related to the choice between English and Slovene. following the literature review and methodology section, the results of a detailed survey are discussed comparing university students of English, university students of Slovene, and a group of university students who do not study either of these two languages as their major. The findings are summarized in the conclusion. 2 English in the World and in Slovenia In the 1980s, three researchers created similar models for World Englishes at around the same time: Mcarthur (1987), görlach (1988) and Kachru (1988). of these, Kachru’s model has remained the most influential in the global context (cf. Mesthrie and Bhatt 2008, 27–30; McKenzie 2010, 2; Peterson 2020, xxi). his model represents World Englishes within three concentric circles. The Inner Circle refers to native speakers of English in areas where English is the dominant language. It is surrounded by the outer Circle, which consists mainly of former British colonies where English has the status of a second language and where most speakers are bilingual. The final, Expanding Circle represents populations that are learning English as a foreign language. despite its frequent use, Kachru’s model has been problematized by many linguists (e.g., McKenzie 2010, 2–5; Pan et al. 2021, 2–3; Peterson 2020, xxiii, 13; Šabec 2014, 397). The main criticism is that it is too simplistic and does not reflect the reality on the ground. The criticism mainly concerns the outer and expanding circles. apart from the fact that the linguistic situation in post-colonial countries is much more complex than the one depicted, Kachru, in the late 1980s, did not foresee such a rapid increase in the use of English throughout the world as part of the expanding circle. related to the different socio-historical backgrounds that have led to the use of English in different parts of the world are the notions of English as a first, second, foreign and additional Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko 37SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene language. Within the fields of first and second language acquisition (fLa and SLa, respectively; Meisel (2011)), “first language” refers to what is traditionally termed the native language or mother tongue, and “second language” is equated with a foreign language, i.e., a language acquired later in life. Bilingual children, for instance, may learn two first languages, and become native speakers of both. In the field of World Englishes and post-colonial studies, however, the term second language is used for varieties of English in the outer Circle (i.e., post-colonial varieties) and the term foreign language is used to refer to English as learned by speakers in the Expanding Circle (e.g., Percillier 2016). Within this framework, speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL; belonging to Kachru’s outer Circle) are considered bilingual native speakers. Phillipson (2007) writes about the difficulty of applying the term foreign language to all contexts in the Expanding Circle equally in his aptly titled chapter “English, No Longer a foreign Language in Europe?”, but the question remains as to what the correct term would be. English as an additional language seems to be a possible candidate, but in the anglosphere this term is already in use for either English as a language of education for non-native speakers in an English-speaking environment (e.g., Leung 2016) or as an additional language of instruction in schools and universities outside the English-speaking world (e.g., Jessner and Cenoz 2007). In parallel, English is often referred to as a modern lingua franca, whereby it is primarily a means of successful communication between speakers who do not share the same first language; in this tradition, the question of the standard or correct use of English is set aside (Pan et al. 2021, 1; Peterson 2020, 131, 134).1 The need for a common language of communication has increased with the opening of the global space, and English is often the language of communication in large multinational companies, for instance (van Mulken and hendriks 2015, 404). Slovenia is a prime example of the rapid spread of English in the 20th and 21st centuries. The study of English Language and Literature at the University of Ljubljana dates back to 1920 (“oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko” 2019, 22), but the influence of English only really began to be felt after the Second World War (Šabec 2014, 399–400), with the introduction of English in some upper secondary schools in 1945 (Skela 2019, 13) and more widely in 1958 (Mežek 2009, 28–29). Its popularity grew in the 1960s, especially in the context of a general fascination with technology and the West (Šabec 2014, 399–400). for some, it was also a symbol of economic success and resistance to authority, as reported by Janez dular, former head of the Sector for Slovene Language in an interview with Mežek (2009, 29–30). By 1976, twice as many students in Slovenia were learning English as a foreign language compared to german, despite historical and geographical ties to the latter (Mežek 2009, 29–30). at that time, the need to fill lexical gaps also led to the gradual adoption of English expressions that were integrated into Slovene (Šabec 2014, 399–400). 1 Pisanski Peterlin (2013) found, however, that trainee translators at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana, felt “there was little room for deviations from native-speaker standards” in academic discourse even when the target was an international audience composed primarily of non-native speakers. 38 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene While children in Slovenia have been exposed to early English instruction in the form of extracurricular activities for several decades, English was officially moved from the fourth to the second year of primary school in 2016, so that children on average now start learning English at the age of 7. In the first year, at the age of 6, a foreign language is taught as an elective subject (Podpečan 2017, 3). English is generally considered the third most important school subject after Slovene and mathematics, and Slovene students are regularly externally assessed in English by the National Examinations Centre (rIC) in Years 6 and 9, with a foreign language (predominantly English)2 being a core part of the national secondary school- leaving exams. In addition, many university curricula include courses in English for Specific Purposes in the first two years of the study programme (Kalin golob et al. 2013, 399). English also has a strong presence outside the school environment. an interesting factor is the issue of dubbing vs subtitling of non-Slovene films and videos. In Slovenia, only content for very young children is dubbed. otherwise, subtitles dominate, but even these are not available from all providers. Netflix, a global streaming service, does not offer Slovene subtitles or dubbing, and apple does not have a Slovene menu option for the operating system on its devices. This means that if Slovenes want to participate in the global technology and entertainment industry, they often have to use English for purely practical reasons. These frequent encounters with English in Slovenia generally correspond to relatively high proficiency levels. according to a 2012 survey by the European Union, 92% of Slovenes claimed the ability to speak at least one language in addition to their first language. The languages they claimed they spoke well enough to have a conversation in were Croatian (61%), English (59%) and german (42%) (European Commission 2012a, 5–7, 21, 69, 80). In another EU survey from the same year, Slovenia ranked 5th out of 14 countries (behind Sweden, Malta, the Netherlands, and Estonia), with 25% of second-year secondary school students reporting their English skills to be at CEfr3 level B1 and 29% at CEfr level B2 (European Commission 2012b). Education first also included Slovenia in its 2018 English survey results.4 among the countries that participated, Slovenia performed very well, ranking 9th in the top group of “very high proficiency” (CEfr level B2) together with, in order of achievement, Sweden, the Netherlands, Singapore, Norway, denmark, South africa, Luxembourg, finland, germany, Belgium and austria (Education first 2018). The coexistence of Slovene and English has had a major impact on Slovene, and the ways in which the two languages mix have mainly been researched in an online context. Šabec (2009) writes about the so-called Sloglish in Slovene blogs. She focuses on numerous English lexical 2 a handful of schools still teach german as the first foreign language. In 2021, for example, national examinations in Year 6 included 20,750 students tested in English and 506 students tested in german as the first foreign language (državni izpitni center 2021). 3 The Common European framework of reference for Languages (CEfr; Council of Europe 2001) is an international standard for describing language ability on a six-point scale from a1 to C2; levels B1 and B2 holistically describe “independent users”. 4 The survey included countries with at least 400 test takers, but 92% of the respondents in this survey were under 40 with an average age of 26, so it can be assumed that the results were skewed in favour of the younger generations, who tend to have better language skills; the generational gap in English skills may be larger in some countries (including Slovenia) than in others. 39SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene items, code-switching, and influences of English syntax. Poteko’s (2020) analysis of titles of videos by Slovene Youtubers shows a similar pattern, with 24% of the analysed titles being written in a mixture of Slovene and English, and with frequent English lexical items, nominal phrases with English syntax, and intra-sentential code-switching.  3 Attitudes to English regardless of whether English is conceptualized as a foreign language or as a lingua franca, non-native speakers are supposed to use it as a means of communication. But language is more than that – it is also a way of expressing identity. People form their identities within society, and language is an important element in this process (Sung 2014, 95). attitudes to a language and to the speakers of a language are also formed in the context of the identity that an individual has within the group or society to which they belong (Pan et al. 2021, 2–3). When we talk to others, we adapt to them. The motivation to adapt comes from a desire to communicate effectively and efficiently and to be accepted in society (garrett 2010, 105–107). The fact that English has become an international language has also been influenced by positive attitudes to it and its variants (McKenzie 2010, 37). Baker (1992, 29) recognizes language attitudes as an umbrella term that encompasses at least eight different specific attitudes, including attitude to language variation, dialects and speech style; attitude to language groups, communities and minorities; attitude to the uses of a specific language; and attitude to language preference. a considerable number of studies on attitudes to English, World Englishes, and identity have been conducted in asia: on attitudes to Chinese English and identity among Chinese university students (Pan et al. 2021); on identity and use of English among university students in hong Kong (Sung 2014); on perceptions of English as an international language among university students in South Korea (Lee and Lee 2019), etc. In the Slovene context, Šabec (2009; 2011; 2014) has studied the susceptibility of Slovene and Slovenes to English influences through indirect contact. This is a consequence of globalization processes, increased mobility, and the internet. Šabec questions the role of Slovene today, how it is changing, and whether it is still important in terms of identity. for instance, when she examined the language of Slovene bloggers (Šabec 2009), she found that they used English to express their identity and affiliation with online groups. English is thus not only a means of communication, but also a way of showing belonging, in this case to online communities. The use of English has sparked controversy in Slovenia. In the past, Slovene has known threats to its very existence, mainly due to the territory being part of several multinational states in which speakers of Slovene were a minority (Kalin golob 1994, 30). Throughout history, Slovenes have had a strong aspiration for their own identity, and language has been at the heart of the community. however, in today’s era of multiculturalism and globalization, identity and how it is shaped and perceived is being transformed, and some people fear for the language (Perkon Kofol 2014, 7–8). following concerns about the threat posed by german (in the austrian-hungarian monarchy) and later by Serbo-Croatian (in Yugoslavia), fears arose among Slovene linguists in the early 1990s about the future of the Slovene language, 40 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene which was seen as existentially threatened by English (Kalin golob 1994). among other things, they were concerned about the multitude of foreign company names and foreign words in advertisements. Kalin golob (1994) catalogues a list of complaints by both linguists and the general public, about potential dangers, including that Slovene would be threatened if it could not perform all the functions that English could and if it borrowed too many English lexical items. although Slovene can hardly compete with English today in the production of video content and music, for instance, it is still the official language in the country and the dominant language for the majority of Slovene speakers in most situations, and therefore cannot be labelled endangered. gerenčer (2011) conducted a survey as part of her thesis work in 2010 on the attitudes of different age groups of Slovene speakers to English. The survey included a relatively small sample of 80 people from different age groups and with different levels of educational attainment. When asked whether they considered English to be more important than Slovene, Year 8 pupils and university students of English mostly answered yes (14 out of 20 in both groups), university students of other majors overwhelmingly responded no (16 out of 20), and adult learners were somewhere in between (9 yes and 11 no). generally, all four groups had positive attitudes to English, and all saw advantages to being able to speak it. all four groups identified English as (very) important, especially abroad, and in general they did not see English as a threat to Slovene. another survey was conducted in 2015 by a team from the Center for applied Linguistics (Washington, dC), the Institute for Ethnic Studies (Ljubljana), and the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana (Novak Lukanovič and Limon 2015). The survey was distributed to Slovene students with experience learning English. The aim of the survey was to learn about students’ experiences learning English in Slovenia and their attitudes to language diversity in Slovenia in general. The results of the survey have never been published and are made public for the first time in this article with the permission of the Slovene project leader, Sonja Novak Lukanovič.5 The survey was extensive and contained many open questions. only the parts most relevant to the present study are included here. The questionnaire was completed by 252 respondents, 206 of whom attended Slovene-language primary and secondary school and 163 of whom were at the time students at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana. In general, 70.2% started learning English in elementary school and 21.0% in preschool. They self-rated their performance as “very well” (the highest point on the scale) as follows: listening (89.7%), reading (85.3%), speaking (69.4%) and writing (63.9%). The results of the survey (table 1) showed that a proportion of students used both Slovene and English when communicating with their peers, while they did not do so when communicating with family members, indicating a generational trend in the use of English. The questionnaire also asked about the respondents’ attitudes to English and Slovene (table 2). 5 The data are available at the INdoC Library of the Institute for Ethnic Studies. 41SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene table 2. attitudes to English and Slovene (% of agreement) (Novak Lukanovič and Limon 2015). Agree/Agree somewhat Disagree/ Disagree somewhat Other/ No answer Some experts believe that there is too much emphasis on English. 33.7 41.6 24.7 Some experts believe the emphasis on English is harmful to other languages. 31.7 43.7 24.6 Some experts believe that emphasis on English is harmful to Slovene. 26.2 49.2 24.6 Some experts believe English is functioning as a lingua franca. 69.9 5.6 24.5 table 1. Language preferences according to interlocutor (%) (Novak Lukanovič and Limon 2015). Mostly Slovene Some Slovene and some English Slovene and another language Other/No answer With your family 77.8 / 6.3 15.9 With friends 43.7 15.5 25.4 15.4 With classmates and friends in college 53.2 15.5 15.9 15.4 one third of the students saw English as a threat to other languages to some extent, while a quarter saw it as a threat to Slovene. They discussed their opinions in their responses to open- ended questions, as shown in the following selected examples:6 • *Nonetheless, Slovenia is a country with a small population, and our language does not help us communicate internationally, which is why some people are forgetting the importance of knowing their mother tongue as a way of preserving their identity and culture.* • *We ourselves are endangering Slovene by allowing English to be used in situations where it is not needed. Lectures (except on English) should be in Slovene, if nothing else to develop our vocabulary.* • *English, as a lingua franca, is intruding into academic language and thus hindering the development of Slovene scientific terms. It is also taking over other areas of our lives.* While there have been some previous attempts at investigating the use of English among university students in Slovenia and their attitudes to the language, these studies have been 6 Questionnaire responses to open-ended questions are included for illustrative purposes; if they were submitted in English, they are quoted exactly as recorded in the questionnaire, and translated responses are marked with asterisks: *…* (all translations here and elsewhere in the article are by the authors). 42 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene few and far between, and the results have either not been published or were based on a very small sample. at the same time, this is a dynamic area where we can expect change to happen relatively rapidly, further influenced by the fast pace of technological development and the participation of Slovene youth in the global arena of social and other media. The research questions investigated in the present study relate to the extent English and Slovene are used among students at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana, what attitudes they express to the two languages, and how these features may differ depending on whether the students study English, Slovene or neither of these two languages. 4 Methodology following pre-testing and a focus group to pilot the questionnaire and get better insight into how the questions were understood by the respondents, data for the study were collected using an online questionnaire on the 1ka.arnes.si platform7 (to facilitate widespread distribution and inclusion of students from different study programmes) that was open in april and May 2022 and distributed primarily8 among students at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana. It contained 27 questions with altogether 72 items, organized into 10 sections. only the last question (How would you describe your attitude to English and Slovene?) was open-ended, while the other questions were multiple choice or used some type of Likert scale (generally a five-point or seven-point one). The questionnaire could be completed in either Slovene or English, and respondents were informed about the purpose as well as the voluntary and anonymous nature of the survey. The target population was students at the faculty of arts in the academic year 2021–2022 who were native speakers of Slovene, and in particular three subgroups: students of English; students of Slovene; and students studying neither English nor Slovene as their major, hereafter referred to as “students generally”. a total of 903 clicks were registered, with 468 respondents completing the questionnaire in full and 103 respondents completing it in part. of these, 409 were students of the faculty of arts and L1 speakers of Slovene, which represents approximately 10% of all students enrolled at the faculty of arts in this academic year, but 44 students who studied both English and Slovene or studied at the department of translation (where they are required to study both English and Slovene as well as a third language) were excluded from the analysis to ensure that there was no overlap between the three groups analysed. The analysis presented here is therefore based on a sample of 365 respondents and includes responses from individuals belonging to three specific subgroups: • Students generally (N = 124), of whom 88 (71%) were female students and 34 (27.4%) were male students, while two students (1.6%) chose “other”. They ranged in age between 19 and 36 years, with a mean of 22.89 years of age. Slightly more than 7 The questionnaire was developed independently by the authors, who were not, at the time of the study, familiar with the previous unpublished research by Sonja Novak Lukanovič and david Limon (2015) discussed above. 8 Since the link to the questionnaire was distributed using various channels, including social media, it was sometimes shared by participants with people outside the target group. 43SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene half of the respondents in this group were single subject students following one study programme, and a little less than half were double major students. Students from 18 different departments were represented, with the most coming from the department of history (44),9 from the department of romance Languages and Literatures and the department of art history (15 each), and from the department of Comparative Literature and Literary Theory and the department of Sociology (14 each). • Students of English (N = 130) comprised 108 (83.1%) female students, 17 (13.1%) male students and five (3.8%) students who identified as “other”. They ranged in age between 19 and 28 years, with a mean of 22.06 years of age. In this group, over 70% of respondents were double major students. • Students of Slovene (N = 111) included 93 (83.8%) female students and 18 (16.2%) male students. They ranged in age between 19 and 33 years, with a mean of 21.69 years of age. In this group, approximately 80% of the respondents were double major students. While the groups of students of English and students of Slovene were demographically closely comparable, the group of students generally included more male students and more single subject students. Where there are noticeable differences according to gender, this is reported in the results.10 The first part of the questionnaire included questions about when and how much students used English and Slovene in their daily lives, while the second part explored their attitudes to the two languages; the last part contained demographic questions (e.g., student status, year of study) that enabled us to determine whether a particular respondent belonged to a particular target group. The results presented in the rest of this paper are based on quantitative analysis of selected questions and on partial coding of responses to the open-ended question. analysis was performed using Excel (for descriptive statistics and coding of responses) and SPSS (for inferential statistics). 5 Use of English and Slovene Students in all three groups felt they had a good command of English, but there was considerable variation in the average holistic self-assessment (“how good is your English?”) on a scale of 0 (I do not speak it) to 5 (excellent). all students reported having at least some English skills, with one student of Slovene and one respondent in the group of students generally rating their English proficiency as poor (level 2 on the scale). The group of students of English rated themselves highest with a mean of 4.37, followed by the group of students generally with 4.05 and students of Slovene with 3.57. In response to a related question, 9 The figures for the individual departments include both single subject and double major students; a student doing a double major in history and sociology, for instance, counts towards both departments but is only included in the overall number (N = 124) once. 10 Some departments only offer single subject programmes, some only double major programmes, and some offer both options; aggregate comparisons of single subject and double major students are therefore not informative, because study programme is always a confounding factor and such differences also do not directly pertain to the research question. 44 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene students overwhelmingly agreed that their friends had good English skills: on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely true), students generally agreed the most (4.41), followed closely by students of Slovene (4.38), with students of English being the most critical (4.18). table 3. “In which language do you more often…?” (% of respondents). Commu- nicate in general Write Read Speak Listen Students generally Slovene 84.7 83.1 41.9 90.3 27.4 English 1.6 3.2 34.7 0.0 56.5 Equally 13.7 13.7 23.4 9.7 16.1 Students of English Slovene 66.9 40.0 10.0 70.8 20.8 English 8.5 37.7 76.2 5.4 60.0 Equally 24.6 22.3 13.8 23.8 19.2 Students of Slovene Slovene 94.6 97.3 79.3 97.3 53.2 English 2.7 0.9 7.2 0.9 27.0 Equally 2.7 1.8 13.5 1.8 19.8 table 3 shows what percentage of respondents in the three groups use which language more often for different types of language use in each group. The numbers in bold show the dominant language for each activity. While Slovene remains the dominant language across the board in all groups of students – all of whom are L1 speakers of Slovene – there is a marked difference in the group of students of English, where one third of the students claim to generally communicate in English at least half of the time. on the other hand, the two receptive modes of language use, listening and reading, are those in which the group of students studying neither English nor Slovene prefer English or use it equally at least half of the time, and even students of Slovene read and especially listen to English for a considerable amount of time. figure 1 shows the percentage of students who use English more often than Slovene for individual types of language use. In some cases, female students (from all three subgroups combined) reported a higher percentage of English dominance: 45 (15.6%) reported more often using English to write compared to seven (10.1%) male students, and 121 (41.9%) female students reported using English more often to read compared to 23 (33.3%) male students. as for specific activities involving different kinds of text types, figure 2 shows that all students, regardless of their study programme, almost exclusively watch videos, series, and films in English (88.3% among students of Slovene and 99.2% among the other two groups). across text types, English is used particularly often for receptive activities relating to general texts (e.g., watching films, listening to music). There is a considerable decline in use when the texts consumed are fairly specific (e.g., study materials, instruction manuals). once again it can be seen that English is rarely employed in productive language use and personal communication. 45SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene In some cases, there were noticeable gender differences: female students used English more often than male students to read subtitles (191 (66.1%) vs. 32 (46.4%)), read books (111 (38.4%) vs. 14 (20.3%)), write literary texts (89 (30.8%) vs. 10 (14.5%)), and read study materials (117 (40.5%) vs. 21 (30.4%)). Male students, on the other hand, used English more often than female students to read instruction manuals (28 (40.6%) vs. 93 (32.2%)). apart from watching videos, series, and films, the differences between the groups are fairly pronounced, with the general group of students mostly patterning between students of English and Slovene. The group of students studying neither English nor Slovene also reported often using English to write compared to seven (10.1%) male students, and 121 (41.9%) female students reported using English more often to read compared to 23 (33.3%) male students. TABLE 3. “In which language do you more often…?” (% of respondents) Communicate in general Write Read Speak Listen Students generally Slovene 84.7 83.1 41.9 90.3 27.4 English 1.6 3.2 34.7 0.0 56.5 Equally 13.7 13.7 23.4 9.7 16.1 Students of English Slovene 66.9 40.0 10.0 70.8 20.8 English 8.5 37.7 76.2 5.4 60.0 Equally 24.6 22.3 13.8 23.8 19.2 Students of Slovene Slovene 94.6 97.3 79.3 97.3 53.2 English 2.7 0.9 7.2 0.9 27.0 Equally 2.7 1.8 13.5 1.8 19.8 FIGURE 1. English dominance across language use by student category (% of respondents). As for specific activities involving different kinds of text types, Figure 2 shows that all students, regardless of their study programme, almost exclusively watch videos, series, and films in English (88.3% among students of Slovene and 99.2% a ong the other two groups). Acr ss text types, English is used particularly often for receptive activities relating to general texts (e.g., watching films, listening to music). There is a considerable decline in use when the texts consumed are fairly specific (e.g., study materials, instruction manuals). Once again it can be seen that English is rarely employed in productive language use and personal communication. In some cases, there were noticeable gender differences: female students used English more often than male students to read subtitles (191 (66.1%) vs. 32 (46.4%)), read books (111 (38.4%) vs. 14 (20.3%)), write literary texts (89 (30.8%) vs. 10 (14.5%)), and read study materials (117 (40.5%) vs. 21 (30.4%)). Male students, on the other hand, used English more often than female students to read instruction manuals (28 (40.6%) vs. 93 (32.2%)). 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 Communicate in general Write Read Speak Listen I more often... in English than in Slovene Students generally Students of English Students of Slovene figure 1. English dominance across language use by student category (% of respondents). FIGURE 2. English dominance across text types (% of respondents). Apart from watching videos, series, and films, the differences between the groups are fairly pronounced, with the general group of students mostly patterning between students of English and Slovene. The group of students studying neither English nor Slovene also reported predominant use of English (more than half of the time) when listening to music (84.7% vs. 94.6% among students of English and 63.1% among students of Slovene), reading texts on the internet (74.2% vs. 91.5% among students of English and 54.1% among students of Slovene) and when using subtitles (64.5% vs. 76.9% among students of English and 45.0% among students of Slovene). Students of English also frequently use English to read study materials (71.5%), read books (70.0%) and write literary texts (68.5%). In another part of the survey, the students again indicated their agreement with the statements on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true). All three groups agreed that they spent the most time looking at English content online (all three groups with a score above 4). Students of English agreed that they mostly read books in English (4.21) while agreement was lower for the other two groups (2.74 for students generally and 1.67 for students of Slovene). Students of Slovene (4.05) and students in the general group (3.5), but not students of English (1.91), agreed with the statement that they always chose a book written in Slovene if it was available in both languages. However, if the book was originally written in English, students of English (4.71) and students generally (3.48) expressed a stronger preference for the English original compared to students of Slovene (2.67). Code-switching was investigated separately. In the survey, we asked respondents to estimate how much English they use in various situations of language use in spoken and written communication with other Slovene speakers on a scale of 1 (none) to 7 (all the time). To help correct for the subjective nature of the self- assessment, the prompt in Table 4 was provided. TABLE 4. Prompt for use of English in code-switching. 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0 watch videos, series, films listen to music browse the web and read online content read subtitles read study materials read instruction manuals read books post on social media (FB, IG etc.) write literary texts (poetry, prose, essays etc.) write to my friends on social media (FB, IG etc.) or… talk to my friends in person English used more often than Slovene to... Students generally Students of English Students of Slovene figure 2. English dominance across text types (% of respondents). 46 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene predominant use of English (more than half of the time) when listening to music (84.7% vs. 94.6% among students of English and 63.1% among students of Slovene), reading texts on the internet (74.2% vs. 91.5% among students of English and 54.1% among students of Slovene) and when using subtitles (64.5% vs. 76.9% among students of English and 45.0% among students of Slovene). Students of English also frequently use English to read study materials (71.5%), read books (70.0%) and write literary texts (68.5%). In another part of the survey, the students again indicated their agreement with the statements on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true). all three groups agreed that they spent the most time looking at English content online (all three groups with a score above 4). Students of English agreed that they mostly read books in English (4.21) while agreement was lower for the other two groups (2.74 for students generally and 1.67 for students of Slovene). Students of Slovene (4.05) and students in the general group (3.5), but not students of English (1.91), agreed with the statement that they always chose a book written in Slovene if it was available in both languages. however, if the book was originally written in English, students of English (4.71) and students generally (3.48) expressed a stronger preference for the English original compared to students of Slovene (2.67). Code-switching was investigated separately. In the survey, we asked respondents to estimate how much English they use in various situations of language use in spoken and written communication with other Slovene speakers on a scale of 1 (none) to 7 (all the time). to help correct for the subjective nature of the self-assessment, the prompt in table 4 was provided. table 4. Prompt for use of English in code-switching. The next set of questions relates to the linguistic situations in which you communicate with speakers of Slovene. To illustrate, here are some examples of the use of English in these situations.  how much English do you generally use? None - Življenje je res bedno. Na splošno imam en tak čuden občutek. Večkrat se vprašam, kaj sploh je smisel.  Very little (up to 5%) - Življenje je res bedno. Na splošno imam en tak čuden občutek. Večkrat se vprašam, kaj sploh je point.  Little (up to 10%) - Life je res beden. Na splošno imam en tak čuden občutek. Večkrat se vprašam, kaj sploh je point.  Medium (10–25%) - Life je res beden. Overall imam en tak čuden občutek. Večkrat se vprašam, kaj sploh je point. Quite a lot (25–50%) - Life je res beden. Overall imam en tak čuden feeling. Večkrat se vprašam, what’s the point. A lot (50–75%) - Life sucks. Overall imam en tak weird feeling. Večkrat se vprašam, what’s the point. All the time - Life sucks. Overall I have this weird feeling. I often ask myself what’s the point. 47SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene When students who are L1 speakers of Slovene communicate with other L1 speakers of Slovene, they self-estimate that they use English expressions “very little” or “little” (levels 2–3 on the Likert scale). as can be seen in table 5, differences in the type of language situation tend to be more important than differences between the three groups of students. English is used the most when respondents communicate with their peers and it generally does not matter whether the texts they produce are spoken or written. Students of English use English expressions the most; the results suggest that in their social media messages at least a quarter of the text and possibly as much as half is in English. Students of Slovene use English expressions considerably less, and the general group of students studying neither English nor Slovene consistently pattern between the two groups, but generally closer to students of Slovene. table 5. Use of English in various situations of language use (on a scale of 1 = none to 7 = all the time). Students generally Students of English Students of Slovene M (Sd) M (Sd) M (Sd) talking to friends in person*** 3.69 (1.33) 4.45 (1.31) 3.23 (1.09) In text messages to friends*** 3.66 (1.50) 4.66 (1.41) 3.14 (1.18) In messages to friends on social media (fB, Ig etc.)*** 3.58 (1.52) 4.72 (1.38) 3.22 (1.27) talking to young people (15–30)*** 3.46 (1.24) 4.05 (1.28) 3.17 (1.15) In posts on social media (fB, Ig etc.)*** 3.19 (1.91) 4.47 (1.83) 2.84 (1.35) talking to adults (30–65) 2.50 (1.03) 2.74 (1.15) 2.19 (0.90) talking to children (up to 15) 2.33 (1.10) 2.50 (1.23) 2.19 (1.08) talking to parents in person 2.27 (1.00) 2.39 (1.06) 2.12 (0.87) In text messages to parents 1.94 (1.03) 2.08 (1.11) 1.66 (0.81) talking to grandparents in person 1.43 (0.68) 1.43 (0.66) 1.33 (0.59) talking to the elderly (65+) 1.40 (0.61) 1.50 (0.70) 1.29 (0.55) a one-way aNoVa was performed to establish whether the three groups of students differed significantly in their use of English in various situations of language use. The results revealed that there was a statistically highly significant difference (p < 0.001)11 in the mean use of English between at least two groups in five situations of language use, marked in the table with ***.12 When it comes to talking to friends in person (f(2, 362) = [29.05], η2 = 0.14), tukey’s hSd test for multiple comparisons found that the mean value was highly significantly different between students of English and students of Slovene (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.83, 1.59]) and between students of English and students generally (p < 0.001, 95% 11 abbreviations used in presenting statistical results: CI = confidence interval; d = Cohen’s d with hedges’ correction; df = degrees of freedom; f = f-value; M = mean; p = significance (2-tailed); Sd = standard deviation; t = t-value; η2 = eta-squared. 12 The results for talking to adults, text messages to parents and talking to the elderly also exhibit various levels of significance, but the effect sizes are small, which is why the data are not presented here in detail. 48 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene CI = [0.39, 1.13]), while the comparison between students of Slovene and students generally was weakly significant (p = 0.017, 95% CI = [-0.84, -0.07]). In text messages to friends (f(2, 362) = [38.31], η2 = 0.18), the mean value was likewise highly significantly different between students of English and students of Slovene (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [1.10, 1.94]) as well as between students of English and students generally (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.59, 1.41]), and the difference between students of Slovene and students generally was weakly significant (p = 0.012, 95% CI = [-0.94, -0.09]. a similar pattern was found with regard to messages to friends on social media (f(2, 357) = [38.22], η2 = 0.18), where both the difference between students of English and students of Slovene (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [1.07, 1.93]), and the difference between students of English and students generally (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.71, 1.57]) are highly significant, but the groups of students of Slovene and students generally do not exhibit statistically significant differences. The situation is paralleled when talking to young people (f(2, 361) = [16.45], η2 = 0.08), as only the difference between students of English and students of Slovene (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.51, 1.25]), and the difference between students of English and students generally (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.22, 0.97]) are highly significant. The same is true of posting on social media (f(2, 324) = [26.90], η2 = 0.14), with highly significant differences between students of English and students of Slovene (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [1.06, 2.19]), and between students of English and students generally (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.69, 1.85]). although not a prevailing pattern, it can be pointed out that among the 130 students of English, three respondents claim to always use English when talking to their friends in person, eight use exclusively English for text messages to friends and nine for messages to friends on social media, and as many as 17 use English all the time when posting on social media. In the group of students generally (N = 124), one student uses exclusively English to talk to friends in person, two students use English all the time to send text messages or social media messages to friends, and nine students use exclusively English in their posts on social media. Not all activities were relevant to all respondents, with a significant number reporting they did not post on social media, while some also indicated they did not have relevant experience talking to specific age groups. Some noticeable gender differences were observed across situations of language use. although talking to parents in person is something all students rarely do in English, female students (M = 2.35, Sd = 1.00) still do it significantly more often (t(116.98) = 2.75, p < 0.001, d = 0.98) than male students (M = 1.94, Sd = 0.86). female students also reportedly use more English when talking to young people (Mfemale = 3.65, Sd = 1.30; Mmale = 3.22, Sd = 1.08; t(119.33) = 2.84, p = 0.003, d = 1.26), talking to friends (Mfemale = 3.89, Sd = 1.35; Mmale = 3.43, Sd = 1.21; t(112.51) = 2.75, p = 0.004, d = 1.33), and when sending messages to friends on social media (Mfemale = 3.95, Sd = 1.54; Mmale = 3.46, Sd = 1.43; t(104.84) = 2.84, p = 0.007, d = 1.52). Sending text messages to friends, talking to adults, and posting on social media also exhibit moderately significant gender differences – in all cases, the female students report using more English than their male counterparts. 49SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene 6 Attitudes to English and Slovene When students were asked directly which language was closest to them (however they understood this), there were large differences among the three groups. In the general group, 85% chose Slovene, 11% chose English and the rest either could not decide or added another language. among students of English, 57% chose Slovene and 38% chose English, while among students of Slovene 96% chose Slovene and only 1% chose English. however, when a similar question was asked in the form of a statement (table 6), the responses were somewhat different: on a more nuanced scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true), respondents chose less extreme values and the overall picture is one in which the two languages share the students’ affection to a greater extent. table 6. Student attitudes to English and Slovene (% of agreement on a scale of 1 = not at all true to 5 = completely true). Students generally Students of English Students of Slovene 1–2 3 4–5 M (Sd) 1–2 3 4–5 M (Sd) 1–2 3 4–5 M (Sd) I interact with English a lot out of necessity, as there is not enough content available in Slovene.  16.1 16.9 66.9 3.80 (1.17) 17.7 26.9 54.6 3.57 (1.09) 14.4 36.0 49.5 3.48 (1.11) Slovene is closer to me than English. 13.7 20.2 66.1 3.82 (1.21) 30.8 36.2 33.1 3.08 (1.10) 5.4 9.9 84.7 4.49 (0.97) I often can’t think of a word in Slo- vene, so I prefer to use the English word. 28.2 22.6 49.2 3.34 (1.26) 8.5 21.5 70.0 3.97 (1.03) 42.3 37.8 18.9 2.65 (1.08) Some things can- not be said well enough in Slovene, so I prefer to use English. 35.5 22.6 41.9 3.08 (1.36) 20.0 20.8 59.2 3.58 (1.18) 58.6 21.6 19.8 2.41 (1.22) I find it easier to talk about intimate feelings, emotions and/or unpleasant topics in English. 47.6 16.1 36.3 2.78 (1.51) 21.5 13.8 64.6 3.83 (1.39) 72.1 15.3 12.6 1.94 (1.25) I find it easier to express myself in English than in Slovene. 44.4 26.6 29.0 2.79 (1.30) 15.4 25.4 59.2 3.71 (1.18) 68.5 18.9 12.6 2.10 (1.14) English sounds better than Slo- vene, so I often prefer to use it, even if I know how to say something in Slovene. 64.5 14.5 21.0 2.31 (1.35) 43.1 23.1 33.8 2.89 (1.30) 84.7 6.3 9.0 1.83 (1.02) We were especially interested in examining students who expressed high agreement (figure 3), corresponding to levels 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true). 50 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene While there is generally a high level of agreement on the practical necessity of using English, one in eight students of Slovene, two in three students of English and one in three students in the general group find it easier to express intimate emotions and/or discuss difficult topics in English than in Slovene, and even among students of Slovene 9% feel that English sounds better than Slovene. In addition to the responses in figure 3, students also indicated which language they used for introspective activities such as thinking, dreaming and talking to themselves. In all cases, English had an important presence: the lowest figure was 10% among students of Slovene who (also) dream in English, while the highest figures were recorded among students of English, one in four of whom reported talking to themselves exclusively in English and over 70% reported talking to themselves only or also in English (the corresponding figures were 28% for students of Slovene and 40% for the general group). among students generally, 40% reported thinking also or only in English, while the figure was 23% among students of Slovene and 80% among students of English. myself in English than in Slovene. 4. 4 6. 6 9. 0 (1.30 ) 5. 4 5. 4 9. 2 (1.18 ) 8. 5 8. 9 2. 6 (1.14 ) English sounds better than Slovene, so I often prefer to use it, even if I know how to say something in Slovene. 6 4. 5 1 4. 5 2 1. 0 2.31 (1.35 ) 4 3. 1 2 3. 1 3 3. 8 2.89 (1.30 ) 8 4. 7 6. 3 9. 0 1.83 (1.02 ) We were especially interested in examining students who expressed high agreement (Figure 3), corresponding to levels 4 and 5 on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true). While there is generally a high level of agreement on the practical necessity of using English, one in eight students of Slovene, two in three students of English and one in three students in the general group find it easier to express intimate emotions and/or discuss difficult topics in English than in Slovene, and even among students of Slovene 9% feel that English sounds better than Slovene. In addition to the responses in Figure 3, students also indicated which language they used for introspective activities such as thinking, dreaming and talking to themselves. In all cases, English had an important presence: the lowest figure was 10% among students of Slovene who (also) dream in English, while the highest figures were recorded among students of English, one in four of whom reported talking to themselves exclusively in English and over 70% reported talking to themselves only or also in English (the corresponding figures were 28% for students of Slovene and 40% for the general group). Among students generally, 40% reported thinking also or only in English, while the figure was 23% among students of Slovene and 80% among students of English. FIGURE 3. Agreement with attitudinal statements (% true or completely true). A one-way ANOVA was performed using Tukey’s HSD Test for multiple comparisons to establish whether the three groups of students differed significantly in their attitudes. With the exception of the statement “I interact 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 80.0 90.0 100.0 Slovene is closer to me than English. I interact with English a lot out of necessity, as there is not enough content available in Slovene. I often can't think of a word in Slovene, so I prefer to use the English word. Some things cannot be said well enough in Slovene, so I prefer to use English. I nd it easier to talk about intimate feelings, emotions and/or unpleasant topics in English. I nd it easier to express myself in English than in Slovene. English sounds better than Slovene, so I often prefer to use it, even if I know how to say something in Slovene. I agree that... Students of Slovene Students of English Students generally figure 3. agreement with attitudinal statements (% true or completely true). a one-way aNoVa was performed using tukey’s hSd test for multiple comparisons to establish whether the three groups of students differed significantly in their attitudes. With the exception of the statement “I interact with English a lot out of necessity”, all other statements yield significant differences between the three groups, as shown in table 7.13 When negative attitudes were explored, students of Slovene expressed their disapproval more strongly when it came to the Slovene proficiency of potential friends and partners, while both students of English and students in general would be more bothered if their friends or partners could not speak English. The use of English words in Slovene and devices that do 13 * = weak significance (p < 0.05); ** = moderate significance (p < 0.01); *** = high significance (p < 0.001) 51SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene table 7. Statistically significant differences in attitudes to English across groups (one-way aNoVa, tukey’s hSd).   F df η2 Group p CI I often can’t think of a word in Slovene, so I prefer to use the English word. 40.57 2, 361 0.18 Students of English vs. students generally*** < 0.001 0.30 0.96 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 0.97 1.66 Students of Slovene vs. students generally*** < 0.001 -1.03 -0.34 English sounds better than Slovene, so I often prefer to use it, even if I know how to say something in Slovene. 22.21 2, 362 0.1 Students of English vs. students generally** 0.001 0.21 0.94 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 0.69 1.44 Students of Slovene vs. students generally** 0.008 -0.87 -0.10 Some things cannot be said well enough in Slovene, so I prefer to use English. 25.74 2, 362 0.13 Students of English vs. students generally** 0.005 0.13 0.87 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 0.78 1.54 Students of Slovene vs. students generally*** < 0.001 -1.05 -0.28 Slovene is closer to me than English. 49.13 2, 362 0.21 Students of English vs. students generally*** < 0.001 -1.07 -0.42 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -1.75 -1.07 Students of Slovene vs. students generally*** < 0.001 0.32 1.00 I find it easier to express myself in English than in Slovene. 53.65 2, 362 0.23 Students of English vs. students generally*** < 0.001 0.56 1.28 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 1.24 1.98 Students of Slovene vs. students generally*** < 0.001 -1.06 -0.32 I find it easier to talk about intimate feelings, emotions and/or unpleasant topics in English. 55.87 2, 362 0.24 Students of English vs. students generally*** < 0.001 0.64 1.46 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 1.47 2.32 Students of Slovene vs. students generally*** < 0.001 -1.27 -0.42 not offer menus in Slovene are seen as less of a problem by students of English compared to the general group and especially students of Slovene, as shown in table 8. here, gender was found to be significant in one case as female students (M = 3.03, Sd = 1.33) would be significantly more bothered if their partner did not speak English (t(103.07) = 2.69, p = 0.008, d = 1.33) than male students (M = 2.55, Sd = 1.32). 52 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene table 8. Negative attitudes (mean agreement on a scale of 1 = not at all true to 5 = completely true). Students generally Students of English Students of Slovene M (Sd) M (Sd) M (Sd) It would bother me if my partner didn’t speak English. 2.86 (1.38) 3.21 (1.31) 2.73 (1.29) It would bother me if my partner didn’t speak Slovene. 2.71 (1.34) 2.47 (1.36) 3.44 (1.40) It bothers me when others use English words instead of Slovene ones. 2.62 (1.29) 2.26 (1.20) 2.99 (1.10) It bothers me if a device does not have the menu available in Slovene. 2.42 (1.46) 1.83 (1.12) 2.96 (1.46) It would bother me if a friend of mine didn’t speak English. 2.15 (1.23) 2.05 (1.03) 2.00 (1.10) It would bother me if a friend of mine didn’t speak Slovene. 1.89 (1.14) 1.71 (0.90) 2.32 (1.23) generally, the attitudes expressed were not strongly negative, with only two responses exceeding a mean score of 3 (partly true) on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (completely true). More than half of the students in the general group and among students of English would not mind if a friend did not speak Slovene (35% among students of Slovene), and approximately 40% in all groups would not mind (a score of 1 = not at all true) if a friend did not speak English. It is also interesting to see how many students in each group expressed a strong (4) or very strong (5) negative attitude. as shown in figure 4, a lack of Slovene skills was particularly irritating for students of Slovene. Students of English were more likely than the other two groups to see their partner’s lack of English skills as a problem, but not to a particularly great extent, and the general group would actually be more bothered than students of English if their friends could not speak English. Generally, the ttitudes expr ssed were not strongly negative, with only two responses exceeding a mean score of 3 (partly true) on a scale of 1 (not at all true) to 5 (co pletely true). More than half of the students in the general group and among students of English would not mind if a friend did not speak Slovene (35% among students of Slovene), and approximately 40% in all groups would not mind (a score of 1 = not at all true) if a friend did not speak English. It is also interesting to see how many students in each group expressed a strong (4) or very strong (5) negative attitude. As shown in Figure 4, a lack of Slovene skills was particularly irritating for students of Slovene. Students of English were more likely than the other two groups to see their partner’s lack of English skills as a problem, but not to a particularly great extent, and the general group would actually be more bothered than students of English if their friends could not speak English. FIGURE 4. Strong negative attitudes (% that chose 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 = not at all true to 5 = completely true). Once again, a one-way ANOVA using Tukey’s HSD Test for multiple comparisons showed the three groups of students differed significantly in their attitudes. Overall, the respondents in different groups care statistically uniformly about whether their friends or partners can speak English. All other statements yielded significant differences between the three groups, as shown in Table 9. TABLE 9. Statistically significant differences in negative attitudes across groups (one-way ANOVA, Tukey’s HSD) F df η2 Group p CI It bothers me when others use English words instead of Slovene ones. 11.04 2, 362 0.06 Students of English vs. students generally* 0.047 -0.71 0.00 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -1.10 -0.36 Students of Slovene vs. students generally 0.050 0.00 0.74 It bothers me if a device does not have the menu available in Slovene. 21.24 2, 362 0.11 Students of English vs. students generally** 0.002 -0.99 -0.19 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -1.54 -0.72 0.0 10.0 20.0 30.0 40.0 50.0 60.0 70.0 It would bother me if my partner didn't speak English. It would bother me if my partner didn't speak Slovene. It bothers me if a device does not have the menu available in Slovene. It bothers me when others use English words instead of Slovene ones. It would bother me if a friend of mine didn't speak English. It would bother me if a friend of mine didn't speak Slovene. I (strongly) agree that... Students generally Students of English Students of Slovene figure 4. Strong negative attitudes (% that chose 4 or 5 on a scale of 1 = not at all true to 5 = completely true). 53SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene once again, a one-way aNoVa using tukey’s hSd test for multiple comparisons showed the three groups of students differed significantly in their attitudes. overall, the respondents in different groups care statistically uniformly about whether their friends or partners can speak English. all other statements yielded significant differences between the three groups, as shown in table 9. table 9. Statistically significant differences in negative attitudes across groups (one-way aNoVa, tukey’s hSd).   F df η2 Group p CI It bothers me when others use English words instead of Slovene ones. 11.04 2, 362 0.06 Students of English vs. students generally* 0.047 -0.71 0.00 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -1.10 -0.36 Students of Slovene vs. students generally 0.050 0.00 0.74 It bothers me if a device does not have the menu available in Slovene. 21.24 2, 362 0.11 Students of English vs. students generally** 0.002 -0.99 -0.19 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -1.54 -0.72 Students of Slovene vs. students generally** 0.006 0.13 0.96 It would bother me if my partner didn’t speak Slovene. 16.16 2, 362 0.08 Students of English vs. students generally 0.340 -0.64 0.16 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -1.39 -0.56 Students of Slovene vs. students generally*** < 0.001 0.31 1.15 It would bother me if a friend of mine didn’t speak Slovene. 9.62 2, 362 0.05 Students of English vs. students generally 0.391 -0.50 0.14 Students of English vs. students of Slovene*** < 0.001 -0.94 -0.28 Students of Slovene vs. students generally** 0.008 0.09 0.76 finally, there were 236 responses to the open-ended question, “how would you describe your attitude towards English and Slovene?” The following categories were coded: positive attitude to Slovene, positive attitude to English, neutral attitude, and English as a useful tool for communication. Each answer could belong to more than one category. among the 75 students in the general group who answered the open-ended question, 63 (84%) expressed positive attitudes to Slovene, and 42 (56%) to English. In this group, 29 students (39%) indicated that they perceived English primarily in terms of its practical role. among students of Slovene, the vast majority of those who answered the open-ended question (56 out of 63; 89%) expressed a positive attitude to Slovene, approximately half (30; 48%) also expressed a positive attitude to English, and the same number saw English as a means of communication. 54 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene Most students of English who answered the open-ended question (85 out of 98; 87%) expressed a positive attitude to English, two thirds (68; 69%) also to Slovene, while only 13 (13%) emphasized the pragmatic value of English. Negative attitudes were rarely explicitly expressed, but were sometimes implied. 7 Competitive or Complementary? The results show that students at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana, believe themselves to have a very good command of English, which is in line with other research findings mentioned in the theoretical discussion above. The students’ high self-assessment in English is very similar to gerenčer’s (2011) results, while students pursuing majors other than Slovene or English generally rated themselves slightly higher in our survey compared to hers (4.05 vs. 3.35). Since our study was conducted 12 years after gerenčer’s, this may be due to the increasing prevalence of English since, and perceived proficiency levels may be expected to continue to rise further in the future.14 In the survey conducted by Novak Lukanovič and Limon in 2015, students also predominantly chose “very well” (the highest possible ranking) when rating their English proficiency. It needs to be pointed out, however, that self-assessment does not necessarily correlate with the actual language level, and authors such as Šabec (2016) express doubts about students’ claims of English mastery. The responses to the final open question, which are included here for illustrative purposes, comprised both claims of equal proficiency in Slovene and English (*I speak both languages fluently and use them frequently in my daily life*gEN; *I cannot recall a time when I could not express myself in English*ENg) 15 and, more commonly, of English skills, while good, still being inferior to Slovene ones (*I feel at home in English, because I’ve been learning it since Year 2, but after a whole day of expressing myself in this language I get tired to some degree and I wish I could switch to my mother tongue*gEN). occasionally the experience of two languages can be frustrating: *I switch between the two languages, I mix them, sometimes I feel like I am not 100% proficient in either*ENg. good English skills go hand in hand with the symbiosis of the two languages, English and Slovene, which in some cases approaches bilingualism in the sense of having two first languages. for the most part, there is a reported functional division of labour between Slovene and English, and not too much tension as to which of the two languages should be used. In general, Slovene is the predominant language of communication for all three groups of students, but the results vary for different types of language use. all three groups selected Slovene as the most frequently spoken language, and their choice is affirmed when asked which language they use more often to talk to friends. The results show that they mostly do not speak exclusively in English, but when they speak to friends or other young people, Slovene is mixed with English or English is embedded in Slovene. While previous research 14 It would be very interesting to compare self-reported proficiency levels with proficiency testing for the same population, as the two instruments may well yield different results; if that were the case, this would be an important indicator of changes in the social environment. 15 The abbreviation at the end of the quote relates to the target group: gEN = students generally; SLo = students of Slovene; ENg = students of English. 55SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene (Poteko 2020; Šabec 2009, 2014) has taken note of this phenomenon in written language on the internet, our findings suggest the same is true of speech. When it comes to the extent to which the students use English expressions in communication with friends which otherwise takes place in Slovene (i.e., code-switching), all three groups gave relatively high scores, which, according to the prompts given, correspond to values between 5% and 25% of English use. a number of students indicated the importance of the register: *I appreciate both languages, I tend to avoid English words in more formal conversations, but I use them in conversations with friends mostly without hesitation*SLo. This coincides with the findings of Novak Lukanovič and Limon (2015), who also noted in their survey that students used Slovene mixed with English when talking to friends and classmates. The same as with speech, Slovene is the dominant language for all three groups when it comes to writing, although to a lesser extent for students of English. This is at least partly because they are required to submit their written coursework in English. Both speaking and writing are forms of language production, meaning that they require a more active use of English, as well as a greater proficiency. This can be an obstacle for some: *I understand English perfectly, but my ability to express myself in it is somewhat limited, and I find it easiest and most natural to express myself in Slovene*gEN. There are also fewer situations in which students can produce texts or speech in English compared to listening and reading. Thus it is not surprising that at the production level, Slovene is the predominant language. When it comes to reading and listening, there are major differences between the three groups. Students of Slovene mostly read texts in Slovene, especially books and study materials. They are also the only one of the three groups that are more likely to read books which are originally written in English in the Slovene translation. Students of English tend to read more in English. Students in the general group more often read books and study materials in Slovene, unless the book is originally written in English. The latter might suggest that there is a functional distinction between English and other L2s, where students feel they are missing something important by losing the original English wording. Students also more often read English subtitles than Slovene ones, which can be attributed to the fact that many providers of video content in Slovenia do not offer Slovene subtitles (e.g., Netflix, disney Plus). Many of the students’ responses mentioned the utilitarian nature of English and the opportunities it opens for them: *English has a communicative function for me, it is a bridge to people who can’t speak Slovene, and to knowledge contained in articles*gEN; *I am grateful that we learned English already in primary school as it offers many opportunities every day that I would not be able to access otherwise (study abroad, more literature (for my studies and other kinds), keeping up to date with world matters, meeting people from other countries)*gEN. again, the situation is not the same for everyone, and occasionally students emphasized they were not as efficient in English as in Slovene: *I prefer to read study materials in Slovene, because I can easily skim through the text and find relevant information for myself. I cannot do that in English*SLo. The biggest shift is noticeable with listening. Students of English and students generally listen to more English, and among students of Slovene this is also the category where the percentage of Slovene drops drastically to 53.3%. This is likely due to the fact that music, videos, films 56 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene and series are mainly consumed in English by all three groups: *English is the most useful foreign language, many films and other types of content are available in English*SLo. What we see is that Slovene is the dominant language at the level of production, especially in interactions with other Slovenes in person or via text messages, although there are exceptions: *I prefer to talk with some of my friends in English rather than Slovene, which is a matter of habit and of the environment in which we socialize*gEN. When it comes to receptive activities, both Slovene and English are used, with English dominant when listening. What are the main reasons for this widespread use of English in listening and reading? on the one hand, this can be attributed to a lack of content in Slovene, which is confirmed by the students’ general agreement that they interact with English in great part out of necessity, as there is not enough content available in Slovene. Several students also indicated this in their open-ended answers: *Slovene is my intimate choice, while I utilize English for its usefulness*SLo; *I feel that we should tackle the internet presence of Slovene resources in a planned and systematic way*SLo. The statistical analysis showed that the three groups of respondents generally represent a continuum, with students of English at one end as the most open to English and students of Slovene at the other as the least enthusiastic users. When it comes to use, statistically significant differences can be observed between these two groups, whereas students who do not study these two languages, the group of “students generally” in this study, find themselves in the middle. It is interesting to see that the general group is mostly not significantly different from either of the other two when it comes to their reported use of English, but definitely constitutes a separate middle group when attitudes are considered. Interestingly, the general group sometimes leans closer to the group of students of Slovene and sometimes closer to students of English. Students of English and students of other programmes thus mostly agreed with the statements that they often cannot think of a word in Slovene, and that some things cannot be said well enough in Slovene, so they prefer to use English (I prefer using English because it has a more developed vocabulary and some things in Slovene just sound disgusting gEN). These are two of the reasons for the frequent use of English expressions when speaking in Slovene. however, students of Slovene overwhelmingly disagreed with these statements, even though by their own estimation there is a fair amount of English in their speech. This suggests that the frequent use of English words is probably mostly or also due to the widespread use and presence of English in young people’s everyday lives, so that there may be less awareness of a different code: *In general I feel like I don’t discriminate, using both languages seems natural and I don’t think too much about when I am using which language and why, it just happens as a matter of course*gEN. Interestingly, some students of English expressed a negative attitude to their own language behaviour: *Of course I myself also use an English expression now and then […] but I am trying to shake this habit*ENg. however, for many, especially students of English, the use of English goes beyond the pragmatic aspect and they relate intimately to it or can express themselves more successfully in English. This is evident in the high percentage of students who reported having a close relationship with the language, and also in the open-ended responses: 57SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene • At this point after studying English for so long, both [languages] feel like my mother tongues. ENg • *Slovene is my mother tongue, so it is close to my heart and I feel a special bond with it. However, in certain situations I feel as if English is also my mother tongue to a certain extent, mainly because it covers most of my daily life and it is also easier for me to express my thoughts and feelings in English.*ENg • Love ’em *both*ENg [code-switching in the answer: Love ’em oba] Some students of English even expressed a dislike of Slovene, which is not the case for the other two groups: • As long as I study English as a major, the more I despise the Slovene language and its use.ENg • I love English and prefer it in most contexts. I am not so keen on Slovene and feel somewhat disconnected from it.ENg gerenčer (2011) found that students in other programmes did not consider English to be more important than Slovene, while students of English did. however, her survey only offered the respondents a yes-no answer. our survey shows that all groups see both English and Slovene as languages that are important to them, even though Slovene is the predominant language at least in terms of speaking and writing. This was also confirmed when they were asked in which language(s) they thought, dreamed, and talked to themselves, as many of them mentioned Slovene as well as English. as indicated in the results, one third of the students in the general group, two thirds of students of English and over 10% of students of Slovene find it easier to express intimate emotions and/or discuss difficult topics in English than in Slovene. This would warrant a closer look and possibly a follow-up study to find out what the underlying reasons might be. two factors that come to mind are the influence of all types of media in which children and young adults typically see and hear intimate conversations modelled primarily through the medium of English, and a certain psychological distancing that a language that is comfortable but not quite the first language may afford. The answers to the open question explicitly mentioned both of these aspects: • *It is easier for me to express my feelings in English because most of the examples are in English (social media).*SLo • *I prefer to express my feelings in English (probably because I listen to a lot of English songs and movies).*ENg • *I find it easier to express myself in English since Slovene seems too “raw”, it feels like words in Slovene are more weighty than in English, maybe because it is always more difficult to express your feelings in your mother tongue as they are directly related to you, while there always remains a certain distance with a foreign language.*ENg • *I also prefer to use English or a combination of languages to express my feelings and to have serious conversations, as I find Slovene too intimate,* if that makes any sense? *Maybe Slovene is somehow a stronger language for me with more weight to it, which is why I find it harder to talk about personal things in it, maybe Slovene makes them more real and difficult.*gEN [code-switching in the answer: Prav tako za izrazanje custev in resne pogovore raje uporabljam anglescino oz. kombinacijo jezika saj se mi zdi slovenscina prevec 58 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene intimna, if that makes any sense? Morda je slovenscina zame nekako mocnejsi jezik z vec teze in zato o osebnih stvareh v njem tezje komuniciram, morda jih slovenscina naredi bolj realne in tezje.] another feature of English that may contribute to the same phenomenon is the fact that it is predominantly gender-neutral, or at least more easily used in a gender-neutral way. This aspect was explicitly mentioned in three students’ responses (all from students of English), for instance: *As a person who does not identify with the gender that was assigned to me at birth, I also appreciate English for the presence of gender-neutral pronouns and its greater general ability to use gender-neutral language*ENg. The long history of Slovene struggling to take its place as an official, public and administrative language and the established public discourse about the threats to and preservation of the language are reflected in the respondents’ concerns about the state of their Slovene-language skills and the Slovene language in general: *I am occasionally worried that my Slovene is deteriorating*gEN; *Because I am so surrounded by English, I notice that I have more and more problems finding the right Slovene word I want to use*gEN; *Slovene is my mother tongue and I feel that people unfortunately often neglect and underestimate it*ENg; *I find it sad that teenagers today use such a tremendous amount of English words and whole sentences in English*gEN. Some students also reported that, despite the fact that their major was not English, they would be unable to complete their education without knowing this language, and lamented this fact: *English is a must, at least for a student, unfortunately nowadays one cannot complete their studies without it*gEN. Perhaps partly because they are in the humanities, many of the respondents showed a keen awareness of language issues and included several linguistic terms in the descriptions of the varieties they used. In addition to mother tongue/native language and foreign language, they also spoke of first language (*Slovene is my first language, English is a necessary evil*SLo; I like Slovene as a language because it is quite complex and I do like to know all the little details that make it this ‘difficult’ but I still prefer English as it is the language that I mostly express myself in and is my first language “in my head”ENg), and even lingua franca (*English is a lingua franca and you need to speak it in today’s world, but Slovene, as a mother tongue, provides an intimacy abroad, something that is uniquely yours*gEN). 8 Conclusion The results of this study that compared three different groups of students at the faculty of arts, University of Ljubljana, show that English is ubiquitous in students’ lives, even among students of Slovene, who as a group showed the least preference for using English. It may well be that this reflects the particular context of university studies, as much of the time students spend each day reading, writing, speaking and listening would be in response to their class and homework obligations, as well as interacting with their peers and professors. It remains to be seen whether similar patterns of English and Slovene language use are attested among other social groups. however, given that in 2021–2022, 49.1% of all Slovenes between the 59SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMonika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene ages of 19 and 24 were enrolled in some form of higher education,16 and thus are in a similar context to the group under investigation here, it can nevertheless be argued that a large part of the younger generation in Slovenia is effectively bilingual in Slovene and English. Both languages are present in communication, both as separate codes and in the form of code-switching, and English is particularly important as a vehicle for receiving information. This is a generational phenomenon, however, and young Slovenes largely limit their use of English to communicating with their peers. The findings also suggest there may be some gender differences, and that it may possibly be female students that are leading the shift, but this would have to be investigated further, for instance by using a mixed effects model and expanding the sample to include more male students. at a societal level, Slovene is not threatened and remains dominant, but English has definitely carved out a place for itself in the lives of young Slovenes that goes far beyond the role of a foreign language. English seems to be taking on the role of an additional, second language that is no longer an added value but a necessity. It will be interesting to see what happens in the future as the younger generations mature, especially whether English will become more acceptable in active use across age groups and whether it will transcend the register and domain boundaries to which it is now restricted. The Slovene situation, no doubt mirrored in at least some other European countries, thus challenges the Kachruvian distinctions between first, second, and foreign language as they are experienced and construed by speakers, and highlights the need to revisit theoretical assumptions about “critical age” and the type(s) of social environment in which language identity is formed. What needs to be kept in mind is that, although the sample in this study is fairly large, the results only apply to university students and specifically to students in the humanities. Some obvious extensions of the current research would be to conduct a similar survey among other university students, young people in the same age group who are not attending university, and secondary school students, as well as similar cohorts in other countries to gain an international perspective. Some findings of this study, such as the use of English to discuss intimate feelings and/or unpleasant topics, suggest more in-depth research is needed in this area. In light of the fact that Slovenia is also a multilingual society with a significant presence of Italian and hungarian (as official languages in some regions) as well as a number of other languages, especially due to immigration from other parts of the former Yugoslavia, it would also be interesting to expand the research to Slovene citizens and residents or international students whose L1 is a language other than Slovene to get a better picture of the ways in which different languages interact in people’s daily lives in the same socio-political space. Acknowledgements Monika Kavalir gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Slovenian research agency [research core funding No. P6-0218]. 16 https://www.stat.si/StatWeb/field/Index/9/111 (accessed November 12, 2022). 60 Monika Kavalir, Ina Poteko “The First Language in My Head”: Student Attitudes to L2 English and L1 Slovene References Baker, Colin. 1992. Attitudes and Language. 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Sung, Chit Cheung Matthew. 2014. “hong Kong University Students’ Perceptions of Their Identities in English as a Lingua franca Contexts.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 24 (1): 94–112. https:// doi.org/10 .1075/japc.24.1.06sun. Šabec, Nada. 2009. “Sloglish or the Mixing/Switching of Slovene and English in Slovene Blogs.” Slavia Centralis 2 (1): 32–42. —. 2011. “Slovene-English Language Contact and Language Change.” ELOPE 8 (1): 31–49. https:// doi.org/10 .4312/elope.8.1.31-49. —. 2014. “raba slovenščine in angleščine v fizičnem in virtualnem prostoru.” Slavistična revija 62 (3): 395–409. —. 2016. “o angleščini, njeni vlogi v svetu in v slovenskem visokošolskem izobraževalnem sistemu.” Dialogi 52 (7–8): 65–80. van Mulken, Margot, and Berna hendriks. 2015. “Your Language or Mine? or English as a Lingua franca? Comparing Effectiveness in English as a Lingua franca and L1–L2 Interactions: Implications for Corporate Language Policies.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 36 (4): 404– 22. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.201. 63SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 63-85(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.63-85 UdC: 811.111+821.111(439.22)(091) Adela Böhmerová University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in trnava, Slovakia Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English aBStraCt This study is devoted to tracing, presenting and linguo-culturally interpreting some of the aspects of the early history of the contacts of Slovaks with the English language. although English in Slovakia started to be of interest to several men of letters already in the 18th century, the need for it as means of communication only arose in the US in the second half of the 19th century among Slovak immigrants. The paper focuses above all on Janko Slovenský’s book as the first material assisting Slovaks in the acquisition of English, and analyses its content, educational merit and cultural value. also surveyed is the history of the first dictionaries contrasting English and Slovak. The final part introduces the beginnings of English studies in Slovakia dating from the early 1920s, and their early development. The study offers insight into an educationally important subject that so far has only marginally received scholarly attention. Keywords: Slovaks and English, historical circumstances, literary translations, emigrants to the US, Janko Slovenský, first English manual, early dictionaries, English at Comenius University Zgodovinski vidiki zgodnjih stikov Slovakov z angleščino IZVLEČEK ta študija je posvečena sledenju, predstavitvi in jezikovno-kulturni interpretaciji nekaterih vidikov zgodnje zgodovine stikov Slovakov z angleščino. Čeprav je angleščina na Slovaškem začela postala več avtorjem zanimiva že v 18. stoletju, se je potreba po njej kot komunikacijskem sredstvu pojavila šele v Zda v drugi polovici 19. stoletja med slovaškimi priseljenci. Članek se osredotoča predvsem na knjigo Janka Slovenskega kot prvem gradivu, ki je Slovakom pomagalo pri usvajanju angleščine, ter analizira njeno vsebino, izobraževalne dosežke in kulturno vrednost. raziskana je tudi zgodovina prvih slovarjev, ki so primerjali angleščino in slovaščino. V zadnjem delu so predstavljeni začetki anglistike na Slovaškem iz začetka dvajsetih let 20. stoletja in njen zgodnji razvoj. Študija ponuja vpogled v kulturno in izobraževalno pomembno področje, ki je bilo doslej deležno le obrobne znanstvene pozornosti. Ključne besede: Slovaki in angleščina, zgodovinske okoliščine, literarni prevodi, izseljenci v Zda, Janko Slovenský, prvi angleški priročnik, zgodnji slovarji, angleščina na Univerzi Komenskega 64 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English 1 Introduction1 Similar to the situation in much of the world, in Slovakia English is currently omnipresent in many spheres of communication, and of course in education as well. Moreover, it functions as the  principal source of lexical borrowing, thus in many spheres having a considerable impact upon the Slovak lexis, above all by contributing numerous neologisms (cf., for example, dolník 1999; Böhmerová 2015). Nevertheless, the history of the early contacts of the Slovaks with the English language is rather complex, and goes a  long and actually a “distant” way back, much of it still to be revealed. This is naturally linked with the historical, social, economic and political circumstances of both linguistic communities. The former absence of English in Slovakia can seem to be in contrast to the fact that knowledge of foreign languages always was, and still is, quite common for the inhabitants of the territory of Slovakia (cf. Lanstyák, Múcsková, and tancer 2017). for centuries the Slovaks – as a nation in Central Europe – were multilingual, due to either ethnic coexistence and/or political reasons (cf. doruľa 1977). Until 1868, when the so-called National act (see also below) in the hungarian part of the austro-hungarian Monarchy (historically also referred to as the transleithanien)2 restricted the official usage of languages other than Magyar, Slovak was used by much of the population, and had also been taught at schools. The official languages on the territory of present-day Slovakia were german, Magyar (in English rather non-specifically and actually inadequately often referred to by the political-historical term as “hungarian”), and up to 1867 also Latin (cf. Buzássyová 1991, 1997). Many Slovak inhabitants of the austro-hungarian Monarchy, including ordinary, uneducated people, were often multi-lingual, or at least bilingual, as in addition to Slovak they also had some command of one of the above languages. Moreover, there were also speakers of several other languages, above all Czech, namely in the circles of Protestants and some intellectuals, and to some extent also ruthenian, Polish and french, the latter in particular among the 19th century nobility (Múcsková 2015, 2017). Nevertheless, under the existing political circumstances, after the austro-hungarian Compromise in 1867, during the following decades on the hungarian part of the former monarchy, i.e., transleithanien, Slovak itself, just like some other national languages in it, was used neither in official communication, nor within any international communication. This was enacted by the so-called National act XLIV/1868, in which Magyar was instituted as the only “national“ language in the multi-ethnic hungarian monarchy. Moreover, through a series of acts in 1879, 1883 and 1907, the teaching in Magyar was by law required in all levels of schools, from nursery schools to secondary schools, and regardless of their mother tongue, all pupils were required to master Magyar already by the end of the 4th grade (cf. Mosný and Laclavíková 2019).3 1 The paper primarily includes findings from investigations carried out during the author’s three-month fulbright research Programme in the US in 2017 that involved investigation of the literary holdings of the Library of the Slovak Institute of Benedictine abbey in Cleveland, ohio, USa, as enabled by the abbey. during this visit and period of research, thanks to John Carroll University in Cleveland and the distinguished Slavic scholar gerald. J. Sabo, SJ, the author enjoyed the status of Scholar in residence. Incorporated in the paper are also some of the results of the author’s earlier research. 2 In german denoted as “transleithanien”, i.e., south/east of Leitha - a river in austria and hungary and a right tributary of the danube. The remaining part of the divided Monarch is denoted in german as “Cisleithanien”. 3 The linguistic status of non-Magyar nationalities in the hungarian Monarchy became even more restricted after the so-called apponyi’s acts XXVI and XXVII were enacted in 1907. 65SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English one of the results of the developments set out above was that Slovaks did not hold any international offices, and, consequently, did not have any direct international political, commercial, or other contacts within which English would be needed. hence, in Slovakia, in contrast to some other European countries, for a long time English did not rank among the various foreign languages used or learned, as it was not needed there. although the beginnings of the prehistory of Slovaks are linked already with the great Moravian Empire, i.e., the 9th century, the beginnings of the development of Slovak can be traced back to about the 10th century to the time of the disintegration of Proto-Slavic, when various sound differentiations took place (cf. Krajčovič 1981; Pauliny 1983). The beginnings of Slovak are traced by some authors to as early as the 11th and 12th centuries, while the existing findings can only support this claim with some pastoral formulae used at weddings or christenings, with toponyms included into Latin documents, and with orally preserved folk songs, fairy tales, legends, etc. (cf. Krajčovič 1981; Pauliny 1983). The first preserved Slovak continuous text is from Žilinská kniha (1378–1561) (cf., for example, Krajčovič 1981), namely the entry from 1451 (cf. Kuchar 2009). In the context of the historical multi-ethnic political units, and because of the scarcity of early written documentation that has been found, the presence of Slovaks in the multicultural political units was for a long time overlooked. Slovaks did not have any official international representation, hence did not have any direct diplomatic, political, commercial, or other contacts with the English-speaking countries. Thus, English was neither needed in Slovakia, nor was it taught at schools. It was only after the foundation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, and much more evidently after 1993 when acquiring statehood, that Slovakia on its own came onto the international scene. By following the story of the contacts of the Slovaks with the English language, the study deals with the various stages and circumstances of their development, highlighting their impact upon the specific features of the penetration of English into the Slovak linguistic community. 2 Early Instances of Interest in English by Slovak Writers The beginnings of the contacts of Slovaks with English are connected above all with the interest of Slovak men of letters in English literary works. however, as to English itself, not only had its command not been present in Slovakia, but in the earliest mentions of it in Slovak literature, English was even said to evoke a certain aversion. The Slovak classicist poet, archaeologist and natural scientist Ján Kollár (1793–1852) is known to have stated that because of its “non- harmoniousness” (in Sk “neľubozvučnosť”), he never had a particular liking for English, although he highly appreciated English classical writers and the depth of their ideas. In his Pamäti z mladších rokov života4 written in connection with his studies in Bratislava between 1812–1815 he mentions oliver goldsmith’s idyllic novel The Vicar of Wakefield, referring to it in Slovak as Wakefieldský farár.5 as stated by Vojtech (2009), the text of the Memoirs was written between 1836–1842 and during Kollár’s lifetime it remained in manuscript form. In printed form the book was published as translated by Karol goláň in 1950, 1972, and 1997.6 4 Memoirs from the Younger Years of Life (translated by a. B.). 5 Based on such mention, some sources erroneously used to state that he had translated it. 6 for editorial and textological information on Kollár’s Memoirs see Vojtech (2009, 518). 66 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English another Slovak poet (as well as literary historian and Protestant priest) Bohuslav tablic (1769–1832) used to be associated with the translation of the same English literary work, too. however, as Vojtech (2019, 354) points out, in Poustevník z Warkworthu, with the subtlitle Northumberlandská balada z anglického jazyka přeložená7 (published in his Poezye III in 1809), tablic actually translated the ballad of goldsmith’s friend Thomas Percy The Hermit of Warkworth (1771). according to Vojtech (2019, 354), the reiterated misinterpretation was probably due to the similarity of the titles of the two works, as well as to the fact that Percy’s book, published in England, did not state the name of the author. tablic is also known as having already translated hamlet’s monologue by Shakespeare,8 with the central statement translated as “Být či nebýt, otázka jest vážná”9 (1806). These were followed by his translations of the poetry of the English classicist poets such as alexander Pope and george Lyttelton, all published in Anglické múzy w česko-slovenském oděwu10 (1831). Such translations into Slovakized Czech were usually produced with the help of earlier translations into some other language, and with the assistance of the existing dictionaries of English and another language, as there were no English-Slovak dictionaries yet (cf. Böhmerová 2012; Vojtech 2004). however, a different approach was undertaken by Pavol országh hviezdoslav (1849–1921), another Slovak man of letters, a prominent poet, dramatist, translator, lawyer, and later in life also a member of the Czechoslovak Parliament for a short time (1919–1920). he learned English exclusively because of Shakespeare, whose work, as he said in an interview with albert Pražák (1955),11 was very dear and pleasing to him, and was actually “po Biblii azda najmilšie”.12 Thanks to this attitude, he taught himself English from a german textbook, and with the help of german and Magyar dictionaries of English he translated Hamlet, Macbeth and Midsummer Night’s Dream,13 as there were no Slovak textbooks or dictionaries of English available at that time in Slovakia. as stated by Pražák (1955) (cf. also Vojtech 2005), hviezdoslav claimed that he undertook the translation of Shakespeare because of his ambition to prove that Slovak was a self-sufficient language. he felt delighted when translating Hamlet, realizing that he as a son of the poor northern Slovak region of orava was introducing the “Prince of denmark” into a language that used to be looked down upon. In his translation, he successfully demonstrated and testified to the literary qualities and sophistication of the Slovak language (cf. Pražák 1955, 27–28; Vojtech 2004, 92). hence, the works of the greatest English dramatist were translated by the greatest Slovak poet. 3 Slovaks and English in America By the time when hviezdoslav’s translations of Shakespeare’s dramatic works were made, English had already for several decades, and on a daily basis, been encountered and later also 7 Hermit from Warkworth. A Northumberland Ballad Translated from English (translated by a. B.). 8 “Monolog z hamleta Šekspírova” 9 “to be or not to be, that is a serious question” (translated by a. B.). 10 English Muses in Czecho-Slovak Apparel 11 Pražák’s book was based on a series of personal meetings and discussions with hviezdoslav between 1913 and 1921. The manuscript was finished in 1949 and after its translation into Slovak it was published in 1955. 12 “after the Bible perhaps the dearest” (translated by a. B.) 13 Though translated in the 1910s, they were only published posthumously as late as in 1947 in his Sobrané spisy básnické (Collected Poetical Works), Volume XIII. 67SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English used in communication by some ordinary Slovaks. however, this communication took place not in Slovakia, but in the cross-atlantic destination of Slovak immigrants in the United States where they went mostly to escape poverty and in search of a better life. The present section briefly introduces the basic information about Early Slovak immigrants to the US. Its core deals in detail with the analysis of the first manual of English for Slovaks in america, and the last subsection surveys some of the earliest lexicographical works written in the US for Slovaks to assist them in the usage of English. 3.1 Early Slovak Immigrants to the US Sporadic arrivals of Slovaks to North america are known to have occurred at least since the 18th century, and included adventurers, clergymen, tinkers, or soldiers (some even fighting in the american Civil War in Lincoln’s army as Lincoln Riflemen of Slavonic Origin; cf. Janek 2021; fedor n.d.). The first massive influx of Slovaks to the US was in the 1870s. as ordinary farmers and common people in Slovakia suffered from poverty, years of poor harvests, epidemics of plague, and many of them also from national oppression within the hungarian Monarchy, these were usually the main reasons why more and more Slovaks decided to travel to america. Most of them originally intended just to earn some money there to then bring it back home to improve the lives of their families. Later, more and more of them tended to settle in america for good. already the federal Census of 1920 stated that there were more than 600,000 Slovak immigrants in the US.14 They mostly went to work in coal mines in Pennsylvania, Illinois, and New York, or to the steel mills in ohio, Michigan or Wisconsin (cf. also Bartalská 2001), and faced the hardships of unskilled foreign labourers, working in quarries, building railroads and doing hard, low paid and dangerous work. Moreover, similar to many immigrants from some other countries, they did not speak English – the language of their new homeland. Most of them only had elementary education, and even that in Magyar (which was a foreign language for them) after the Slovak language had been banned from schools, hence they were not really literate. 3.2 first Manual of English for Slovaks in america for the Slovaks coming to the US, just like for any other immigrants, learning English as the language of their new homeland was indispensable for their survival and integration. In this respect, of crucial importance for Slovak immigrants was the help extended to them by another Slovak immigrant with a rather symptomatic last name – Janko15 Slovenský16 (1856–1900). The principal source of information about the life of Janko Slovenský is his biography by Čulen (1954). although mostly stemming from Čulen, some additional information can 14 however, until 1899, Slovaks were not distinguished in US immigration records, as based on their coming from the hungarian Empire they were registered as hungarians in spite of the multi-ethnic character of that Monarchy. 15 his first name also occurs as Ján. 16 In Slovak, the word “Slovenský” is an adjective meaning “Slovak, pertaining to Slovakia”. 68 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English also be drawn from a brief entry in the 1992 volume of Slovenský biografický slovník (edited by Maťovčík) and from Bartalská’s article (2001). a stylized life story of Slovenský is also offered in Čepček’s novel Zámorská balada. Životopis Janka Slovenského (1982). as presented in Čulen’s biography (1954), Janko Slovenský was the son of a german mother and a Slovak father. as a graduate of the grammar School in Levoča and of the hungarian preparandia17 in Kláštor pod Znievom (1875–1878), he became a  teacher of children in families of Slovak noblemen. Then, at the age of 23, in search of youthful adventure, together with his cousin and close friend Július18 Wolf (1859–1930), son of a much-respected Kompachy citizen, they decided to travel abroad. It was actually by chance that, instead of heading for africa as originally planned, they eventually went to the US (cf. Čulen 1954),19 just like many Slovaks and other Europeans at that time. he gradually worked in various menial and physically demanding jobs. however, thanks to his gift for languages, Janko Slovenský very quickly mastered English and in 1886 gained the job of a clerk at the austro- hungarian Consulate in Pittsburgh. from his own experience, from his life among Slovak immigrants, as well as from his service at the Consulate where immigrants came with many problems and questions, he had close familiarity with the tremendous difficulties they were facing in their struggle to make it in the foreign country. The help he extended to them was twofold and very precious. In 1885 in Pittsburgh he established the weekly Bulletin that, on its mere two pages, offered practical information concerning the lives of immigrants, as well as information about their homeland. In the fall of 1886 he started to publish the much more extensive Amerikánszko-szlovenszké noviny20 (american-Slovak Newspaper) of which he was editor-in-chief till 1891. for the sake of assisting the Slovak immigrants in getting familiarized with English and learning it, in 1887 he attached to Amerikánszko-szlovenszké noviny a 131-page supplement Americký Tlumač ku naučeňu še najpotrebňejších, začatečných známoscoch z  angľickej reči pre uherských Slovákoch v  Amerike žijúcich (American Interpreter for Learning the Most Important Introductory Knowledge of the English Language for Slovaks from Hungary Living in America).21 The earlier sources mentioning it, for example, Čulen (1954, 156ff.; Maťovčík 1992, 296), and also numerous other later sources, unduly speak about it as a dictionary.22 however, as it will be highlighted below, it is actually a linguistic multifunctional manual and textbook. In relation to those for whom Americký Tlumač23 was designed, it might be noteworthy to mention that while being a free gift as a supplement to Amerikánszko-szlovenszké noviny (the paper selling only at five cents), it could also be purchased separately at the price of 17 Pedagogical school training future teachers. 18 although christened Ján Július, as his first name he only used the name Július. 19 as Čulen (1954) writes (45ff.), as young adventurers they first wanted to go hunting to africa, but after having been discouraged by numerous men warning them against the big heat and the dangerous animals on that continent, they took their advice and sailed to america. 20 The title of the paper was spelled in a Magyarized orthography common at the time, with the addition of the grapheme “z” after the grapheme “s” to represent the sound [s]. 21 Its cover page is shown in appendix 1. 22 Cf., for example, also https://sk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_Slovensk%C3%Bd (accessed November 9, 2022). 23 adhered to here is the original Slovenský´s spelling of the title of the book with capital “T”, although at present a lower case “t” would be used. 69SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English two dollars, hence it was made affordable. In addition, it was delivered free of charge to Slovak pubs where the Slovaks used to gather after work. There those who could read would convey the contents to the others. already by 1891 – before Slovenský left the editorship of Amerikánszko-Szlovenszké noviny and sold the paper to Peter Víťazoslav rovnianek (1867– 1933), a Slovak immigrant and journalist who had already earlier co-operated with him as co-editor – the paper had about 1,700 subscribers and their number later reached as many as 30,000. The present research has indicated that the paper can be credited for broadening the world outlook of Slovaks in america and, thanks to Americký Tlumač published as its supplement, it was also a unique, and historically the first, tool assisting in the linguistic integration of the Slovak immigrants in america. to best serve the Slovak immigrants who mostly came from the poorest eastern regions, the Slovak parts of the textbook were written in Eastern Slovak dialects, mostly in the Šariš dialect, with the occasional admixture of Spiš and Zemplín dialectal features.24 Since the first waves of immigration from Slovakia saw almost no members of the intelligentsia going to america, some of the newcomers were actually also learning how to read from this book. hence, while Slovenský’s book was teaching them English, at the same time it actually provided some basic education in their own language as well. Based on the present research, it is justified to state that Americký Tlumač was the first Slovak linguistic description of English, the first (predecessor of an) English-Slovak dictionary, the first thematic phrase book, and the first manual for Slovaks to learn English. at the same time, it was also the first Slovak book published in the US, and the first Slovak book that was registered at the Library of Congress, where it is available in the European reading room. as stated in the imprint of the book itself, it was delivered to the Library of Congress by the author himself. on the page about Slovaks in america the European department of the Library of Congress included the following brief statement25: Americky Tlumac (american interpreter),26 the first Slovak-English dictionary serving the needs of the immigrants, was published by Jan Slovensky, in an eastern dialect. It readily became very popular because it aided the immigrants with their English language problems. Several other such works were published in subsequent years. In Slovakia only one copy of this book is currently known to exist, and it is deposited in the Slovak National Library in Martin. With the exception of some previous attention paid to it by the present author (Böhmerová 1991, 2012), it is hardly known in Slovakia. Its existence is only briefly mentioned in Slovenský biografický slovník (Maťovčík 1992, 296), and there it is also labelled as a dictionary. The reason for this might be connected with the fact that Slovenský’s biographer Čulen (1954) was for political reasons in disgrace in Slovakia under the previous regime. It is symptomatic that, as mentioned above, in both these sources it is wrongly referred to as “slovník”, i.e., dictionary, though by its contents it is 24 Cf., for example, also Lifanov 2003, Лифанов 2005. 25 http://www.loc.gov/rr/european/imsk/slovakia.html (accessed November 12, 2022). 26 In the quote the spelling as presented in the source is respected. as in numerous other sources, here the book is also referred to as dictionary. 70 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English a manual and a textbook. The inaccessibility of the book and the earlier mostly only second- hand information about it may have been the reason for such wrong identification of the genre of the book. another finding concerns rovnianek, who for several years cooperated with Slovenský on Amerikánszko-szlovenszké noviny. although rovnianek in his Zápisky za živa pochovaného (Records Written by a Man Buried Alive, 1924) writes extensively about the journalistic work of Slovenský, including quotes from his articles, it is rather surprising that no mention of Slovenský’s Americký Tlumač can be found in his autobiography in spite of the considerable linguistic, historical and cultural value of Americký Tlumač. Americký Tlumač was based on Slovenský’s experience as a teacher, a polyglot, and a Slovak immigrant to america who became a clerk at the austro-hungarian Consulate in Pittsburgh, as well as on the sources available to him at that time. The writing of the book was driven by his aim to help his compatriots to make it in the US, so it is intended to be both a linguistic and a practical tool. Based on an analysis of the text, it is evident that in the book Americký Tlumač Slovenský manifests a quite good command of English, especially considering that he managed to acquire it after just a few years of being in the US and, moreover, without any formal education in English, only by living in the american environment. The present research testifies to the fact that his book deserves high evaluation also from the point of view of methodology, as it is well structured, presents a relevant selection of themes and linguistic material, with a good sense of proportionality. It would be nice to know whether the writing of the book was actually based also on his teaching Slovak in america, if he did so, or his familiarity with other linguistic materials, but no information to that effect has so far been found. as the analysis has shown, the book is systematically and transparently structured and designed.27 It can be believed that using it was easy and efficient both for learning and for teaching English with regard to the communicative needs of the immigrants, but no information concerning its reception has been found by the present author. In the Preface (Predmluva) the author states that he wrote the book upon the request of his compatriots. at the same time, he stresses the indispensability of mastering English for their successful functioning in their host country, thus contributing to their general education, as well as to their chances for integration: Človek može býc schopný, spósobný l’ebo učený, ked mu al’e reč chybi, je aj pri dánnych priľežitoscoch ne v stave svoju schopnosc dokazac, co zapričiňi, že zodpovednu službu na neho ňichto ňezveri. Ked človek v Amerike pokračovac chce, muši na každý pád v stave býc še v angľickej reči vyjadric. Pravda je, že učeñe z počatku češko padñe, ale vytervalosc a dobra voľa premože šicke češkosce.28 27 for its contents see Images 2 and 3 in the appendix. 28 “one can be able, gifted or learned, but when one does not speak the language, he cannot prove his abilities, hence nobody is going to assign to him any responsible duty. When one wants to progress in america, he must definitely be able to make himself understood in English. It is true that at first the learning is difficult, but perseverance and good will overcome all difficulties.” (translated by a.B.) 71SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English as evident also from the quote, while pointing out that learning English might not be easy, as a good educationalist he also encourages his learners to have perseverance and positivism. however, what is even more decisive, he gave them a gift – a unique and unprecedented tool to enable and facilitate their learning English. Part 1 describes in Slovak and in considerable detail the basic features of the English language, its spelling, pronunciation, grammatical characteristics of parts of speech, including a list of the forms of irregular verbs, and the last section offers Najpotrebñejše slova ku mluveñu (The most important words for speaking). In that section, the selected Slovak words and their English equivalents from various thematic areas relevant for the life of the immigrants are listed, together with the “Slovakized” transcription of their pronunciation, and their meanings are given. The themes, among others, include time, family, body, food, illnesses, and professions. Part 2 is intended to be a basic conversational manual. It lists in Slovak greetings, comments, phatic communion expressions, questions and statements concerning the same themes as in Part 1, but also extended by some other ones, for example, shopping, at the post office or in a bank, the latter related to the fact that immigrants used to send their earnings to their homeland. Though the book and its merits deserve high appreciation, it necessarily also bears the marks and limitations of being the forerunner in this genre, as well as manifesting in many respects the impact of the historical conditions within which it was written. In the following, the evaluation of some of its features, both with regard to the times when it was conceived and in the context of later English studies, will be presented. Primarily, the immigrants needed to master the spoken form of English, which in the book was represented by the author’s own simplified transcription based on graphemes used in Slovak and on how the English sounds and words were perceived or heard by them. his was most probably the first ever phonetic transcription of English for the Slovaks – before any international system of phonetic transcription existed.29 however rudimentary Slovenský’s representations of pronunciation might seem from our contemporary point of view, he in many ways, and for the first time, documents some of the rather specific difficulties that Slovaks encounter in English pronunciation, which can also at present be exploited for pedagogical purposes, as well as for contrastive English-Slovak research. The sounds not existing in Slovak are represented by their approximations, hence, for example, father was transcribed as fadher, or schwa as ö, which can still often be the case at present in lay materials. No bracketing for the transcriptions is used. Numerous transcriptions are marked by the fact that Slovenský was self-taught and most probably could not resort to any pre- existing transcription source, so his transcriptions cannot be judged by our contemporary standards. however, from the pragmatic point of view, they did a good service to the Slovak immigrants to make themselves understood in america. What is of more interest is that the 29 The first international alphabet was published by the french linguist Paul Passy in 1888. Even if it had existed earlier and Slovenský would have known about it, its graphemes could not have been understood and/or adequately pronounced by the users of his textbook. 72 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English textbook also documents some specific cross-linguistic phonetic differences that can also at present go unnoticed, and occasionally have an impact above all on the pronunciation and assimilation of borrowings from English into Slovak. The first one to be dealt with here can be exemplified by bacon, transcribed by Slovenský as békn, or by rose transcribed as rós. actually, such transcriptions are a result of systemic differences, namely that English falling diphthongs are not paralleled in the Slovak phonetic system. Slovaks thus have difficulty in hearing the second element of the diphthong, although they have no problems pronouncing such vocalic or semi-vocalic sequences or diphthongs. The same consequences of this linguistic situation can still be found today, namely in English borrowings and their problematic or questionable lay or even standardized assimilation. among the thousands of English words, Slovak has recently borrowed catering that at first got pronounced – and now is even codified – as [ketering] (see footnote 29 below), i.e., without a diphthong in the first syllable. already earlier, Slovak borrowed the word teenager that because of having been similarly “misheard” resulted in the assimilated variants [tineʒer], [tíneʒer], [tineiʒer] and [tínejʒer], all of them codified and listed in the representative Slovak dictionaries.30 The above accounts for the fact that this relatively non-transparent cross- linguistic situation has resulted in several codified variants of the assimilation of these English borrowings, while the cross-linguistically adequate one is only [tínejʒer], the other ones being non-systemic and even erroneous (cf. Böhmerová 2006). The previous example of teenager also manifests the problems with vocalic length and its perception. Both English and Slovak have long and short vowels, but in English their mutual difference is smaller than in Slovak, so in English the pronunciation of a long vowel is shorter than in Slovak. The result is that English long and short vowels are not always well distinguished by Slovaks. That is also the reason why in Americký Tlumač the pronunciation of the word barley is given as barli instead of bárli, or why cheese is transcribed as čis with a short i. This accounts for the above-mentioned Slovak pronunciation variants of the English borrowing teenager, namely (as also spelled) tinedžer, tínedžer. In the same way that it pioneered phonetic transcription, Slovenský’s book is also the first known description of English grammar for the Slovaks – grammatical description covering as many as 25 pages. With Slovak explanations and commentary, Slovenský presents what he calls Najpotrebñejše31 z angľickej grammatiky (literally: The most important from English grammar). In his book, and for the first time, the then existing Slovak linguistic terminology (to the extent known or accepted by the author) was used for describing the English grammatical system. Within this historical context, it is not surprising that some terms do not comply with the present terminological labels. Several can be considered inadequate, for example, irregular verbs are denoted as ňeriadne slovesá (literally: improper/unorderly verbs), some other expressions or terms are by now outdated, for example, mena čiselne – now číslovky (numerals), or they are presented in eastern Slovak dialectal grammatical forms, for example, sklonovaňie 30 The representative dictionaries of the Slovak language are jointly accessible online at Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľudovíta Štúra Slovenskej akadémie vied (dictionary portal of Ľudovít Štúr Linguistic Institute of the Slovak academy of Sciences). available at https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk/ (accessed November 9, 2022). 31 here for authenticity, Slovenský’s spelling with the unusual diacritical mark “ñ” has been respected. 73SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English menoch podstatných, cf. standard skloňovanie podstatných mien (declension of nouns). The systematically presented grammatical phenomena are exemplified and accompanied by Slovak translations, hence the presentation of the grammar is very clear. In addition, all the grammatical data and examples are thoroughly accompanied by their translations. The second half of Part 1 of the book named Najpotrebñejše slova ku mluveñu (literally: The most important words for speaking), presents a thematically organized basic Slovak-English vocabulary. It includes words and expressions for time, months, days of the week, family members, parts of the body, food, illnesses, domestic animals, buildings, church, public institutions, and so on – simply the most useful everyday vocabulary related to the previous experience of Slovak immigrants, as well as to their new life in america. Thus, listed in the section of food are the most common items like chľeb – bread, the dialectal bandurky (now the standard is zemiaky) – potatoes, kapusta – cabbage, meso – meat, slañina – bacon, ryba – fish, syr – cheese, vajca – eggs, kolač (standard: koláč) – cake. among the more specific items listed are kolbasa (standard: klobása – central European smoked and specially spiced) sausage (made of pork meat) and kervavka (now standard: krvavnička) – blood pudding. Some items of Slovak food are missing in the list, among them bryndza – the fermented sheep cheese used on the most typical Slovak meal bryndzové halušky (halušky – small pieces of a dough made of grated potatoes, flower and an egg, boiled in water and strained). The reason for the absence of bryndza in the list of food items might be that, as a specific Slovak (as well as rumanian) sheep cheese, it probably was not – and even at present mostly is not – available in america. Moreover, it anyway does not have any monolexical equivalent in English. Why víno – wine and pivo – beer are absent is surprising. however, with a bit of light-touch argumentation, the reason could be associated with the rather common routine that on the way home from work the first stop of the men used to be the saloon, hence these words, as with whisky, did not need to be learned from a textbook. With regard to the new american life of Slovak immigrants, the list includes ustrice – oysters, which were not much known and were hardly consumed in landlocked Slovakia. Interesting is the translation of the word rice as ryžkaša (now having the form ryžová kaša or kaša z ryže), which in the given Slovak form literally denotes rice pudding (a meal made with rice boiled in milk, with sugar and butter added – a meal at present much loved in particular by Slovak children). rice had not been grown in Slovakia, and was practically unknown there until after WWII,32 so Slovenský gives as its translation the name of the meal that they had become accustomed to making from rice in america, i.e., ryžkaša, and not the semantically appropriate but unknown ryža. 32 rice was first brought to Slovakia by the turks during their expansion, but did not get much known beyond their community. The first attempt at growing rice in Slovakia took place in the 18th century during the reign of Maria Theresa. It was brought by merchants from abroad and for more than a century it was occasionally used as food only in the households of the nobility, while remaining practically unknown to ordinary people (cf., for example, https:// www.teraz.sk/regiony/gastromomia-ryza-zemiaky/66215-clanok.html – accessed November 9, 2022). only much later, in 1948, was it experimentally grown in southwestern Slovakia in Kolárovo and in eastern Slovakia. however, it turned out that Slovakia does not have suitable conditions for growing rice (cf. https://www.vtedy.sk/pestovanie-ryza- prva – accessed November 9, 2022). While at present it is widely available on the food market, this was not the case when the late-19th-century Slovak emigrants left Slovakia. 74 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English There are numerous other culturally interesting lexicographical solutions. as the translation of obed, Slovenský gives dinner, though lexically the most common English equivalent of obed33 as the meal eaten at noon is lunch. Nevertheless, as for the Slovaks, both in the past and at present, the largest meal of the day is eaten at noon, and in English the largest meal of the day is called dinner, Slovenský was probably the first Slovak author to give as its Slovak cross-cultural linguistic equivalent obed. Part 2 of the book is conversational, probably being the earliest ever guidance for English conversation for Slovaks. It presents a survey of basic themes generally occurring in communication, like time, weather, at home, in a store, in town, etc. The conversations, sentence by sentence, are presented in Slovak, followed by English equivalents, and finally accompanied by pronunciation. Nevertheless, as a conversation book it is also specific, as included in it are above all the communication areas that relate to the physical and social conditions in which the immigrants lived, and to the difficulties that they faced. By guiding them through English, the author, their compatriot, tries to help them handle the situations and hardships of life as an immigrant. The most important thing after landing in america was of course to try to find a job. to assist in finding one, Slovenský (1887, 79–85)34 gives a very useful, extensive and practical selection of questions and answers for a conversation with a potential employer. With regard to the communication needs of the immigrant, at first the Slovak questions or statements are given, regardless of who states what constitutes the content of the utterance. In this way, the Slovak immigrant could easily find what he needed to say in English, and could also check the meaning of what is said by the american employer. again, each English statement is accompanied by the transcription of its pronunciation. The most important question of course is: Can you give me a job? The conversation continues with questions on the type of job, experience, when can the man start work, and, as the man cares about his compatriots, too, it culminates with his indirect but important question: But I have ten countrymen and I would like to get employment for all of us.35 as most Slovaks intended to work in mines or factories, the book also contains a section with lists of words related to mining, such words being of crucial importance for the Slovak community. The English expressions are accompanied by the transcription of their pronunciation and by their Slovak equivalents or explanations, if the realia differ cross- linguistically and specification of meaning is needed, or there does not exist any Slovak equivalent.36 This is the case, for example, of English bin – bin, veľka drevena kasta, do ktorej še uhľe sypaju, kym jich daľej beru (“a large wooden cask/container into which coal is loaded and then taken further”). as evident also in the above case, for semantic identity the explanation of meaning is preceded also by the English source word bin as a potential equivalent. This testifies both to the possibility and tendency of early borrowing from English into Slovak. 33 Obed also means “noon“. 34 for the scan of the first part of the job interview dialogue from p. 79 see Image 5 in the appendix. 35 In Image 5 in the appendix the quoted statements are highlighted. 36 for the scan of part of the English and Slovak words related to mining (from pages 92–93) see Image 4 in the appendix. 75SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English Such a presentation of data, which also occurs with some other entries, deserves appreciation, especially when considering the author’s lack of any prior lexicographical experience. as manifested in the lexical and dialogical passages of the book, too, the earliest Slovak immigrants to the US, like Slovenský, at first usually found jobs in mines, foundries, quarries (by Slovenský transcribed as kwowríz), or building railroads, hence doing hard, low-paid and dangerous work. Thus, it is not surprising that, for example, in the chapter At the doctor’s, we can also find the following conversation between an injured man and a doctor: Doktor, ten chlap ma zlamanu nohu. – Doctor, this man has a broken leg. after checking the wound, the doctor says: Ta rana nemože byc vyhojena. Noha muši byc odňata po vyšej členka Doktor, ja im nigdy nedovolim moju nohu odrezac. Moj praceľu, ja jich život oratovac chcem. Oni muša rozhodnuc či žic ľebo či zomrec chcu. – This wound cannot be cured. – The foot has to be taken off above the ankle. – Doctor, I will never allow you to take my foot off. – My friend, I want to save your life. – You must decide whether you want to live or die. Many hardships had to be faced before the Slovak or other immigrants to america could start to make a living and start sending money back home to their families. Thus in the book there is also a chapter about what might need to be said at a post office, how to ask about sending some mail or a package, or about filling in a money order. however, the need for such language also indicates some prosperity thanks to which many Slovak immigrants decided to stay in the US for good. to give his readers some local geographic information and cultural orientation, on the final pages of the book Slovenský lists the names of US states and also personal names, all with their pronunciations. to conclude this section about Americký Tlumač, based on the present research it could be added that its author Janko Slovenský was certainly not a stereotypical Slovak or central European immigrant. he was neither poor nor undereducated. he was a qualified teacher and he spoke four languages: Slovak, german, Magyar, and Latin, before he learned the fifth – English (cf. Čulen 1954). he had not suffered from any ethnic or other oppression, as many of his compatriots had. In addition, he had actually neither wanted to go to america, nor had he intended to stay once he was there. as mentioned above, his arrival in america was in a way an accidental result of his other romantic and rather naïve adventurous plans for travelling. In spite of that, Slovenský not only became a Slovak immigrant to the US, but even a leading Slovak personality among the Slovaks in america, although his mother tongue was not even Slovak.37 In addition, Slovenský can be highly credited for having been a pioneer in mediating English 37 as stated above in the section on Slovenský´s biography, his mother´s nationality was german, but Janko´s father was Slovak, at home they spoke much Slovak, and Janko identified himself as being of Slovak nationality. 76 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English to Slovak immigrants to the US, and in helping them to survive in and become integrated in their new home. The merits of his Americký Tlumač can be summarized in the following way: • The first Slovak book published in the US; • The first description of English in Slovak; • The first textbook comparing Slovak with English; • The predecessor of dictionaries of English for the Slovaks. although only indirect information about its reception has been found for this research,38 based on the content of the book and the situation of Slovak immigrants to the US, it can be assumed that in many ways – and not merely metaphorically – Americký Tlumač actually became a means of survival. It enabled Slovak immigrants to try to find a place to live, a job to earn money, to meet their basic needs and those of their families, and to start getting linguistically integrated. In this respect Slovenský fulfilled the statement he made in the introduction to Americký Tlumač, saying that the aim of the book was “tu žijúcim uherským Slovákom prostriedkom byc, ku privlastneniu najpotrebnejších začatečných známoscoch z anglickej reči, bez ktorých človek v amerike pokračovac nemôže.”39 The life story of Janko Slovenský was dramatic, full of hard labour and perseverance. Thanks to his dedication and abilities, he gave Slovak-americans a very unique and precious gift – his Americký Tlumač, in English entitled American Interpreter. In a wider sense and beyond any ethnic boundaries, Slovenský’s life and work are strongly marked by ethical humanism, since, especially during his working at the austro-hungarian Consulate in Pittsburgh, and by authoring Americký Tlumač, he devoted himself to helping the poor and the needy. Though his life story had an early tragic end,40 his work increased the chances of integration for immigrants from his small nation, and, at the same time, contributed to the first ever direct and extensive communicative contacts of the wider Slovak public, in this case the Slovak immigrants in america, with the English language. as noted above, the earlier and only limited contacts of Slovaks with English concerned only a few individuals from among Slovak men of letters. In connection with Slovenský’s Americký Tlumač, it is noteworthy that several sources mention its having had two or three subsequent editions, but for the purpose of this research they could not be located as having been preserved. In addition, probably because of the unavailability of the book and a considerable need for it or similar materials, several other authors later wrote manuals closely patterned on it. This includes, for example, Karol Záruba’s Tlumač a malý Slovníček anglicko-slovenský (Interpreter and a Small English-Slovak Dictionary), as mentioned in Čulen (1938, 300), which, however, has not been available for the present research. Moreover, Slovenský’s Americký Tlumač could perhaps have also inspired, for 38 as Janek states, after its publication Americký Tlumač “soon became the most sold item on the book market”. 39 “to the Slovaks living here to be a means for acquiring the most necessary initial knowledge of the English language without which one cannot function in america” (translated by a. B.). 40 at the age of 41, in despair, he took his own life after failing to succeed during the gold rush, as well as because of the failure of his marriage (cf. Čulen 1954). 77SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English example, Charlton dixon (1904) in his reverse idea – to help Slovak-americans keep up their Slovak he wrote a 133-page Slovak Grammar for english [sic] speaking students which was published by Slovenský’s colleague rovnianek (it is currently unavailable). as Čulen writes (1938), the linguistic quality of dixon’s (1904) book was rather poor, but it could still be useful for Slovak immigrants after numerous years of having lived in considerable isolation from their distant homeland. gradually, the need for Slovak immigrants to keep up, revive and further develop their command of the language of their heritage was increasing. It was also for that purpose that Philip a. hrobak later authored Hrobak’s English-Slovak Dictionary (1944) and his 366-page textbook Slovak Lessons (1935), which for many years was used at several Slovak schools in america (for example, Benedictine Slovak high School in Cleveland). however, such materials are already beyond the scope of the present study. 3.3 Early English-Slovak Lexicography Slovenský’s Americký Tlumač with its sections presenting English-Slovak equivalents foreshadowed the rise of the actual dictionaries of these two languages. The need for them was increasing along with the increasing demand among Slovak immigrants in the US to improve their understanding and command of English. These works were mostly authored by Slovak teachers and clergy. Emil Nyitray’s Slovak-English dictionary was published in New York (according to hayeková [1979] in about 1900). Paul Kadak’s Praktičný anglicko- slovenský a slovensko-anglický Tlumač (Practical English-Slovak/Slovak-English Dictionary) issued in 1905 contained about 3,700 entries, but with only one equivalent for each (with its English pronunciation). on a larger scale, though not higher lexicographical complexity, was Július Bučko’s English-Slovak dictionary published in 1905 in Chicago, with 612 pages (cf. Čulen 1938, 300). however useful we can imagine these dictionaries to have been for the communicative needs of Slovak immigrants, they were rather simple alphabetical lists of basic equivalents presented within the capabilities and knowledge of their lexicographically unskilled authors. Much more extensive and lexicographically more elaborate is Jozef Konuš’s 628-page Slovensko-anglický slovník, published in 1930. The fact that it does not include pronunciation is because it was intended for users who could already speak some English (cf. Čulen 1938, 301), and thus were supposed to work out the pronunciation themselves. Konuš came to the US in 1913 at the age of 13, travelling with his mother, to join his father who had already been working there. as he said in a personal interview with the present author (in 1994 in Boca raton in florida), he very quickly learned English also thanks to the fact that he also spoke german. actually, it was a dialect of althochdeutsch41 locally preserved and still used in his childhood in the mining town of Prievidza in Central Slovakia where he came from. he stated that it was much closer to English than contemporary german is, which made it easier 41 In Prievidza in the 12th to 14th centuries there was a considerable influx of german colonizers, and in relative isolation their german developed into a different and actually rather archaising dialect. hence, in youth Konuš spoke a dialect of ethnic germans who up to the 20th century formed a significant section of the inhabitants of Slovakia. They are jointly referred to as Carpathian germans; cf. https://beliana.sav.sk/heslo/karpatski-nemci (accessed November 9, 2022). Cf. also the documentary film Smutné Jazyky. Dokument o živote Karpatských Nemcov na Slovensku (Sad Tongues. Document about the life of Carpathian Germans in Slovakia) by Jozef tancer and anna grusková (2018). 78 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English for him to master English. however, he also evidently had a talent for languages. he spoke six languages, studying Latin and german Philology in the US, and he worked as a teacher and later as a cryptographer. as a result of such qualifications and scholarly dedication, Konuš became the most productive Slovak lexicographer in the US, as he also authored an English-Slovak Dictionary (1941) and an extensive close-to-medium-size Slovak-English Phraseological Dictionary (1969) containing about 34,000 entries (cf. Böhmerová 1991, 37). Though entitled “phraseological”, it is actually a general dictionary including extensive lexicographical data about each entry. In addition to mere equivalents, it also contains collocations, exemplifications and phraseologisms. of course, it is marked by the fact that, though written by a Slovak, Konuš was not in direct contact with the Slovak community in Slovakia, of which there naturally are some traces. Thus present in the dictionary are numerous dialectal words or archaisms. however, its high and pioneering lexicographical merit is undisputable. In addition, it also has a cultural value, to which Jozef Škultéty refers in its introduction. he points out that the dictionary makes Slovak more accessible to speakers of English, and applauds the fact that it puts Slovak among those languages whose vocabularies have been compared to English (cf. Böhmerová 1991 38). Moreover, it also introduces numerous typical Slovak realia, mainly from the domain of household and agricultural tools, typical food, or vocabulary related to folk traditions and festivals. of special value is the fact that, in addition to the general lexis, it systematically aims at including botanical and zoological terminology as well, and for better identification the terms are usually accompanied by their Latin equivalents. With regard to its extent and lexicographical qualities, Konuš’s Slovak-English Phraseological Dictionary could also have provided a unique service in Slovakia. for many years it was the largest dictionary of its kind on both continents. however, for political reasons connected with his working as cryptographer for the fBI, it was not available in Slovakia during the previous regime. It was actually banned, and Konuš’s name was absent from Slovak biographical dictionaries. In Slovakia, the first English-Slovak dictionary was published as late as in 1946 (cf. Böhmerová 1991). It was compiled by Ján Vilikovský, Professor of Slovak and Czech Literatures. Though a relatively small-size dictionary, it contained as many as about 25,000–27,000 entries based on the originally only personally intended files of English-Slovak equivalents compiled during Vilikovský’s literary readings. hence, English-Slovak lexicographical works in the US for a long time by far preceded and exceeded those in Slovakia, which only appeared much later after Slovakia started to have more direct contacts with English and with anglophone countries, but that topic is beyond the scope of the present paper. 4 The Beginnings of English Studies in Slovakia as for many centuries Slovaks had been rather “hidden” within multi-national geographic and political units, and did not have any direct contacts with English-speaking countries, the need for English gradually arose only after the disintegration of the austro-hungarian Monarchy after the foundation of Czechoslovak republic in 1918. Before that, with the exception of the early interest of some Slovak men of letters in English literature, and in particular in its 79SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English translation (cf. section 2 above), Slovaks in Slovakia had hardly any contact with English. Even after 1918 for quite a long time the presence of English was rather marginal. of importance for the future of English in Slovakia was the year 1923, when English started to be taught at Comenius University in Bratislava (founded four years earlier), specifically at its faculty of arts founded in 1921 (cf. Böhmerová 1991). The first teacher of English studies was the Keltologist Josef Baudiš (1883–1930). Similar to the situation in other academic disciplines, he was Czech, as, in contrast to Bohemia, at that time there were no university teachers of English in Slovakia, while in Bohemia in Prague, already in 1912, Vilém Mathesius had become the first university professor of English Studies and in 1926 founded the Prague Circle of Linguistics. Baudiš, who was inaugurated as professor at Charles University in 1919, came to Comenius University in 1923 and taught there for the rest of his life. Based on his wish, his specialization was defined as “Professor of Indo-European comparative linguistics and general philology, with affiliation to medieval cultures” (cf. Machek 1948). however, at the same time and for many years he also taught English studies, which had long been one of his interests, since he had already translated The Poems of Ossian from English (his translation was published in 1903). another contribution to the beginnings of English studies in Slovakia was made by the germanist františek Kalda who in 1928 also started lecturing on English. Both Baudiš and Kalda served as deans of the faculty of arts of Comenius University in Bratislava, Baudiš in 1925–1926 and Kalda in 1933–1934. While several other lecturers also were involved in teaching English, the first full Professor of English Studies at Comenius University was otakar Vočadlo (1895–1974). as a literary scholar who taught there between 1933 and 1938, he is to be considered the founder of English Studies at the university. he was the author of Anglická literatura XX. století (English Literature of the 20th Century, 1932), and during his affiliation with Comenius University his textbook Současná literatura Spojených států (Contemporary Literature of the United States, 1934) was published. Most unfortunately, because of the political situation in Slovakia at the threshold of WW II, he, like other Czech academics, had to leave the country. In his case this is to be especially regretted since he made the greatest contribution to the establishment and early development of English Studies in Slovakia, and could have continued in this work. It was also thanks to him that from the late 1930s onward English began to be taught by Comenius University graduates at Slovak grammar Schools, preparing candidates also for university studies of English that, though at first only slowly and within germanic Studies, started to develop after WW II. The department of English Studies, later renamed the department of British and american Studies, was established in 1966, and since then it has had thousands of graduates who work as teachers, translators, interpreters, editors, but also in other professions, for example, in the media, diplomatic services, governmental management, and so on (cf. Böhmerová 1991). This account brings us already to the recent situation concerning English in Slovakia. although a closer analysis is not the purpose of this study, let us point out at least some developments concerning the status of English and other languages in contemporary Slovak education. Since 1966, when the department of British and american Studies was founded, English Studies have continuously formed an important and attractive part of academic education. 80 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English actually, most of the time the students enrolled in them have represented at least one third of all the students at the faculty of arts at Comenius University, more than the number of students of any other language. a boost for the further development of English studies came after the Velvet revolution in 1989, when contacts with the English-speaking world also started to become easier. as for education at lower-level schools, for a number of years after 1989 English was the mandatory foreign language from the 3rd grade of elementary school. a change came in the school year 2019/2020 when a certain liberalization of the selection of the first foreign language was enacted, as mandatory school education offered also in other languages was demanded by the public. Consequently, English is now only one of the six languages that pupils and students can select, the others being german, french, Italian, Spanish and russian. however, the real possibility of such choice can be, and often is, limited by the availability of teachers of those languages. at present teachers of English are the most common, and at the majority of schools English is taught as a mandatory subject. Education in a second foreign language, which has been a traditional requirement at schools in Slovakia since WW II, is mandatory from grade 7 of elementary schools, though depending on the availability of teachers it can be offered earlier, while at grammar schools a second foreign language is mandatory. Though this situation limits to some extent the institutional teaching of English at schools lower than university level, it provides variety in language education, and thus does not have to be perceived as being to the detriment of English. Moreover, at present, thanks to the media, including the internet, as well as to travel, co-operation with foreign countries, etc., English is widely present and intensively used in much of the written and spoken international communication in Slovakia and by Slovaks, and to some extent also much of the general public is fairly familiar with English and often encounters it. 5 Conclusion This paper is based on extensive research into the materials and circumstances related to the early contacts of Slovaks with English. as the partial results of the investigation have already been summarized in each of the core sections, here I shall only point out what I consider to be the most prominent findings. While the international presence of English is now considered a conditio sine qua non in communication and cooperation, English having the status of a lingua franca, in many countries it is commonly believed that this is a rather recent phenomenon concerning only several decades. The present research testifies to the fact that for Slovaks the contacts with English, although at first only modest, were born not only much earlier, but actually at different times on two continents. at first, the research followed the Slovak immigrants to america where learning English was a highly demanding task, especially considering the difficult circumstances of life for the new arrivals. at the same time, learning how to speak English was for this community, as for many other immigrants, in many respects a matter of survival. In this context, much attention in this study has been devoted to Janko Slovenský’s unique manual Americký Tlumač, and the valuable service that it provided both to his immigrant compatriots and, 81SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English indirectly, also to Slovakia. from the educational point of view, it was the first, and relatively complex and pioneering, manual of English for Slovaks. from the linguistic point of view, as also manifested by the present analysis of its structure and contents, it was the first description of English by a Slovak, and the very first step towards English studies. from a pragmatic point of view, it assisted Slovak immigrants not only in making it in the US, but also in their integration, advancement and acculturation, all this, at least originally, without any institutionalized instruction. In this respect, the book is a precious philological and cultural heritage for the Slovaks, as well as for Slovak anglicists. With the research presented here I hope to make it more widely known nationally and internationally. a lot of recognition is also deserved by the earliest English-Slovak dictionaries which were compiled and published much earlier than those originating in Slovakia. however, the possibilities of examining such texts were to some extent hampered by the unavailability of some of these now rather rare historical sources. The research once again documents that the need for foreign languages is indispensably conditioned by the existence of contacts – social, political, cultural, etc. – and the ensuing need for communication. This is also demonstrated by the investigation of the early history of the presence of English in Slovakia. Because of the lack of direct contacts, for a long time there was neither the need for English, nor the possibility of its integration into the contexts of Slovak life. hence, in contrast to the beginnings of the contacts of Slovaks with the English language in america, their contacts in Slovakia lagged behind by more than half a century, and even then for many years they were far from intensive. The research has also indicated that although – not only with regard to Slovakia – there exist tendencies to believe that English in the educational system is only a very recent phenomenon, in Slovakia it was already taught at some non-university level schools since the late 1930s, and more extensively since the 1960s. English has contributed to the international integration of Slovakia, but also to its range of previously existing multilingual education. Part of the present research has also been devoted to the early developments of university studies of English in Slovakia, with some comments on the recent situation. The subject examined in this study has proved to be very complex, involving various aspects and considerations influencing the contacts of the Slovaks with English. The situation of a number of nations might be analogous to that of the Slovaks, whether with regard to English and early immigration to america, or with regard to the beginnings of the presence of English in the homeland, though in many other respects bearing rather specific national and culture- bound features. It is hoped that the results of this research will make a contribution, however modest, to what could perhaps evolve into wider cross-national research into the history of contacts with English and into the national histories of English studies. 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Bratislava: Kalligram, Ústav slovenskej literatúry SaV. —. 2019. “Problematika medziliterárnosti a dejín umeleckého prekladu v monografii ruda Brtáňa venovanej Bohuslavovi tablicovi.” Slovenská literatúra 66 (5): 346–57. 84 adela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English Appendix Appendix Image 1Image 1 Image 2 Image 2 Image 3 Image 3 85SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESadela Böhmerová Historical Aspects of Early Contacts of Slovaks with English Image 4Image 4 Image 5 Image 5 87SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Martin Ološtiak, Soňa Rešovská University of Prešov, Slovakia 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 87-108(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.87-108 UdC: 811.162.4’373.43=111 Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak aBStraCt The aim of the paper is to analyse post-1989 anglicisms in present-day Slovak. Central concepts of the study are neologisms (new items in the lexicon of a language), present-day Slovak (the Slovak language from 1989 onwards), borrowing (one of several ways of lexical enrichment) and adaptation (the process of adapting loans into Slovak as a recipient language). The most extensive part consists of sections devoted to particular adaptation processes on the levels of phonology, orthography, morphology, word-formation, semantics and pragmatics. finally, the paper addresses the issues of the variability and synonymy of English borrowings in Slovak. Keywords: Slovak, English, anglicism, neologism, adaptation Neologizmi angleškega izvora v sodobni slovaščini PoVZEtEK Namen prispevka je analizirati anglicizme v sodobni slovaščini po letu 1989. osrednji koncepti raziskave so neologizem (novost v leksiki nekega jezika), sodobna slovaščina (slovaški jezik od leta 1989 dalje), izposojanje (eden od več načinov leksikalne obogatitve) in adaptacija (proces prilagajanja izposojenk slovaščini kot jeziku prejemniku). Najobsežnejši del predstavljajo razdelki, posvečeni posameznim procesom prilagajanja na ravni fonologije, pravopisa, morfologije, besedotvorja, semantike in pragmatike. Na koncu je obravnavano vprašanje variabilnosti in sinonimije angleških izposojenk v slovaščini. Ključne besede: slovaščina, angleščina, anglicizem, neologizem, prilagajanje 88 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak 1 Introduction There is no dispute that language contact is one of the linguistic universals, and the interactions that occur between people speaking different languages have consequences in their language contact. It is therefore natural that contact linguistics has become one of the well-established linguistic disciplines focusing on a large variety of subjects with three main components (i.e., linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic; Winford 2019), including bilingualism, multilingualism, code switching, language change, pidginization, creolization, lexical borrowing, and many others (e.g., Weinreich 1953; Thomason and Kaufman 1988; Myers- Scotton 1993, 2002; goebl et al. 1996, 1997; Labov 2001; Thomason 2001; hickey 2010; Léglise and Chamoreau 2013; grant 2015, 2019, to mention just a few). another indisputable truth is the contemporary importance of English as a lingua franca. These facts have been analysed from various perspectives in an extensive number of papers and publications (e.g., Jenkins 2007; Prodromou 2008; Mauranen and ranta 2009; furiassi, Pulcini, and rodríguez gonzález 2012; Kecskes 2019). from the 18th century onwards the influence of English on (not only) European languages has been increasing significantly. however, “the spread of English has had an extraordinary boost after the Second World War as carrier of scientific and technological innovation and as the language of business, trade, and especially of popular culture, availing itself of the most powerful means of dissemination, i.e., radio, television, cinema and the Internet” (Pulcini, furiassi, and rodríguez gonzález 2012, 2). Slovak, as one of the West-Slavic languages of Central Europe, came into closer contact with English only after the Second World War. however, for political reasons (from 1948–1989 Czechoslovakia was a part of the Communist Bloc dominated by the Soviet Union) extensive contact between English and Slovak became a reality only after the fall of the communist regime in November 1989. This year represents an important turning point both in the history of Slovakia (before 1993, a part of Czechoslovakia) and the Slovak language. In the Historický slovník slovenského jazyka [historical dictionary of the Slovak Language] (Majtán et al. 1991–2008), covering literary Slovak from the 11th to 18th centuries, only three entries of English origin can be found (holster/holstra/holstro ‘holster’, lord, šterling ‘sterling’; Kopecká et al. 2011, 202). In the Slovník cudzích slov [dictionary of foreign Words] (Petráčková and Kraus 2005), covering borrowed lexical units in contemporary Slovak (from the second part of the 20th century), anglicisms represent the fourth largest group (2,410 entries, 4.3%), after loans of greek (27.4%), Latin (25.7%) and french origin (6.2%). anglicisms from the 19th and 20th centuries generally fall into the following semantic categories: sport (basketbal ‘basketball’, volejbal ‘volleyball’, tajbrejk ‘tie-break’, aut ‘out’, bodyček ‘checking’, dres ‘jersey’), art and entertainment (bigbít ‘big beat’, country, džez ‘jazz’, folk, foxtrot, gag, hit, triler ‘thriller’), nature, animals, plants (hurikán ‘hurricane’, monzún ‘monsoon’, bulteriér ‘bull terrier’, grizly ‘grizzly’, kengura ‘kangaroo’, kólia ‘collie’, grapefruit), food and drinks (bar, brandy, whisky, džús ‘juice’, punč ‘punch’, puding ’pudding’, rozbif ‘roast beef ’, hamburger), machines and technologies (buldozér ‘bulldozer’, bojler ‘boiler’, čip ‘chip’, displej ‘display’, lokomotíva ‘locomotive’, offset, škuner ‘schooner’), fashion (džínsy ‘jeans’, flanel ‘flannel’, menčester ‘corduroy’, mejkap ‘make up’, pléd ‘plaid’), everyday life and spare time activities (partner, grogy ‘groggy’, sex, víkend ‘weekend’, hobby, karavan ‘caravan’, 89SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak kemp ‘camp’, piknik ‘picnic’, stop), economy (klíring ‘clearing’, koncern ‘concern’, biznismen ‘businessman’, rating), and others (lord, totem, trend, test).1 Since 1989, the majority of loanwords emerging in the Slovak vocabulary have been of English origin. our database of Slovak neologisms (16,500 entries) consists of 2,200 loans (14.4%) of which 1,900 are anglicisms (11.9% of all entries and 82.6% of borrowed entries).2 Unfortunately, in Slovak linguistics, despite the prominence of English as a contact language, neither a specialized dictionary nor a comprehensive monograph focused on anglicisms and americanisms have been published so far.3 The current paper is focused on structural adaptation of English borrowings in present-day Slovak, and is a partial contribution to exploring the influence of English in Slovakia and Central Europe, respectively. 2 Theoretical Background, the Concepts and the Data 2.1 Neologism a neologism can be defined as “an item newly introduced into the lexicon of a language” (Malmkjær 2006, 601). By the term “item”, we mean any type of lexeme (one-word unit, multi-word expression, meaning, abbreviation, etc.). according to algeo and algeo, a new word is a form or the use of a form not recorded in general dictionaries (1991, 2). Moreover, Picone suggests: “a neologism is any new word, morpheme or locution and any new meaning for a preexistent word, morpheme or locution that appears in a language” (1996, 3). Nevertheless, it is true that the concept of neologism and newness remains vague.4 our account is based on a synchronic-diachronic perspective, i.e., description of synchronic dynamism of the lexicon with regard to extra-linguistic reality, a perspective which takes into account historical turning points that motivate and affect changes in a language. Considering contemporary Slovakia and the Slovak language, it is the Velvet revolution of 1989 which serves as the dominant milestone in the second half of the 20th century (dolník 2003, 192– 97; ološtiak and rešovská 2021, 304). In this respect, present-day Slovak is understood as the Slovak language from 1989 to the present, and for the purpose of this study a neologism is any type of lexeme first attested in Slovak after 1989. 1 The examples are taken from Peciar (1959–1968) and Kačala, Pisárčiková, and Považaj (2003). Unfortunately, there are no statistics capturing the proportion of anglicisms in these dictionaries. Information on the dates of their first attestation in Slovak relies on Králik (2015). 2 These English loans are taken from the Dictionary of Slovak Neologisms database (ološtiak and rešovská 2021). The database was compiled on the basis of the authors’ observations and from the already existing dictionary of Czech neologisms – Nová slova v češtině ‘New Words in Czech’ (Martincová et al. 1998, 2004). The Slovak equivalents of these entries have been checked in two Slovak corpora – the Slovenský národný korpus [Slovak National Corpus] and Aranea (Benko 2014). Each database entry contains a citation form, pronunciation, grammar label, register label, definition, and examples (ološtiak and rešovská 2021). 3 obviously, the question has been partially analysed from various points of view, e.g., Lenhardt (1983, 1986), Škvareninová (1991), oravcová (1995), ološtiak (2002), Jesenská (2007), dobrík (2007), etc. an extensive overview of studies on the topic cannot be included in this paper, however. 4 as Smyk-Bhattacharjee puts it: “despite numerous discussions and attempts at defining a neologism, it still remains a notational term that means different things to different researchers. Therefore, though intuitively understood, neologism remains a vague concept. Inconsistent terminological distinctions and the various status levels used only add to the confusion” (2009, 37). 90 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak 2.2 Borrowing and anglicisms Lexical borrowing is among the most visible evidence of language contact, a lexical component being “far more likely borrowed than phonological or grammatical components, which are more stable and less transferable” (Coetsem 2000, 58; quoted in onysko 2007, 45). We treat the process of borrowing as one of several ways of lexical enrichment,5 i.e., responding to the naming need of a speech community (an onomasiological approach is foregrounded). as stated above, the language contact of English and Slovak is dealt with, English being the source language and Slovak the recipient language.6 The question of what can be counted as an anglicism (i.e., English borrowing, loan, loanword)7 may be controversial. a broad definition is suggested by gottlieb: “any individual or systemic language feature adapted or adopted from English, or inspired or boosted by English models, used in intralingual communication in a language other than English” (gottlieb 2005, 163). Consequently, gottlieb introduced a detailed structural classification including three main categories (active anglicisms, reactive anglicisms, code shifts) with multi-layered subdivisions (for the typology of borrowings and further discussion cf. onysko 2007, 10ff.; Pulcini, furiassi, and rodríguez gonzález 2012, 5–10). In accordance with gottlieb (2005), we consider an anglicism to be any linguistic element that is taken from or inspired by English (words, multi-word expressions, idioms, parts of multi-word expressions, pseudo-loans, semantic loans). our data include mostly formally recognizable items (direct borrowings) – loans (like, last minute), pseudo-loans (MP3-man ‘MP3 player’) and hybrids (byť in ‘to be in’), and indirect borrowings – calques (násťročný ‘teenager’) and semantic loans (myš ‘mouse – a computer device’), for example. Lexical units coined from anglicisms in Slovak are excluded, e.g., blogerka ‘blogger (she)’ derived through suffixation from the direct borrowing bloger ‘blogger’. however, these derivatives are treated in 3.4, because they are examples of the word-formation productivity of English loans. 3 Adaptation transposition of a lexical element from one environment (SL) to another (rL) may be considered as a lexical import. If a direct borrowing in the form of a loanword (cf. 2.2; Pulcini, furiassi, and rodríguez gonzález 2012, 6) as the most typical type of lexical borrowing is taken into account, the first stage of such a process can be metaphorically called cloning, i.e., creating a copy of a particular lexical unit that is imported into rL in the form of a replica (the notion replica is used by several authors, e.g., hope 1971; filipović 1986b). however, in rL the process of adaptation is immediately activated. adaptation is a natural reaction of rL to the existence of an element of foreign origin and, at the same time, is the materialization of the activity of rL in forms of outputs, i.e., particular lexical units. In this paper, adaptation of content items8 is dealt with as the central category. 5 other processes may include: word-formation, semantic shift, lexicalization of multi-word expressions, ex nihilo creation). Nevertheless, there are many accounts of what can be termed as word-formation processes. 6 We also use the abbreviations SL (source language), E. for English, and rL (recipient language), S. for Slovak (some considerations are of general value, that is why we use acronyms SL and rL). for comments on divergent and multiple terminology in the field of contact-induced lexical borrowing cf. Pulcini, furiassi, and rodríguez gonzález (2012, 10–13). 7 all of these terms are used here as synonyms. 8 Content items are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs (i.e., items with full lexical meaning). according to field (2002, 91SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak adaptation is considered to be a multi-layered phenomenon which can be analysed in more detail on the levels of paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations, form and function (phonology, orthography), meaning (semantics), both form and meaning (morphology, morphemics, word-formation), and pragmatics, respectively. In order to name these notions, the Croatian linguist rudolf filipović (1978, 1986a, 1986b) coined two terms with the prefix trans- and suffix -(iz)ation: transphonemization (adaptation on the phonological level) and transmorphologization (adaptation on the morphological level).9 other terms denoting individual adaptation processes have also been coined by furdík (1994; written in Slovak), namely transmorphemization (adaptation on the morphemic level), transderivation (adaptation on the word-formation level), transsemantization10 (adaptation on the level of semantics), transorthographization (adaptation of spelling) and transcollocation (adaptation of collocability). In addition, one can use terms denoting adaptation on the level of paradigmatic relations (transparadigmatization), and syntagmatic relations (transsyntagmatization) (ološtiak 2012). In the following subsections, the sound, orthographic, morphological, word-formation, semantic and pragmatic adaptation processes are all presented. 3.1 Sound adaptation (transphonemization) 3.1.1 The essence of sound adaptation is a change in the sound structure of a lexeme, in which phonemes of SL are replaced by phonemes of rL, e.g., E. pub /pʌb/11 =>12 S. pub /pab/. Since sound adaptation is the transition of a sound element from the system of SL into the system of rL, the phonemic replacement is accompanied by other processes (including prosodic features and entering the phonological relations within the system of rL). The sound systems of languages feature various degrees of affinity. When comparing phonemes from languages in contact, we may claim there is no total identicality. although phonemes may be very close (articulated in the same way), in terms of phonology they operate in different sound systems. for instance, English /p/ is a bilabial, plosive, occlusive consonant which correlates with /b/ 117), content items are the most likely borrowed elements (as opposed to function words, agglutinating affixes and fusional affixes; cf. also onysko 2007, 45). 9 filipović also investigated semantic and orthographic adaptation, although did not use the terms transsemantization and transorthographization. 10 Some of these terms (transsemantization, transderivation) have been proposed by ajduković (1997, 2004) independently. 11 IPa symbols are used both for E. and S. English pronunciation is taken from the online Cambridge dictionary (https:// dictionary.cambridge.org/). The only exception is the “standard” English r (post-alveolar approximant) indicated as /ɹ/, which is different from the Slovak post-alveolar trill /r/. The stress is indicated, if needed. Slovak pronunciation is based on Kráľ (1996). Conversion from the Slovak transcription system into IPa is based upon Ivanecký and Nábělková (2002, 89). for the sake of simplicity, English received Pronunciation (rP) has been adopted. We have no room to consider variations in the pronunciation in English that would have an effect on the sound adaptation of words borrowed into Slovak, depending on the actual English source of the word (British English, North american English, etc.). Such work would also be tricky, because no similar research has been carried out in Slovak so far. Moreover, sound adaptation may be also influenced by other factors, e.g., final /ɛr/ in Slovak hacker /ɦɛkɛr/ is not only a replica of the american pronunciation /hækɚ/, but also the impact of spelling (final -er) and grammar (consonant ending involves inflection); cf. 3.2 and 3.3. Therefore, the pronunciation /ɛr/ is present in all words (masculine nouns) with the final -er, e.g., S. biker, bloger, developer, headhunter, influencer, street worker, etc. 12 The symbol => is used to indicate the transfer from SL to rL. on the other hand, the symbol → is used to demonstrate word-formation relations (see 3.4). 92 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak (the opposition of tension is relevant and cannot be neutralised; Skaličková 1982, 112–15). Moreover, it can be aspirated in initial position. Slovak /p/ is a bilabial, plosive, occlusive consonant, correlating with /b/ as well and the correlation of voice which is neutralised is key, i.e., in a certain context the assimilation is activated (final /b/ in pub assimilates into /p/, if the following word begins with a voiceless consonant, e.g., pub skoro otvoria ‘the pub is about to open’ /pap‿skɔrɔ/). 3.1.2 The process of sound adaptation is often associated with transphonemization, i.e., the substitution of phonemes of SL by phonemes of rL. This term was introduced by filipović (1978, 1986b, 1990) who distinguishes three types of transphonemization on the basis of similarities and dissimilarities between the segments of SL and rL:13 a) Minimal transphonemization14 – the substitution of phonemes which are almost completely identical in SL and rL, e.g., E. facelift /feɪslɪft/ => S. facelift /fɛjslɪft/: E. /f/ => S. /f/, E. /s/ => S. /s/, E. /l/ => S. /l/, E. /ɪ/ => S. /ɪ/, E. /t/ => S. /t/. b) Partial transphonemization (in Croatian, djelomična transfonemizacija) – the substitution of phonemes that differ in some features, the degree of opening (vowels), place of articulation, aspiration, etc. (consonants), e.g., font /fɒnt/ => S. font /fɔnt/: E. /ɒ/ => S. /ɔ/, E. hacker / hækər/ => S. hacker /ɦɛkɛr/, E. /æ/ => S. /ɛ/. c) Free transphonemization (in Croatian, slobodna transfonemizacija) – the substitution of phonemes of SL with no articulatory equivalents with those of rL. as noted by filipović (1986b: 336), this type of substitution is done on the basis of orthography or extralinguistic factors, e.g., E. hacker /hækər/ => S. hacker /ɦɛkɛr/, E. /ər/ => S. / ɛr/, E. eurospeak /jʊərəʊ spiːk/ => S. eurospeak /ɛṷrɔspiːk/, E. /j+ʊə/ => S. /ɛ+ṷ/ (orthographic influence). It should be added, that the absence of articulatory and functional equivalents is not the only condition for free transphonemization. free substitution can take place even if there is an articulatory equivalent. In these cases a significant role would be played by other factors, e.g., E. (ice) hockey /ˈaɪs ˌhɒki/ => S. hokej /ɦɔkɛj/.15 The English final /i/ is substituted by the Slovak sequence of two phonemes /ɛ+j/ as a result of orthographic influence and, at the same time, in order to inflect the word (morphological factor). 13 It should be noted that a single word may involve different types of transphonemization across different phonemes. for this reason, in the examples we only show the transfer of those phonemes that belong to the corresponding type. 14 In Croatian, filipović uses the term potpuna transfonemizacija or nulta transfonemizacija ‘zero transphonemization’ (in English-written papers complete or zero transphonemization). he takes into consideration “those phonemes whose description is completely or almost completely identical in both languages” (filipović 1986b, 336). The author builds his consideration on the degree of similarity of phonemes in question. however, the term transphonemization (with the prefix trans-) suggests a change, i.e., how a phoneme of SL transforms into a phoneme of rL, and the Croatian attribute potpuna, or English complete respectively, imply a total phonemic transfer. That means a phoneme from SL is entirely different from that of rL, so it should be replaced completely. In fact, the opposite is the case. English /f/ and Slovak /f/ differ only insignificantly, so it is not necessary to make a complete phonemic change. It can be assumed that the term complete transphonemization does not satisfactorily define the notion it represents. Probably for this reason filipović later began to use the term zero transphonemization (e.g., filipović 1990, 1997). We propose the term minimal transphonemization, however. 15 In fact, the Slovak word hokej is not a neologism according to the specific temporal frame established for this paper (in the Slovenský národný korpus [Slovak National Corpus], it was first attested in 1959). This example is provided only to illustrate the case. 93SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak discussion of the boundaries between types of transphonemization as well as other methodological issues of sound adaptation, exemplified by English appellatives and proper names in Slovak, is dealt with by ološtiak (2007, 48–56). The typology introduced by filipović is based on qualitative criteria (properties of phonemes). furthermore, it is possible to introduce a complementary typology established on quantity, i.e., the number of phonemes (ološtiak 2007, 57–59). from this viewpoint the following types can be proposed: a) Proportional transphonemization – one phoneme of SL is replaced by one phoneme of rL, e.g., E. press /pɹes/ => S. press /prɛs/: E. /p/ => S. /p/, E. /ɹ/ => S. /r/, E. /e/ => S. /ɛ/, E. /s/ => S. /s/. b) Non-proportional transphonemization – substitution is manifested by an unequal number of phonemes in SL and rL: ba) Extensional transphonemization – one phoneme of SL is replaced by more than one phoneme of rL, e.g., E. disclaimer /dɪsˈkleɪmə/ => S. disclaimer /dɪsklɛjmɛr/: E. /eɪ/ => S. /ɛ+j/,16 E. anti-ageing /æntieɪdʒɪŋ/ => S. anti-ageing /antɪɛjdʒɪng/: E. /ŋ/ => S. / n+g/. In particular, this type occurs mostly in the substitution of the English final /ŋ/ (especially in -ing affixes), diphthongs and triphthongs. as a result of orthography, in rL a phoneme may be pronounced that does not occur in SL in a particular word. e.g., E. wrestling /reslɪŋ/ => S. wrestling /vrɛstlɪng/: E. /Ø/ => S. /v/, E. /Ø/ => S. /t/. This can be regarded as a manifestation of pseudo-transphonemization (the proper transphonemization requires the existence of segments both in SL and rL). bb) Reducing transphonemization – two (or, more) phonemes of SL are replaced by one phoneme of rL. This type has not been observed in the studied material. Qualitative and quantitative typologies are complementary, they can be combined, e.g., the relation E. /eɪ/ => S. /ɛ+j/ can be referred to as free transphonemization (the aspect of quality) and non-proportional extensional transphonemization (the aspect of quantity). In general, minimal and partial transphonemization can be only proportional, free transphonemization can be both proportional and non-proportional (ološtiak 2007, 59). 3.1.3 It has already been mentioned that sound adaptation also features prosodic and phonological changes. for prosody, the term transprosodemization may be used. With respect to borrowing, prosodic features related to the level of a word are relevant, in particular the word stress. as far as the English-Slovak language contact is concerned, two principal differences can be emphasized: a) in English, generally, the word stress is variable and fixed,17 unlike in Slovak, where stress is fixed to the first syllable; b) in English, several stresses within 16 Phonetically, it is a reduced [i̯], phonologically, it is a phoneme /j/. E. /eɪ/ is mostly rendered as /ɛ+j/, e.g., E. hit maker /hɪtˌmeɪkə/ => S. hitmaker /hɪtmɛjkɛr/, E. baby /beɪbi/ => S. baby /bɛjbɪ/. The transphonemized Slovak equivalent /ɛː/ is rather peripheral, e.g., E. trainer /treɪnə/, training /treɪnɪŋ/ => S. tréner /trɛːnɛr/, tréning /trɛːnɪng/ (however, tréner, tréning are not neologisms). on the other hand, a new word trainee /treɪniː/ is in Slovak pronounced as / trɛjnɪː/. 17 That is to say, English stress can be placed on different syllables within different words (hashtag /ˈhæʃ.tæɡ/ – entertainer /entəˈteɪnə/), but its place within one particular word does not change (hashtag /ˈhæʃ.tæɡ/, not */hæʃˈtæɡ/). 94 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak the same (longer, or more complex) word can be found, on the other hand, there is only one stress in Slovak, e.g., E. anti-ageing /ˌæntiˈeɪdʒɪŋ/ => S. anti-ageing /ˈantɪɛjdʒɪng/, E. backstage /ˌbækˈsteɪdʒ/ => S. backstage /ˈbɛkstɛjdʒ/, E. cross-country /ˌkrɒsˈkʌntri/ => S. cross- country /ˈkrɔskaːntrɪ/. transition of a phoneme from SL into rL also means functional involvement in the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations in the phonological system of rL. a transphonemized segment enters phonological oppositions established in rL. This aspect of adaptation can be termed transphonologization. for instance, according to Urbanová (2000, 37), for English consonants an opposition of tension is relevant, while an opposition of voice is not (Urbanová 2000, 37). Conversely, in Slovak, the opposition of tension is irrelevant, while the opposition of voice is relevant. Thus, in transphonologization process, English opposition of tension is incorporated and ‘melted’ into the Slovak opposition of voice, which is subject to neutralization in a certain group of Slovak consonants, namely /p – b/, /t – d/, /k – g/, /x – ɦ/, /c – ɟ/, /tʃ – dʒ/, /ts – dz/, /s – z/, /ʃ – ʒ/, /f – f̥/.18 Bearing these typological differences in mind, the following examples can be outlined: E. cheesecake /tʃiːzkeɪk/ => S. cheesecake / tʃɪːskɛjk/, E. must-have /mʌst hæv/ => S. must-have /mazd‿ɦɛv/, E. lookbook /lʊkbʊk/ => S. lookbook /lʊgbʊːk/. 3.1.4 furthermore, when discussing the sound adaptation, it is essential to mention the presence and nature of pronunciation variants in rL. Pronunciation variants in the E. => S. relation largely result from the following interrelated circumstances: a) The non-existence of phonemic equivalents has an influence on activating various means of sound adaptation, e.g., E. fricative /θ/ is replaced by S. /t/ or /s/: E. thriller / θrɪlə/ => S. thriller /trɪlɛr, srɪlɛr/, E. think tank /θɪŋk tæŋk/ => S. think-tank / tɪnktɛnk, sɪnktɛnk/, although the form /t/ is preferred: E. Bluetooth /bluːtuːθ/ => S. bluetooth / blʊːtʊːt/, not */blʊːtʊːs/, E. thrash /θræʃ/ => S. thrash /trɛʃ/, not /srɛʃ/. b) typological differences, e.g., different degrees of symmetry/asymmetry between pronunciation and orthography. In Slovak, the symmetry is much higher than that in English (it reaches 87%; Sabol 1989, 225). Therefore, the orthography plays a significant role within the process of sound adaptation (see 3.2). This fact is manifested, apart from the free transphonemization, in the competition between two kinds of sound forms: those based on substitution of SL phonemes vs. those based on orthography, e.g., E. aerobics /eəˈrəʊbɪks/ => S. aerobic /ɛrobɪk, aɛrobɪk]. c) Influences of varieties of English, e.g., E. body styling BrE. /bɒd.i staɪlɪŋ/, amE. /bɑːdi staɪlɪŋ/ => S. bodystyling /bɔdɪstajlɪng/ (influenced by British English), / badɪstajlɪng/ (influenced by North american English). 3.1.5 Importantly, the sound adaptation of abbreviations (acronyms) as a special type of lexeme is worth mentioning. In this domain several tendencies can be traced: a) pronunciation based on transphonemization: E. PR /piːɑːr/) => S. PR /pɪː aːr/; b) pronunciation based on Slovak principles: E. MP3 /em pi:/ => S. MP3 /ɛm pɛː/, not */ɛm-pɪː/, E. pdf /piːdiːef/ => pdf /pɛː dɛː ɛf/, not */pɪː dɪː ɛf/, E. USB /juːes biː/ => S. USB /ʊː ɛs bɛː/, not */jʊː ɛs bɪː/; 18 Slovak transcription equivalents: /p – b/, /t – d/, /k – g/, /x – h/, /ť – ď/, /č – dž/, /c – dz/, /s – z/, /š – ž/, /f – w/. 95SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak c) competition of a) and b): E. PC /piːsiː/ => S. PC /pɪː sɪː, pɛː cɛː/ (both forms are common), E. QR code /kjuːˈɑː/ => S. QR kód /kvɛː ɛr, kjʊː aːr/ (the first form is much more common). 3.1.6 finally, transphonemization based on orthography may be rarely used for pragmatic (expressive) purposes, e.g., image completely pronounced as /ɪmagɛ/ (not */ɪmɪdʒ/ based on E. /ɪmɪdʒ/) in the pejorative sense of ‘negative image’. 3.2 orthographic adaptation (transorthographization) adaptation on the level of orthography (transorthographization) covers any change of spelling. This mostly occurs as a reflection of pronunciation (cash => keš, bike => bajk) and only rarely as a simplification of geminates (banner => baner, lobby => loby).19 This is the result of typological differences (Slovak with predominantly phonemic orthography vs. English with its non-phonemic system). as a result, transorthographization of loanwords from English is a relatively common process in Slovak.20 In terms of neologisms, many aspects (including spelling) of their existence and usage are subject to change. This is especially true of their orthography which can be either preserved, modified, or completely adapted. When neologisms are at the very beginning of their lexical existence in rL, they usually retain their original spelling. This is evident in the researched database, where more than 65% of borrowings operate in Slovak with no orthographic change, e.g., crew, freelancer, gender, high-end, impeachment, workout. Whether the sound adaptation is followed by adaptation of orthography is determined by several (sometimes overlapping) factors (ološtiak 2012), including register, whether or not the word is considered an internationalism, and various other pragmatic matters. In terms of register, the orthography of colloquial or slang words is subject to adaptation more often than that of unmarked and neutral words or terms from registers characterized by a higher level of formality.21 Internationalisms are less adaptable, as transorthographization could in part contradict the principle of their existence.22 Pragmatics influences adaptation in a sense that the original English spelling can, in certain contexts, be viewed as default and therefore more ‘attractive’ in certain contexts. Examples include terms used in professional communication,23 words that convey a degree of prestige when English spelling24 is used and words that preserve the iconicity of a brand name.25 English spelling is also preserved in phrases of idiomatic or terminological character such as cash and carry, coming out, just in time, lucky loser, soft law, etc. 19 In Slovak, there is a strong tendency to create symmetry between spelling and pronunciation (cf. 3.1.4). 20 The statement concerns English loanwords as such, i.e., not only neologisms. older anglicisms have a  slightly different status because they have been subject to spelling adaptation for a longer time. 21 Considering the vertical division of register into lower – neutral – higher, with colloquial, slang and overall non- standard words at the lower end of the spectrum, neutral in the middle, and literary, administrative, and scientific terms at the higher end (Slančová 1999). 22 Note that a certain degree of transorthographization, i.e., smaller, less significant changes of spelling (adding quantity markers or simplifying the spelling e.g., stevard, trol) can be present in internationalisms in certain cases. 23 for example, since English is the main language of It, It professionals tend to use the original spelling even in cases where there is a counterpart with adapted orthography already present in the language, e.g., scrollovať – skrolovať ‘to scroll’, malware – malvér, software – softvér, etc. (meaning this aspect can be tied to the microsocial aspect of the term register as well, see Slančová 1999). 24 This is very common in the communication register of lifestyle or tourism, e.g., lounge, night club, styling, wellness, etc. 25 transorthographization in this case usually occurs only when the word denoting a branded product becomes an eponym, the name for the whole type of products not produced by the original brand, e.g., Jeep – džíp, Walkman – volkmen. 96 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak around 10% of the borrowings consists of entries where orthographic adaptation is not necessary, as the orthographic form and its pronunciation in Slovak correspond without needing any changes, e.g., barter, ending, font, grant, link, van. The remaining units are divided into two categories in terms of the presence of orthographic adaptation. The larger group (approximately 16%) consists of loanwords with two or more variants of spelling, one being the original English spelling and the other (or others) showing various degrees of orthographic adaptation (outfit/autfit, playmate/plejmejt, patchwork/pačvork/ pečvork). The second group (around 7%) is made up of adapted loanwords with no variants, the adaptation process having taken place during their relatively short existence in Slovak, e.g., E. loser => S. lúzer ‘loser’, E. screening => S. skríning ‘screening’, E. to tape26 => S. tejpovať ‘to tape’. The emergence and existence of orthographic variants is usually tied to the process of establishing the fixed pronunciation of a word in rL. In the case of sound variability, more than one orthographic variant can emerge.27 among the researched material, two types of variant pairs (or triples and even quadruples in certain cases), can be described. The first type includes pairs where, along with the original variant, there is an already standardized adapted variant28 – dealer/díler, establishment/establišment, fleece/flís, hattrick/hetrik, image/ imidž, camp/kemp, clip/klip, team/tím. although the adapted form functions as the default variant, the original variant remains in use at least to a certain extent, usually for pragmatic reasons similar to those described with words that are not subject to adaptation. another group of orthographic variants is represented by items with an adapted variant that is not (yet) standardized, the use of which is considered colloquial or slang, e.g., keyboard/ kejbord ‘keyboard piano’, promotion/promoušn, remake/rímejk, squash/skvoš, time/tajm. These adaptations may (but need not) become standardized in the future. In the last group, orthographic adaptation is most advanced with only one adapted form (the original spelling having been dispensed with), e.g., displej ‘part of a mobile device used to show information’ (E. display), klik ‘a mouse click’ (E. click), lízing (E. leasing), strečing ‘special set of exercises designed to stretch the muscles before or after other exercise’ (E. stretching). This category consists mainly of earlier neologisms, i.e., units that emerged in Slovak in the 1990s and early 2000s. Standardization of the original vs the adapted spelling forms largely follows a case by case basis, taking into account various aspects of orthographic adaptation listed in this section. Normative lexicographic works such as Krátky slovník slovenského jazyka [Comprehensive dictionary of the Slovak Language] (Kačala, Pisárčiková, and Považaj 2003), Pravidlá 26 In a sense of “using kinesiology tape to relieve muscle pain”. 27 for example, the pronunciation of the word management in Slovak has fluctuated significantly. as a result, four orthographic variants exist in total – management/manažment/menežment/menidžment. of these, manažment is the most frequent variant and eventually became standardized (i.e., recognized by normative dictionary work Krátky slovník slovenského jazyka [Comprehensive dictionary of the Slovak Language] Kačala, Pisárčiková, and Považaj 2003) with the other variants still used, although to a lesser degree. The original variant is for example still preserved in the name of the faculty of Management of Comenius University in Bratislava (S. Fakulta managementu) despite the standardized variant already having been established. 28 In cases with more variants, there is usually another adapted variant that has not become standardized (see note 27). 97SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak slovenského pravopisu [The rules of the Slovak orthography] (Považaj 2013), use the original spelling with the information about the correct pronunciation in cases of non-adapted words or words that do not have their adapted spelling fully established yet. In cases when the words already have variant spellings along with the original one, then, depending on their frequency of usage,29 they are listed as either first or second variants of an entry word. When the adapted spelling becomes prevalent, dictionaries either include the original spelling with a note – pôvodne pís. ‘originally spelled’, or omit the original spelling altogether. Variation among other dictionaries can occur depending on their publication year. Nevertheless, based on the fact that the adaptation processes in neologisms are still ongoing, and many of them are not (yet) included in the listed dictionaries, a general conclusion about the preference of the original or adapted spelling cannot be drawn yet. There is also an option of language counselling, where linguists answer questions raised by the public which usually concern the use of a concrete word, in terms of spelling, pronunciation or morphological aspects, such as declension or conjugation, e.g., https://jazykovaporadna. sme.sk/q/60/ (for the spelling of e-mail, email, mail, mejl – accessed November 11, 2022). The answers and recommendations are based on the interpretation of already established rules in similar words and corpus research. 3.3 Morphological adaptation (transmorphologization) adaptation on a morphological level concerns a shift in grammatical categories (if SL and rL share the same category), or it reflects the attribution of a grammatical category in rL due to its absence in SL, or the loss of grammatical category in cases when rL does not have a certain grammatical category that the word possesses in SL. This process is manifested in various ways depending on to what part of speech a loan belongs to. 3.3.1 Nouns. Morphological adaptation of nouns includes the processes of transgenerization (change of grammatical gender), transdeclension (change of declension), and transnumerization (change of grammatical number). a change of grammatical gender often occurs, since the systems of gender in English and Slovak are based on different principles. The natural gender-based system in English divides nouns denoting persons according to their biological sex; all other nouns denoting inanimate objects and phenomena are assigned the neuter gender (Corbett 1991). In Slovak, the situation is more complicated and several factors are relevant (natural gender, formal criterion, paradigmatic criterion). The natural gender principle operates the same way as in English, since nouns denoting persons are automatically assigned grammatical gender based on the referent’s biological sex30 (masc. nerd, mentee, fem. showgirl, barbie). If a loanword does not denote a person, formal and paradigmatic criteria are activated. Each grammatical gender has its “strong” formal final position:31 consonant (masculine), vowel -a (feminine), vowel -o (neuter), e.g., web (masc.), 29 The usage is usually checked in corpus databases. 30 Which, in turn, can cause the noun to be uninflected, e.g., cheerleader, miss (both denote women and are assigned the feminine grammatical gender but lack the ending -a, which is necessary for a feminine noun to be inflected; cf. note 31). 31 The ‘strong’ position is prototypical for the corresponding gender and enables a loan to be inflected. feminine and neuter nouns with less typical or untypical stem endings remain uninflected (e.g., fem. šou ‘show’, world music, homepage) despite the existence of different declension patterns, fem. dlaň ‘palm’ and kosť ‘bone’; neutr. srdce ‘heart’, 98 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak utilita (fem.), bingo, taebo (neutr.). at the same time, assigning the gender may be influenced by paradigmatic criteria, i.e., fashion is transgenerized as feminine, because its synonym móda ‘fashion’ belongs to that category, similarly home care (fem.) ← starostlivosť (fem.) ‘care’, site (fem.) ← stránka (fem.) ‘site’, rave party (fem.) ← oslava (fem.) ‘party’. a complex process can be demonstrated by the following loans: E. netiquette => S. netiketa (fem.) ← etiketa (fem.) ‘etiquette’, E. utility => S. utilita (fem.) ← pomôcka (fem.) ‘utility’. These entries are assigned feminine gender as a result of paradigmatic criteria and, at the same time, the ending -a typical for feminine nouns is attached, so the words can be inflected. It follows from the above that English neuter nouns can be adapted in Slovak as masculine nouns (catering, disclaimer, editoriál ‘editorial’, facelift, firmware, pole dance), feminine nouns (world music, netiketa ‘netiquette’) and neuter nouns (smoothie, taebo). after assigning a certain grammatical gender, the word is included in a particular declension type (masc. kartridž ‘cartridge’ – gen. sg. kartridža, dat. sg. kartridžu, nom. pl. kartdridže, etc.; neutr. taebo – gen. taeba, instr. sg. taebom, etc.) or remains uninflected (fem. message). 3.3.2 Verbs. transmorphologization of verbs manifests itself through the addition of a suffix in order to conjugate the word, e.g., resetovať ‘to reset’, uploadovať ‘to upload’, kliknúť ‘to click’ (see 3.4.2). Verbs with such suffixes can be included in a particular conjugation type. 3.3.3 adjectives. In the database, there are three categories of adjectives: a) denominal uninflected adjectives coined by conversion, e.g., last minute (noun) → last minute (adj.) (last minute dovolenka ‘last minute holiday’), au pair (noun) → au pair (adj.) (au pair agentúra ‘au pair agency’); b) those that can be explained either as denominal derivatives coined by word-formation (unisex → unisexový ‘relating to a unisex’, grunge → grungeový ‘relating to grunge’), or as inflected entries by means of a suffix with a grammatical function (adj. unisex → adj. unisexový, adj. grunge → adj. grungeový; cf. 3.4.2); c) those that can be explained only as inflected entries, because in Slovak the presupposed noun does not exist (adj. cool → adj. coolový, adj. light → adj. lightový). Categories b) and c) presuppose the existence of adjectival variants such as cool – coolový, unisex – unisexový, light – lightový, grunge – grungeový, hardback – hardbackový. Uninflected adjectives such as last minute dovolenka ‘last-minute holiday’, cool pokec ‘cool chat’, open air festival represent the most visible morphological innovation under the influence of English, i.e., adoption of the features typical for analytic languages. 3.4 Word-formation adaptation (transderivation) 3.4.1 Word-formation adaptation (transderivation)32 appears to have a multifaceted character. first of all, it is useful to explain cross-linguistic and intralinguistic facets of transderivation. The cross-linguistic aspect depends on a comparison of the word-formation status of a word in SL and rL. from this perspective, transderivation most often manifests itself as a vysvedčenie ‘certificate’, and dievča ‘girl’. This shows that in Slovak, as rL, the central and typical mechanisms are activated for adaptation. 32 furdík (1994) did not specify this term in detail. however, he dealt with individual manifestations of word-formation adaptation giving examples of loans of hungarian origin in eastern Slovak dialects. 99SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak loss of word-formation motivation (furdík 1994, 99). The relation between motivating and motivated words of SL is interrupted, because a motivated word is usually borrowed without its motivating word, e.g., E. outside → outsider => S. Ø → outsider (the English word outsider is derived from outside, while Slovak outsider is not motivated), E. size → oversize => S. Ø → oversize, E. snow + board → snowboard => S. Ø → snowboard, E. short + list → shortlist => S. Ø → shortlist. Motivational relation is preserved if both members of a motivational couple have been borrowed, e.g., E. hoax → hoaxer => S. hoax → hoaxer, E. to hate → hater => S. hejtovať → hejter. The intralinguistic aspect is related to the integration of a loan into the word-formation system of rL. This includes a number of manifestations (operating on various levels, see 3.4.2) that represent the adaptation function of word-formation motivation (furdík 2004). additionally, the existence of couples such as provider → subprovider, hoax → hoaxer provide evidence for interconnectedness between cross-linguistic and intralinguistic aspects. Both motivating and motivated words such as hoax → hoaxer have been borrowed and, at the same time, they enter the word-formation relations of rL. 3.4.2 In the following section, a brief outline of word-formation adaptation processes in Slovak is given (cf. also furdík 2004, 121–22). a special case is represented by suffixation for inflectional morphological purposes. a suffix is attached to a  non-inflected word to make it inflectable, e.g., miss → miss-ka, selfie → self-íčko, cool → cool-ový. This process is typical for acronyms (SMS → SMS-ka, spelled also esemeska, MMS → MMS-ka, ememeska), and obligatory for verbs. Since the Slovak verb must be conjugated and conjugation is possible only by means of certain final morphemic sequences (especially -ovať and -núť), for a borrowed verb it is thus necessary to attach such a suffix, e.g., E. to hate => S. hejt-ovať, E. to scan => S. sken-ovať, E. to stalk => S. stalk-ovať, E. to click => S. klik-núť. In some cases, a specific process of remotivation is activated. Initially, a borrowed anglicism is usually a simple, non-motivated unit (e.g., stalking, browsing). however, it may become a derivative if an underlying word exists that can be perceived as its motivating element, e.g., stalkovať → stalking, browsovať → browsing (cf. trénovať ‘to train’ → tréning ‘training’, driblovať ‘to dribble’ → dribbling ‘dribbling’).33 further stages entail an anglicism in the function of a motivating word from which new words are coined: a) a combination of borrowed word-formation means, bases and affixes. This is mainly the consequence of the fact that both members of a word-formation pair have been borrowed, and hence their word-formation relation has been borrowed as well: 33 These are the records of the first mention in the Slovenský národný korpus [Slovak National Corpus] (collected by the function frequency distribution over time). Sometimes nouns occur before corresponding verbs (stalking (1998) – stalkovať (2012), dribling (1960) – driblovať (1964)), in some cases they appeared at the same time (tréning (1955) – trénovať (1955)). The pair of browsing (2002) – browsovať (1998) is the evidence of a verb occurring before a noun. It has to be stressed, however, that the direction of motivation does not depend on temporal criteria (which member of a pair was attested sooner or later). What is more important is the semantic relation. Since an action is primarily expressed by verbs, nouns denoting an action are viewed as deverbal and secondary. The principle is the same as in Slovak loviť (verb) ‘to hunt’ → lov (deverbal noun) ‘hunting’. 100 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak e.g., E. vlog → vlog-er => S. vlog → vlog-er, E. boss → boss-ing => S. boss → boss-ing. b) a combination of borrowed bases with domestic affixes: crossover → crossover-ový ‘relating to a crossover (a type of vehicle)’, díler ‘dealer’ → dealer-ka ‘dealer (she)’, mail ‘e-mail’ → mailík ‘e-mail (brief, or positive attitude) (diminutive)’. Both a) and b) result in the formation of partial word-families (word-formation nests) including multi-word expressions: e.g., aerobik ‘aerobics’ → aerobikový “relating to aerobics”, aerobička ‘female person who does aerobics’, step aerobik ‘step aerobics’, vodný aerobik ‘water aerobics’; lobby, loby ‘lobby’ → lobovať ‘to lobby’, lobing ‘lobbying’, lobovanie ‘lobbying’, lobizmus ‘lobbyism’, lobista ‘lobbyist’, lobistka “lobbyist (she)”, adj. lobistický ‘relating to a lobbyist or lobbyism’, adv. lobisticky ‘in a way typical for a lobbyist or lobbyism’. In Slovak, one of the largest word-families constituted on the basis of new anglicisms is represented by the words weblog and blog. a corpus-based case study focused on this word-family (ološtiak 2021) shows not only its astonishing extent (more than 200 units), but also a multidimensional structure on the basis of which it is organized and a close relationship between word-formation and borrowing.34 3.5 Semantic adaptation (transsemantization) Semantic adaptation (transsemantization) is a process of adaptation in terms of (usually) simplifying the polysemic structure of a word from SL. This means that only one or two meanings are usually borrowed in rL,35 e.g., fashion “a style that is popular at a particular time, especially in clothes, hair, make-up, etc.” (Cd36 2022)37, chat “a discussion that involves sending messages over the internet, by phone, using a messaging service, etc.”38 (Cd 2022), label “a company issuing commercial recordings”39 (MW40 2022), light “made with lower calorie content” (MW 2022) or volume “the degree of loudness or intensity of sound” (MW 2022). Interestingly, many of semantically adapted loanwords (e.g., chat, label, light) have the secondary, semantically transferred meanings of the original English word.41 Semantic adaptation does not, however, have to automatically mean reduction to a monosemic lexical unit. In some cases, the word is borrowed with a set of either connected or independent 34 Let us mention at least a few examples without further commentary or translation into English (some words occur in two or more orthographic forms, though only one of them is given here): weblog, webloger, weblogging, blog, blogovať, bloger, blogerka, blogerský, bloging, blogerstvo, blogovací, blogovanie, blogosféra, videoblog, vlog, vlogger, vlogerka, vlogerský, fotoblog, flog, floger, flogerka, flogerský, etc. obviously, some of these words may be treated as borrowings with ‘inherited’ derivational relations from SL (e.g., bloger, bloging, fotoblog, flog). 35 all the definitions listed illustrate lexical meanings of anglicisms borrowed into Slovak. 36 Cambridge dictionary. 37 The English word fashion is given a different number of meanings depending on the dictionary used. There are only two of them in Cambridge dictionary (2022) but eight meanings in total in the Merriam-Webster (2022). 38 In English, this meaning is a result of a semantic shift from the primary meaning “a friendly informal talk” (Cambridge dictionary 2022). 39 of 13 meanings listed in total (Merriam-Webster 2022), only one has been borrowed into Slovak. two directly related meanings have not been borrowed, “a brand of commercial recordings issued under usually a trademarked name”, and “recording so issued”. 40 Merriam-Webster. 41 The primary meaning of a given lexical unit is based on the numbered listing of definitions in the entries in two current lexicographic works – Cambridge dictionary and Merriam-Webster. 101SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak meanings, e.g., free “not tied by conventions” and “not costing money, costless”,42 coach/kouč “a person that trains and guides a sportsperson in preparation and during competition”43 and “a person in charge of training employees in particular skills connected to their working position”,44 raft “a rubber inflatable dinghy used for floating on rapid rivers” and “the action of floating on rapid rivers considered as adrenaline sport; rafting”. Monosemy is therefore not a default result of semantic adaptation; however, simplifying of the semantic structure often occurs. another aspect of semantic adaptation is represented by semantic calques, i.e., “a process in which only a semanteme of a word not its form is transferred” (onysko 2007, 14), e.g., myš “a small input device used to control the cursor on a computer monitor” being derived from the primary meaning of the word myš “a small rodent with grey fur living in proximity to people’s households” (cf. English mouse); inteligentný with the secondary semanteme “capable of being connected to other devices by using various wireless technologies” (cf. English adjective smart); epický being used as a synonym for výnimočný, skvelý “extraordinary” (cf. English epic), toxický with a new meaning “exhibiting unhealthy behavioural patterns or dynamics (especially in the context of relationships)” (cf. English toxic). 3.6 Pragmatic and Stylistic adaptation (transpragmatization) transpragmatization describes a process of adaptation of loanwords in terms of the pragmatic or stylistic value of a word and concerns any change of these aspects when the loanword is attributed a pragmatic or stylistic mark in comparison to its pragmatically and stylistically neutral status in SL (ološtiak 2012). The change in pragmatic or stylistic status of a word can encompass expressiveness (both emotionality and evaluation), register, as well as temporal aspects. In terms of register, a very common means of pragmatic adaptation is when a neutral English lexical unit becomes slang or colloquial in Slovak, e.g., bike/bajk, ban, cash/keš, shop/šop, single ‘not in romantic relationship’, song, story.45 In this case, transpragmatization occurs as a result of these neologisms entering paradigmatic – synonymic relations with neutral lexical units (both in terms of register and temporal aspect). transpragmatization can be also tied to transorthographization which can be an additional signifier of the colloquial or slang character of a word. a shift from neutral in English to mass media register in Slovak also occurs, albeit to a much lesser degree. a few examples include comeback “artist’s return to the scene after a longer hiatus” and no comment. Pragmatic adaptation also concerns shifts in temporal markedness, i.e., neological status of 42 Merriam-Webster (2022) lists 15 meanings of free in total; moreover, each of these main meanings is further subdivided into specified meanings. 43 In this meaning, the neologism is a synonym for the previously borrowed and already fully adapted word tréner. 44 In English, the word coach in the personal sense is itself a result of a semantic shift, the earlier meaning of the word being a ‘horse-drawn carriage’. 45 for example, slang usage in Slovak: V dnešnej dobe bezhotovostných platieb obdobie kešu máme už za sebou. ‘In today’s era of wireless payments, the age of cash is long gone.’ vs. neutral usage in English: The proper way to pay in Austria is to give your cash and say the amount you wish to pay, including tip. (both examples were taken from the aranea corpus database, Benko 2014). 102 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak lexical units. In Slovak, the whole database consists of neologisms that are temporally marked with many loans from the database holding the same status in SL (e.g., words denoting new technologies, new phenomena in politics, social relationships, science, entertainment, lifestyle etc., such as fake news, firewall, follower, LGBTI+, mobbing, paddleboard). however, there is also a significant number of borrowings considered neutral in English (in terms of temporality). This may be due to either the Slovak neologism functioning as a synonym to another Slovak lexical unit (fresh “young, up-and-coming”, happy, hardback, level “part of a computer game accessible after completing certain tasks”), or to a loanword denoting a referent previously not present in Slovak extralinguistic reality. With the change in political system  – and, basically, of the whole society – many words denoting newly emerged phenomena were borrowed from English since the anglo-american cultural influence on globalization is arguably the most significant. The most prominent among these are words denoting phenomena connected to politics and the economy – broker, developer, junk bond, cash flow, kredit ‘credit’, letter of intent, lobby. The same applies to words denoting phenomena from popular culture, a capitalist market economy and marketing, e.g., bilbord ‘billboard’, fast food, cheerleader, kornfleksy ‘cornflakes’, opening party, peepshow, rebranding, revival “musical act or band that performs the music of a well-known, usually no longer active artist or band trying to emulate their style as accurately as possible”, squatting “illegally occupying abandoned buildings, usually in urban areas”. In essence, transpragmatization concerns a change in pragmatic status connected to the essence of the loanword in terms of it being a catachrestic (a new lexical unit and a new concept introduced in rL) or non-catachrestic innovation (a new lexical unit represents a concept that already exists in rL and is named by a different equivalent) (onysko and Winter-froemel 2011). a change in register is a direct result of the loanwords being non- catachrestic as they function (usually) as colloquial or slang words alongside neutral, already existing lexical units in rL. The change in the neological status of loanwords falls into both catachrestic and non-catachrestic categories. Lexical units naming new phenomena that were not previously part of the pre-1989 society while they were established in the anglo- american environment represent catachrestic innovations, whereas those that are borrowed only with the intention of a lexical “upgrade” for purely pragmatic reasons are automatically categorized as non-catachrestic innovations. 4 Variants and Synonyms Since certain features of loanwords can make their usage in rL somewhat difficult for users, the existence of variants and synonyms – either of Slovak origin or with Slovak features – that facilitate the inclusion of these lexical units into the grammatical system of Slovak enables the adaptation process. as a result of this, often either two synonymous neologisms emerge or a loanword exists in Slovak along with its already established variant. Examples of neological synonyms where a loanword competes with a word (usually) coined by means of word-formation46 include au pair – babysitterka – opatrovateľka, bodyguard – osobný strážca, downloadovať ‘to download’– stiahnuť, follower – sledovateľ, hotline – horúca 46 and thus of Slovak origin. 103SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak linka, sharovať ‘to share’ – zdieľať, subscriber – odberateľ, transgender – transrodový, wireless – bezdrôtový. In the majority of these cases, the Slovak equivalent is the calque of its replica.47 however, not all of those pairs can be categorized as absolute synonyms; often the two equivalents differ in pragmatic aspects, especially in terms of register (see 3.6) where the loanword is colloquial or slang whereas the Slovak equivalent is considered neutral. of the examples listed, downloadovať, follower, shareovať, subscriber or wireless typify this category of stylistic synonyms. Comparing the frequency of synonyms in corpus databases,48 it is apparent that the words of Slovak origin are more common, with frequencies that are usually three or even four times greater than that of the related loanwords. one exception is hotline – horúca linka where the loanword has a significantly higher occurrence than its Slovak equivalent. Therefore, no straightforward conclusion on language users’ preferences can be drawn on this issue. Certain loanwords – particularly acronyms and other words with specific features preventing them from being used in accordance with Slovak grammar or word-formation rules49 – also have variants that follow grammatical rules (they can be inflected), e.g., DVD – DVD-éčko, gif – gifko, miss – misska, MILF – MILF-ka, SMS – SMS-ka (see also 3.4.2). however, inflected variants are all considered colloquial. 5 Conclusion The significance of the impact of English on the present-day Slovak lexicon is evident from the results of this study. out of 16,500 neological entries in the database, 14.4% (2,200) are loans of which only 300 are not anglicisms. In other words, English entries represent 11.9% of all neological entries and 82.6% of the borrowed neological entries. anglicisms in the database cover a range of communication registers, such as transportation (off-road, pikap ‘pickup truck’), business/the economy (benchmarking, outsourcing), arts, entertainment and media (doom metal, docusoap, soundtrack, spíker ‘speaker’, spot), gastronomy (smoothie, wrap), fitness, wellness and lifestyle (nail art, crossfit), medicine (pacemaker, stent), It and the Internet (like, open source, proxy, webmaster), psychology (burnout, mobbing), politics (eurospeak, welfare state), social issues (streetwork, underclass), sports (downhill, paraglajd ‘paraglide’), telecommunication (roaming, smartfón ‘smartphone’), and tourism (all inclusive, skipass). It is not possible to define adaptation as following a set template; particular processes operate with various speeds and strengths. however, as mentioned by other authors, transphonemization (apart from code shifts, or code-switching elements), i.e., sound adaptation is fundamental. on the other hand, orthographic changes take place over a longer period of time. This is also true of transderivation in the sense of the intralinguistic aspect of this process (the loan becoming a motivating word). 47 of the examples listed, opatrovateľka is not an exact calque because it is derived from the verb opatrovať ‘to care for’. 48 The frequency was checked in the Slovenský národný korpus [Slovak national corpus] (prim-9.0-public-all, 2020), as well as web-based corpus Aranea (Benko 2014). 49 Such as nouns that cannot be the subject to declension. 104 Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak another fact worth emphasizing is the interaction and cooperation of adaptation processes, e.g., transphonemization driven by orthography (S. skibus /skɪbʊs/, not */skɪbas/, S. wrestling /vrɛstlɪng/, not */rɛslɪn/). on the other hand, transorthographization may be affected by pronunciation (bajt ‘byte’, mejl ‘mail’). transmorphologization of verbs is supported by word- formation (the existence of suffixes with grammatical function: E. to book => S. book-ovať). on the level of morphology, some borrowings are adapted on the basis of their relationship to their synonyms, e.g., fashion is feminine, because its synonym móda is feminine (this is evidence of transparadigmatization having an influence on transmorphologization). to illustrate this, the adaptation of the noun hoax can be outlined as follows: a) Sound adaptation: E. hoax /həʊks/ => S. hoax /ɦɔṷks/, or /ɦɔaks/; minimal and proportional transphonemization: E. /k/ => S. /k/, E. /s/ => S. /s/; partial and proportional transphonemization: E. /h/ => S. /ɦ/; free and non-proportional extensive transphonemization: E. /əʊ/ => S. /ɔ+ṷ/, or /ɔ+a/. b) orthographic adaptation: spelling does not change (zero transorthographization). c) Morphological adaptation: E. hoax (neuter) => S. hoax (masculine; singular paradigm: nominative, accusative: hoax, genitive, dative: hoaxu, locative: hoaxe, instrumental: hoaxom; plural paradigm: nominative, accusative: hoaxy, genitive: hoaxov, dative: hoaxom, locative: hoaxoch, instrumental: hoaxami). d) Word-formation adaptation: 1) cross-linguistic aspect: in English, the noun hoax was probably converted from the corresponding verb, in Slovak, it is not motivated; 2) intralinguistic aspect: the word hoax is the basis of the following lexemes: hoaxový (adj., “relating to a hoax”), hoaxer (noun, “a person who sends hoaxes”), hoaxovať (verb, “to send hoaxes”). e) Semantic adaptation: in English, there are two meanings of hoax: “a plan to deceive someone, such as telling the police there is a bomb somewhere when there is not one, or a trick”, and “a plan to deceive a large group of people; a trick” (Cd 2022); “an act intended to trick or dupe”, and “something accepted or established by fraud or fabrication” (MW 2022). In Slovak, two meanings can be observed: “falsehood or fake news usually spread in online social media”;50 “a message (such as an email or a status posted on social media) containing falsehood or fake news”. although these are not yet registered by English dictionaries, we presume they can be considered established and separated from the original primary and secondary meanings, as is evident from the following example: The Mountain Lion Foundation debunks an old hoax, an e-mail story circulating about a Montana couple being saved from a mountain lion attack by their mule that also includes graphic photographs of the mule reportedly fighting and killing the lion. f ) Pragmatic and stylistic adaptation: in the case of the neologism hoax, pragmatic adaptation is not present. Both in English and in Slovak, the word is used primarily in the context of the Internet register; the markedness in terms of register is retained. 50 for example, this meaning is already attested in the french dictionary Le Robert (2022) as “information fausse, périmée ou invérifiable propagée par Internet”, i.e., “false, outdated, or unverifiable information spread on the Internet”. 105SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMartin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak This overview shows the need for further research in the field, e.g., the typology of English loans, possible ‘adaptation patterns’, factors influencing the spread of English in Slovak, the English element in particular registers, anglicisms in relation to English as a foreign and as a second language, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and cultural aspects, and so on. 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Štúr Institute of Linguistics. http://aranea.juls.savba.sk/aranea_about/index.html (accessed November 11, 2022). 109Martin ološtiak, Soňa rešovská Neologisms of English Origin in Present-Day Slovak SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 109-125(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.109-125 UdC: 811.162.1’373.45=111:339.139 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse aBStraCt The aim of this article is to show the influence of academic and professional marketing English on Polish marketing discourse. In view of Poland’s transformative role in communist Europe, the paper can be regarded as a pilot study for the discussion of the phenomenon addressed in the context of the experience of other post-socialist nations. The analysis of the adaptation of English borrowings was based on numerous documents, participant observations and interviews. Critical discourse analysis with qualitative methods was the main methodological approach. The study shows that Polish marketing discourse is a linguistic-cognitive hybrid of Western and Polish cultures. for this hybrid, English has become both a trigger and a marker, as well as a carrier of the power of Western marketing ideology. terminological borrowings from English were much needed, but in many situations there were conceptual or linguistic problems with their adaptation. Keywords: marketing discourse, marketers’ jargon, post-communist Poland, English borrowings Vloga angleščine v oblikovanju poljskega marketinškega diskurza PoVZEtEK Članek ima za cilj prikazati vpliv akademske in profesionalne marketinške angleščine na poljski marketinški diskurz. glede na transformativno vlogo Poljske v komunistični Evropi lahko članek služi kot pilotna študija za razpravo o obravnavanem pojavu v kontekstu izkušenj drugih postsocialističnih držav. analiza prilagajanja angleških izposojenk temelji na številnih dokumentih, opazovanju z udeležbo in intervjujih. glavni metodološki pristop je kritična analiza diskurza s kvalitativnimi metodami. Študija je pokazala, da je poljski marketinški diskurz jezikovno-kognitivni hibrid zahodne in poljske kulture. Za ta hibrid je angleščina postala tako sprožilec in označevalec kot tudi nosilec moči zahodne marketinške ideologije. terminološke izposojenke iz angleščine so bile zelo potrebne, vendar so se v številnih situacijah pojavile konceptualne ali jezikovne težave pri njihovem prilagajanju. Ključne besede: marketinški diskurz, marketinški žargon, postkomunistična Poljska, angleške izposojenke 110 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse 1 Introduction and Background In contemporary cultural studies, discourses with a marketing orientation are referred to, among others, as cultural discourses (Wojcieszuk 2008) and, according to linguists, constitute the dominant – or even hegemonic – cognitive paradigm in social communication (Warchala 2015). firat and Venkatesh (1993) proposed the thesis that contemporary marketing can be treated as a key institution of postmodernity. It is a type of social practice that most strongly influences the redefinition of words, terms and other sets of already established meanings: “Marketing is an intentional practice of meaning-making and semantic representation. It is now the most important process regulating life in the postmodern era. There is nothing accidental in the system of postmodern semiosis, because meanings are established and assigned by the institution of marketing” (firat and Venkatesh1993, 246). regarding the context of post-communist European countries, the plural form of the term under discussion (discourses) ought to be used with a distinction between marketing discourse in mind and the discourse of marketing. There is a strong interdependence between them, but they should be considered as communicatively distinct and separate phenomena. The first one is understood here as a set of norms, values, attitudes, etc. and ways of expressing them related to the specialist (academic and professional) communication of marketing theory and practice. The discourse of marketing, by contrast, is a cognitive model and a system of meanings transferring the marketing reality to other areas of social life and shaping the rules of functioning in these areas.1 The latter can be considered very similar to what in the literature is called advertising discourse (e.g., danesi 2015; Serazio and Szarek 2012) or discourse of advertising (e.g., Cook 2001; Jaworska 2020), explained as a “persuasive social discourse” (danesi 2015, 1) created by commercials. among Central and East European post-socialist countries, this discourse produced a new citizen: evolving from a mass socialist consumer to a market-based consumer (dunn 2004; Kurczewski 1994; Serazio and Szarek 2012). There is no doubt that discourses in mind should be analysed and described in the context of global, primarily Western marketing, which at the same time means mediating it through the English language. Confronting the culturally different realities in which a certain area of human activity develops is connected with the assumption that most probably we are dealing with a cross-cultural transfer of knowledge and experience. analysing the discourse of intercultural management and marketing in relation to the societies of Central and Eastern Europe, Witkowski (2007) writes about colonialism as one of the effects of the cultural contacts: “Marketing theories are based mainly on the experience of leading companies from the United States and Western Europe. from such a perspective, management and marketing theories seem almost absolute: the principles that managers should follow should apply always and everywhere. Thus, we often have a situation in which the american point of view on american reality is mechanically copied all over the world. This situation brings to mind not only doubts about the reliability of marketing knowledge, but also the still lively discussion of colonialism” (Witkowski 2007, 6).2 1 Both discourses are carefully analysed and described in Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn (2018). This paper is based on the research done for that project. 2 all English translations throughout the article are by the author. 111SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse Most previous cultural and linguistic research on marketing discourse – both Polish and European (e.g., Bulawka 2006; Chłopicki and Świątek 2000; dyer 1982; goddard 1998; Łuc and Bortliczek 2011; Martin 2002; ożóg 2008; Serazio and Szarek 2012; Zimny 1995) – has identified it primarily with the above-mentioned advertising phenomenon as an area of persuasive public communication, which is epitomised by advertising and commercial industry, as well as its impact on society. as danesi (2015, 3) rightly pointed out, people introduce the discourse into various activities and communication acts on a daily basis. The study presented here intends to focus on another dimension of marketing discourse that has so far received only peripheral attention: the space of the theoretical (academic) foundations of marketing and their verbalisation in the jargon of marketers in practice. Thus, advertising communication and its discursive specificity remain outside the scope of my research, although it belongs to marketing communication in the broadest sense. Without Western sources – Western textbooks and professional guides for marketers – the communication space with which the present article is concerned would not exist in the post-socialist countries. Created in English for anglo-Saxon realities, it has become a knowledge base and the form of marketing communication translated into the national languages of Central and Eastern European countries (Kotler et al. 2011). Polish linguistic and sociocultural experience allows the conclusion that the phenomenon under discussion had an impact on all post-socialist European countries, to a greater or lesser extent, but the specific research whose results are presented here concerns the Polish reality and, as such, can serve as a reference point for further comparative analyses. as domański (2005) stated, in the context of the newly liberated European countries in the1990s, Poland is a pivotal case study because it represents the second-largest post-Soviet economy after russia, and witnessed rapid economic and social growth in that period. This is probably the reason why, as Bugajski (1995, 31) aptly noted, after the collapse of communism in Poland “forced Sovietization was replaced by voluntary Europeanization, americanization and hamburgerization”. Thus, this transformation became the beginning of the power of a discourse formed and disseminated not by totalitarian forces, but by the power of a free-market view of reality saturated with consumerism. a new meta-narrative of Western market ideology became a provider of legitimacy for the new capitalist order (Serazio and Szarek 2012, 759–60). In cultural and linguistic analyses resulting from the first observations of changes in linguistic communication, the term consumer Polish (polszczyzna konsumpcyjna) was born quite quickly (ożóg 2007). The language expressed the sphere of purchases, sales, services, products, and goods, and it contained old words connected with trade and services (external marketing communication), but also thousands of new words naming new products recently introduced to Poland with English as their source language (Bulawka 2006). as griffin (1997) observed in his study on Polish press advertisements after 1989, almost 90 percent of his research sample contained at least one English word, which, in the author’s opinion, was the expression of the society’s openness to the West (its power and wealth) and rejection of its communist past. 2 Purpose of the Study, Research Sources and Methodology The main goal of the study is to characterise the marketing discourse, identify its key communicative features and, among these, focus on the specific role of the English language. 112 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse Thus, the main research questions are the role of academic and professional marketing English in the formation process of Polish marketing discourse, and the impact of marketing English on the functioning and social perception of the discourse under discussion. The source material that formed the basis for the analyses presented here comes from the years 2012–2018. The assumption, based on discourse research methodology, was made that discourse manifests itself in broadly defined and genre-diverse texts. The term text is used in this study in the broadest sense, as proposed for discourse analysis by duszak and fairclough (2008, 18). In line with this understanding, the analysis included texts of various genres and from various sources, including spoken interactions, multimodal texts originating from television and the Internet, as well as written and published statements. all of them had to meet the following requirements: (1) thematic criterion – connection with the field of marketing and the marketing industry and the scope of their activities in both the theoretical and practical realms; (2) the criterion of representativeness of a given genre (text, medium, etc.) for communication in marketers’ groups. In other words, the analysis covered the communicative practices of marketing theorists and practitioners: academic textbooks, specialized publications (books, lexicons and articles), trade press and industry communications, and spoken language in professional situations. Such a corpus is difficult to quantify uniformly. Using the criterion of a material sample, meaning excerpted research texts of various lengths were taken from the collected materials, a corpus of around 250 such samples was constructed that was the subject of analysis in this work. In addition, the marketers’ language and communication behaviours were verified in one-to-one interviews with 20 marketing professionals. however, the specific categories of text genres and their concrete representations are as follows: 1) specialised literature: academic (dictionaries, encyclopaedias, lexicons, subject monographs and textbooks), and popular science literature (guidebooks); 2) professional marketing press – magazines MARKETER+, Brief, Marketing w Praktyce, Online Marketing Polska; 3) professional marketing portals: Marketing przy Kawie, Nowy Marketing, Sprawny Marketing; 4) marketers’ blogs and websites: paweltkaczyk.com, sprawnymarketing.pl, arturjablonski. com, takaoto.pro/blog, b2b-marketing.pl, newcreative.pl, marketing-automation.pl, dworzynska.com, urszula-phelep.com, kotarbinski.wordpress.com, barbarastawarz.pl, dajemyslowo.com/blog, jacekpogorzelski.pl, piotrwawrzyniak.pl; 5) email offers for commercial industry events (training courses, conferences, forums, symposia, etc.) and their detailed programmes; 6) email correspondence between marketers of the same or different levels;3 7) data obtained by means of participatory observation: statements made by businessmen, marketers and others connected with the business world; these come from both official and unofficial contexts. 3 The material was obtained during my cooperation with Polish marketing agencies through managers’ agreement to verify employees’ correspondence, but subject to the author’s anonymity, non-disclosure of company-relevant data and possible identifying features of the company. 113SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse In order to conduct this research on Polish marketing discourse, the post-foucault linguistic variant of Critical discourse analysis (Cda) methodology has been chosen (grzmil-tylutki 2010; Lisowska-Magdziarz 2006; Piróg 2009). This is the post-foucault variant in the sense that it continues foucault’s established assumption of a link between power and knowledge and the notion that structures of power and knowledge manifest themselves in the use of language (foucault 1977, 76). This is due to the fact that marketing is treated here as a kind of institution or ideology (Mautner 2015) that has the potential for social power (fairclough 1993). In other words, the research was conditioned by the thesis that in the case of marketing we are undoubtedly dealing with the key issues for Cda orientation: the phenomena of social change and discursive change (duszak and fairclough 2008; grzeszczyk 2003; hackley 2003). These require a normative perspective due to the mechanisms of exercising social power revealed in them. Such a perspective should be assumed with regard to any linguistic representation of discourse, and thus also with regard to the influence of the English language on Polish marketing discourse discussed in the present paper. The analyses were primarily qualitatively oriented, i.e., it was crucial to consider the discursive context of the presence of English in the marketing discourse, rather than its quantitative verification. 3 Polish Marketing Discourse – Key Features 3.1 discourse field as mentioned above, Polish marketing discourse is understood here as the professional area of academic discourse and communicative practices in the marketing industry. It is not a style of communication of elites only, academic or managerial – managers as the oligarchs of free- market postmodernity (Potulicka and rutkowiak 2010, 312–14), but the entire community involved in specialized marketing procedures. In other words, the field of the discourse consists of marketing – a scientific discipline, and marketing – a type of business activity. If we follow the criteria used by sociologists (Czyżewski, Kowalski, and Piotrowski 1997) with regard to the typology of discourses, then the marketing discourse should be classified as a public discourse related to specific social worlds (groups). Business people, among others, are considered as a type of such a group. What is more, business people are representatives of a professional group, which – along with publicists, journalists, writers, clergymen, scientists, experts, intellectuals – co-creates the so-called discourse of symbolic elites, i.e., communities that exercise “direct control over publicly available knowledge, publicly legitimate beliefs, and the content of public discourse” (Czyżewski, Kowalski, and Piotrowski 1997, 24). Thus, Polish marketing discourse is a part of contemporary public discourse and includes the statements and other communicative practices of individuals and institutions professionally associated with marketing. It is an institutional discourse – in the global context it can be partially associated with the phenomena covered in the literature by the term corporate discourse (Breeze 2013). This is a broadly understood business communication practice related to the activities of large, usually multinational companies (corporations), including, among others, contact of corporations with individual customers, other business entities, and their entire social environment (ibid.).  114 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse 3.2 discourse Participants The discourse under discussion is created by a community which includes two main subgroups: theoreticians and practitioners, and it is often the case that the roles of participants are intertwined, which is a natural phenomenon in the case of the so-called applied fields. Each of these groups has certain characteristic models of behaviour, but there are also communication patterns common to both. Marketing theorists include scientists, lecturers and trainers. for those working in academia, it is also characteristic to be subject to the rules of academic discourse, which regulates their communication models to a significant extent. The group of practitioners, on the other hand, comprises all marketing specialists working in various companies and institutions, both private and public. In this case, we are also dealing with the standardisation of certain acts of communication, but it is already an immanent feature of the group, and not an effect of the influence of another discourse (as in the case of scientists). The community in question is not only heterogeneous, but also represents different communication styles. In fact, the only common feature of all the participants is the use of professional language of marketing as a field, but the way this language is used varies depending on the specific communication situation. This does not mean, however, that we are dealing with a differentiation leading to communication tensions or exclusions. Both spheres of discourse – theoretical and practical – interpenetrate each other, and it is often as a result of such confrontation that meanings important for discourse are established. as altkorn (2004, 11) points out, “marketing is not only a cognitive field, but also – or even primarily – the sum of certain practical knowledge and skills that constitute the professional strengths of entrepreneurs and managers.” 3.3 Marketers’ Professional Jargon Marketing communication as understood in the management sciences includes a number of communication tools. among them the most socially recognizable sign of marketing activity is advertisements (Jaworska 2020, 1). In Wasilewski’s view, this variety of persuasive texts constitutes, in the field of marketing, “a produced language, in which the image of a free recipient is created, guided by instinct, sense of taste, etc.” (Wasilewski 2010, 179). on the other hand, at the opposite pole to the language of advertising there is “the language of internal production – the language of technocratic professionals” (Wasilewski 2010, 179), that is, the style of communication of marketers. as we are dealing here with a specialized language related to a specific type of professional activity, we can talk about the functioning of a particular variant, which is marketers’ jargon. Since the 1990s it has been developing in Poland, and other post-socialist European countries as well, as a type of communication characteristic of the so-called “new professions” (Kaszewski and Ptaszek 2009, Kuć 2011) – the term describes the professional spheres shaped after the transition to a free market economy, which had no previous patterns. 3.3.1 The Jargon as a Variant of Post-socialist “New Professions” in Eastern Europe Common to communication in the environment of marketing professionals and other groups representing the “new professions” is a set of features which result from the close links of these 115SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse professions with the global world of business. first, communication in these environments is international and intercultural, with a large number of borrowings from English – required to name the new phenomena of the new professional reality, but also to symbolise the prestige of the Western world desired in post-socialist countries (Kuć 2011). The term “new professions” points to the formation of hitherto non-existent professions, and we are dealing here with branches that did not exist in some national cultures (post-communist), but were borrowed from others (Western), in which they constitute a certain continuum. Second, the “new professions” are characterized by highly hierarchical and templated communication. Characterising the spoken language of business, Kochan (2010) stated that it is the language of organisation, and it is this organisational model that constitutes a certain universe for the linguistic contacts of the representatives of the “new professions”. It is a model built of formulas and lexical phrases characteristic of corporate communication. It also has a set of keywords, among which a very important place is occupied by the lexeme management: “almost everything can be managed: stress, risk, uncertainty, problems, process, human resources” (Kochan 2010, 149–50). Thirdly, the industry jargon of the “new professions” is characterized by intense variability, reflecting the nature of these professions as constantly evolving, both globally and locally. finally, the last feature that unites the communication strategies of those working in the “new professions” concerns the development of two different worlds, and thus two different languages, within them. one of these worlds is the realm of etiquette and ethics in dealing with clients, while the other is the much less polite world of interprofessional contact. as Wasilewski vividly noted, “the language of marketers can [...] be compared to the language of gravediggers, whose behind-the-scenes [...] lexis concerning peripheral activities is quite different from the façade exposed to the customer” (Wasilewski 2010, 179–80). The language of the “façade”, i.e., customer contact, shares many features with the language of advertising: it persuades, seduces, entices, and ultimately – sells. In turn, the style of the “behind-the-scenes” communication of marketers is not internally homogeneous – it is possible to identify certain substyles in it, which are closely related to specific communication situations. among the most significant are: 1) development of documents important at various stages of marketing projects, and public sharing of industry knowledge and experience (books, press articles, specialist blogs, etc.); 2) offering and implementation of training sessions, conferences, congresses, etc.; and 3) daily informal professional contacts (oral and written). 3.3.2 English Components in the Jargon as one might expect, the least formal subtype of marketers’ jargon is found in the case of the last mentioned type of communication between marketers – in everyday unofficial professional contacts. It should be noted, however, that the colloquiality of contact does not mean the deprofessionalisation of language in this case, as everyday conversations still require specialized terms. The phenomenon that may attract attention in the use of English in the discussed subtype (and at the same time distinguish it) is the large quantity of English components. Such usage patterns, however, result from the personal traits of the employees, although according to Murdoch (2000, 100) people from the marketing industry excel at this type of linguistic behaviour. In the everyday contacts of marketing specialists, it is also more common to see (or hear) an extensive vocabulary of borrowings – the creation of various vocabulary categories from English-language bases and their adaptation to the Polish 116 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse inflectional system. a good example of this are the words (marketing) brief and briefing – their meaning and forms are taken from the English language but in the sentence structure they take on inflectional forms typical of Polish masculine nouns (e.g., briefu/briefingu; briefem/ brefingiem etc.). If a marketer has to prepare some guidelines for their colleague to carry out a project, they say they have to zbriefować [z-brief-ować] the other person, which can be explained as “to brief someone”. The process of preparing and communicating these guidelines is what marketers call briefowanie [brief-owanie]. 4 Cross-Cultural Knowledge Transfer and the Polish-English Marketing Communication Hybrid Cross-cultural transfer of knowledge is another phenomenon which characterizes all “new professions” after the changes of 1989 in Poland, since – as mentioned above – communication in these fields is international and intercultural. This is a phenomenon of great importance for the communication in question, because it is, in a way, the source of its discursive potential. The phenomenon of cross-cultural transfer of expertise manifests itself on various levels, two of which should be considered the most distinct and significant in the formation of the Polish marketing discourse: one pertains to the English-language specialized nomenclature as a source terminology for the industry we are interested in, and the other to the rhetorical strategies developed under the influence of the institution of Western marketing. Their transfer to Polish culture and their combination with argumentation typical of Polish social realities brought about specific effects in the sociocultural sphere. however, due to the specific focus of this paper, only the first of the issues identified above will be discussed here. 4.1 adaptation of Professional English Concepts and terms in the Marketing discourse a great number of borrowings from the English language, which flowed into Poland after the political changes of the 1990s, have sparked numerous discussions from the very beginning. In the 1990s, Polish linguists were highly critical of the language of the business community, and the widespread use of English terminology was seen as an expression of snobbery or linguistic poverty. representatives of business circles tried to defend themselves against the harsh criticism by explaining their linguistic with rational reasons for this particular style of communication: In Polish business, the number of English expressions often already exceeds Polish ones. This makes work much easier. Looking for Polish equivalents is simply a waste of time. Using foreign equivalents is supposed to make work easier and more efficient […]. It is a practical shortcut at work and it has nothing to do with disrespecting the culture of the Polish language. We use borrowings among people who understand them, not among those who have no idea about them.4 4 See http://natemat.pl/7287,zrobiles-juz-draft-i-research-na-dzis-w-korporacjach-angielskiego-wiecej-niz-polskiego (published March 30, 2012 – accessed November 13, 2022). 117SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse In my opinion, the issue of specialized English in Polish marketing discourse, however, touches upon a much deeper problem than just normative issues related to their adaptation in Polish. Looking at English terminological borrowings in the context of the cross-cultural transfer of Western marketing knowledge to Polish economic soil shows a much broader problem: a specialized language associated with a new field and industry has overtaken the reality of that field. along with the desired Western civilization, Poles received only a fragment of it, which took on a life of its own in their linguistic practice, without having a cognitive foundation – which means that Poland had never had any knowledge and experience about marketing: “In Poland, like in any other post-communist European countries, there were no institutions, no academic expertise and no theoretical background for a market economy, and for marketing” (Zurawicki and Becker 1994). hence, in the process of at least fragmentary transfer of Western realities, it was necessary to also borrow their specialized linguistic markers. This issue was addressed in relation to the Polish discourse of Public relations (Pr) by Ćwiklińska (2009), who focused her attention on the analysis of the cross-cultural transfer of specialist knowledge from the perspective of the adaptation of English-language Pr terminology in Polish Pr discourse. In the summary of her analysis, the researcher states that the cultural difference between Polish and american Pr science and practice is manifested, among other things, by the divergence in the network of semantic relations and their lexical representations in Polish and English in the field of specialist Pr terminology. In order to examine the implementation of English terms in the specialist literature for academic purposes, Polish marketing lexicons and dictionaries were analysed. The mechanisms of adapting the English terminological apparatus to the Polish marketing realities are well illustrated by the resources of Marketing Lexicon, edited by altkorn and Kramer (1998). In accordance with the accepted editorial principle, all the entries of this lexicon are noted together with their English basis (italics in brackets). In the dictionary three variants of adaptations of English loanwords to Polish were noted: 1) entries fully translated into Polish, e.g., Eng. stock balance – Pl. “bilansowanie zapasów”; Eng. key-person strategy – Pl. “strategia osoby kluczowej”; Eng. wear-out – Pl. “zmęczenie reklamą”; 2) entries partially translated (partially Polonized), e.g., Eng. me too strategy – Pl. “strategia me too”, Eng. yield management pricing – Pl. “kalkulowanie cen wg yield management”; Eng. off price strategy – Pl. “polityka cen ‘off price’”; 3) entries left in the original because of the impossibility of translating them into Polish in a synthetic manner and the need for descriptive definitions, np. Eng. benchmarking – Pl. “sztuka odkrywania, jak i dlaczego niektóre przedsiębiorstwa funkcjonują sprawniej niż inne” [the art of discovering how and why some businesses perform better than others]; Eng. broker – Pl. “pośrednik hurtowy zajmujący się nawiązywaniem kontaktów i pomocą w realizacji transakcji pomiędzy producentami a nabywcami instytucjonalnymi” [a wholesale intermediary dealing with establishing contacts and assisting in the completion of transactions between producers and institutional buyers], Eng. marketing-mix – Pl. “kombinacja czterech podstawowych 118 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse elementów marketingu: produktu, ceny, dystrybucji i promocji, na której opiera się każda strategia marketingowa” [the combination of the four basic elements of marketing: product, price, distribution and promotion, on which any marketing strategy is based] (altkorn and Kramer 1998). The examples presented above show that at the initial stage of the formation of the specialized terminology of the Polish marketing industry, different linguistic strategies of adaptation were applied. a lot of awkwardness can be seen in this process, but at that moment of the industry’s development it was probably considered a necessary evil, as there was a need to name elements of a hitherto completely unknown reality. This mechanism is reflected particularly well in one of the entries from the lexicon mentioned above – it is the term brief, which has been already exemplified in section 3.3.2. Its Polish equivalent (which in the dictionary has the status of the main entry) was partly put in quotation marks, which was most likely to signal the substantive inadequacy of the Polish word in relation to the English source. So the entry looks as follows: “Brief – ‘streszczenie’ koncepcji reklamy (ang. brief) – zwięzłe, krótkie zestawienie i charakterystyka zaprogramowanej kampanii reklamowej” [Brief – a concise, brief ‘summary’ of an advertisement concept and characteristics of the programmed advertising campaign] (altkorn and Kramer 1998, 245). In marketing or general business lexicons from the early 21st century published in Poland, no one attempts to translate the word brief into Polish anymore, because it is a term understood in the marketing environment (and beyond) as an internationalism adopted in global business communication. one of the important factors for retaining English-language elements both in marketing and in other “new professions” is the inability to translate their meanings into simple Polish equivalents due to their semantic inadequacy in relation to the conceptual scope of the English- language source. In business communication, precision and economy of message are equally important. Thanks to the common English terminology, both of these requirements can be met (the English language in this dimension becomes an exponent of professionalism), but not necessarily in the case of translations into European languages. for example, describing the idea of a start-up (regarded as one of the keywords of contemporary business newspeak) for the Polish audience, it is explained that (1) according to the common definition, it is a venture in the early stages of its growth. to put it simply, it is, for example, a company whose only capital is the fact that it has been established recently and its owner, often a student or other fairly young person, has a unique and perhaps even revolutionary idea for a business. Since the company is in the growth phase, i.e., it is taking off and going up (at least this is the assumption), it is most advantageous to refer to it in English – short and straight- forward. It would be much more difficult to describe such a business in Polish. You would have to make it long and complicated, e.g., like this: an enterprise created in order to look for a business model that would guarantee its constant development and optimistic perspective for the future. This growth in turn could be achieved by obtaining institutional funding, a loan or selling some shares. The description of such an initiative could go on forever. The point is that in business, time is money.5 5 See http://forsal.pl/artykuly/766958,biznesowa-nowomowa-dlaczego-uzywamy-slow-ktore-niewiele-znacza.html (accessed November 28, 2022). all examples from the analysed sources that are used in the present discussion are numbered. 119SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse as can be easily noticed, start-up is defined for the Polish audience in different ways (see words and phrases in bold), which means an attempt to explain the meaning of the presented concept as well as possible when no single-word equivalent exists in Polish. The other examples of terms from lexicons from the 1990s that have not found a simple Polish equivalent in the marketing discourse are as follows (with their Polish explanations): (2) Merchandising – zintegrowany system działań przedsiębiorstwa handlowego w zakresie planowania i kształtowania usługi handlowej pod względem treści, formy, miejsca, ilości, czasu, jakości i ceny. Jest to termin rozpowszechniony głównie w USa. Należy go utożsamiać z marketingiem handlowym lub jeszcze bardziej szczegółowo z marketingiem w punkcie sprzedaży detalicznej. (altkorn and Kramer 1998, 155–6) [the integrated system of activities of a commercial enterprise in planning and shaping a commercial service in terms of content, form, place, quantity, time, quality and price. It is a term prevalent mainly in the USa. It should be equated with trade marketing or, even more specifically, with marketing at the retail point of sale]. (3) Cash and carry – rodzaj samoobsługowego punktu sprzedaży z pogranicza handlu hurtowego i detalicznego nastawionego na zaopatrzenie drobnych detalistów, właścicieli lokali gastronomicznych, rzemieślników, zakładów żywienia zbiorowego i innych odbiorców hurtowych, a także odbiorców indywidualnych prowadzących działalność gospodarczą oraz przedstawicieli wolnych zawodów. (altkorn and Kramer 1998, 155–6) [a type of self-service point of sale bordering on wholesale and retail trade aimed at supplying small retailers, owners of catering establishments, craftsmen, mass caterers and other wholesale customers as well as individual business and professional customers]. (4) Benchmarking – ta trudna do przetłumaczenia angielska nazwa postepowania oznacza dążenie do równania do najlepszych, odkrywanie dlaczego i w jaki sposób jedne przedsiębiorstwa działają lepiej i efektywniej od innych. Celem jest twórcze naśladowanie najlepszej praktyki wyróżniających się przedsiębiorstw. (Sztucki 1998, 36) [this difficult-to-translate English term means striving to match the best, discovering why and how some companies perform better and more efficiently than others. The aim is to creatively emulate the best practices of outstanding companies]. (5) Billboard – tablica reklamowa dużych rozmiarów umieszczona na ścianach domów i specjalnych konstrukcjach w miejscach dużego ruchu przechodniów i samochodów. (Sztucki 1998, 36) [a large-sized board on which advertisements are displayed placed on house walls and special structures in areas of high pedestrian and vehicle traffic]. The second factor in favour of leaving many English terms in Polish marketing was the “weirdness” of their possible Polish equivalents. Such a characterisation was not, of course, made in academic sources (textbooks, lexicons etc.), whose task was to convey knowledge objectively and neutrally. however, such comments appear in the source material in the statements of marketers. Consider the following: (6) The word rebranding, so necessary in the realities of a market economy, could be translated as “przemarkowanie”,6 but this sounds bizarre.7 6 The word przemarkowanie is a morphological calque of the English rebranding. 7 See http://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/1,96856,16772240,Badacz_nowej_polszczyzny__epicko_ ogarniam_swoj_radar.html?disableredirects=true (accessed November 28, 2022). 120 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse (7) I didn’t want to translate the term sharing economy into Polish, because it sounds poor in Polish.8 The authors of the above statements did not justify their opinions, so I base my judgements of their comments on my own assumptions. as far as the word “przemarkowanie” is concerned, it is a structurally typical Polish combination (prefix prze- indicates something that is subject to change), so morphologically the term can be understood. It may also be accepted acoustically. It is probably the semantic aspect that is the reason for the critical assessment of this word – the meaning of “markowanie” is unclear in Polish (it has at least six meanings from different meaning ranges),9 so formulating a new term on its basis creates semantic dissonance. In the case of the second term, sharing economy, which was assessed as “poor” in Polish, there might be two explanations. The first one, linguistically clarified, is that the structure of the term would need to be translated atypically for the Polish adnominal modifier used to be combined with the noun “economy”, and secondly, a periphrastic translation would be necessary. The second clarification refers to an ideological factor – the notion of sharing, being conceptually close to common, could be associated in Polish translation with the economic system that applied in the years of communist rule. today, Polish-English hybridity is an obvious standard in the communicative practices of Polish marketing discourse. It manifests itself in the use of elements from both languages next to each other, as well as in offering bilingual equivalents for a given term, as seen in the following examples: (8) Leadership w sprzedaży – nowoczesne metody profesjonalnego zarządzania zespołami sprzedażowymi.10 [Leadership in sales – modern methods for professional management of sales teams] (9) 1,5-godzinne wystąpienie Krzysztofa Ibisza poświęcone personal brandingowi!11 [1.5-hour speech by Krzysztof Ibisz dedicated to personal branding] (10) Wgląd w konsumenta, czyli dlaczego insight może być głęboki.12 [Consumer insight, or why insight can be profound] 4.2 axiological dimension of the Implementation of English Borrowings The issues presented in 4.1. reflect the problems that have accompanied the transfer of marketing expertise from Western culture to the Polish culture. In addition, it is worth noting other processes associated with the transfer of expertise, which affect the axiological dimension of the Polish marketing discourse. one such phenomenon is the modification of English-language word compounds. a notable example here is the word target. What is surprising in the case of the lexeme in question is the mechanism – conditioned by the usual 8 Quote from Marcin Maj’s speech at the IX online Marketing Convention. See https://o-m.pl/artykul/285/prof- bralczyk-marcin-prokop-michal-gorecki-marcin--maj-na-ix-kongresie-online-marketing.html. 9 See: https://wsjp.pl/haslo/podglad/102364/markowac (accessed November 28, 2022). 10 See http://www.kongres-sprzedazowy.pl (accessed November 28, 2022). 11 See http://www.kongres-sprzedazowy.pl (accessed November 28, 2022). 12 See http://nowymarketing.pl/a/11616,wglad-w-konsumenta-czyli-dlaczego-insight-moze-byc-gleboki (accessed November 28, 2022). 121SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse communicative practices of Polish marketers – of transforming the source, binary English- language construction into a one-element term. In the jargon of Polish marketing specialists, target is the semantic equivalent of target group or target audience. These terms in English always occur in a two-element combination (in the marketing context, one does not encounter the word target in isolation), both in marketers’ trade publications and their language, as well as in academic papers on marketing. If any component of the collocations discussed is omitted in american marketing discourse, it is the defining element, which is the word target, not the defined component (audience, group, etc.), e.g., “We will now examine the steps in creating an effective integrated communication and promotion program. Marketers must do the following: identify the target audience, determine the communication objectives, design a message, choose the media through which to send the message, select the message source, and collect feedback. […] a marketing communicator starts with a clear target audience in mind. The audience may be current users or potential buyers […]” (Kotler et al. 2011, 464). In Polish, the original English term target audience or target group is shortened to the first component and functions in the sociolinguistic context of marketing as target. Since the target group is de facto a group of people, the use of the lexeme target alone to name the target group leads to axiological depreciation – a person or a group treated as a target is identified with an object to be hunted, conquered. This is because in Polish the semantic values attached to target remains the non-personal scope. The only context from the sources analysed, in which a two-element translation was used, turned out to be a type of inept calque – a literal translation of English target group resulted in a collocation “target grupa”, which is difficult to accept normatively in the Polish language – structurally, lexically and semantically. The word target quickly became a trendy word in the marketing environment (and also among business people in general), as evidenced by its inclusion in Śpiewak’s online Glossary of Fashionable and Unfashionable Words, in which it is explained as follows: (11) target – ma coś z celu i z rynku. gdy ktoś pyta, kto jest twoim targetem, zapewne oznacza to, komu chcesz sprzedać swój towar, czyli jak i w jakim celu coś robisz.13 [target – it has something to do with a purpose and a market. When someone asks who your target is, it probably means who you want to sell your product to, i.e., how and for what purpose you do something] as a trendy word, and, it seems, a useful one for Polish marketers, target has also become the basis for derivative words. Examine the following: (12) W jaki sposób targetować i dopasować udostępniane treści, aby pozyskiwać najwyższej jakości leady? […] Zły wybór kanałów, niewłaściwe targetowanie, a może brak pomysłu na ciekawą kampanię? to bardzo prawdopodobne! Czas to zmienić!14 [how to target and adjust the content you share to get the highest quality leads? [...] Wrong choice of channels, wrong targeting or no idea for an interesting campaign? It’s very likely! time to change]. 13 See http://niniwa22.cba.pl/spiewak_slowniczek_slow_modnych_i_niemodnych.html (accessed November 28, 2022). 14 See https://www.maileforum.pl/uploads/action/copyMail/2017/30/9867_1d7c0685ca/.copyMail. html?a=42223/1&f=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=42223/1 (accessed august 15, 2017). 122 Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse (13) to sprawia, że już żadnej reklamy nie będziemy targetować kontekstowo, a więc na podstawie treści, ale będziemy ją mogli zaadresować do konkretnej grupy odbiorców. dziś telewizja jest praktycznie nietargetowalna (Stępowski 2016, 110) [This means that we will no longer be targeting any ads contextually, i.e., based on content, but we will be able to address them to a specific audience. today television is practically untargetable]. during one-to-one interviews with marketers, they were asked, among other things, about their personal attitudes to the use of the word target and its derivatives in contexts relating to people. The majority of those questioned (16 out of 20 respondents) shared the following experience: in their early stages of working in marketing, the word target drew their attention as blatant, inappropriate, and unsuitable in communication about human-centred activities. however, over time, frequent contact with marketers’ jargon has neutralised this perception and the term is now seen without negative axiological connotations. for the remaining four respondents, the word target still remained an irritant as being too harsh, both literally (the sound) and figuratively (the meaning). on this basis, it can be concluded that marketing discourse can have the effect of nullifying the value dimension of words or phrases, although this is not a phenomenon typical of the communicative attitudes of all participants in this discourse. 5 Conclusions and Limitations according to Serazio and Szarek (2012, 765), the key role of the English language in Polish advertising discourse after the changes that started in 1989 was to advertise products or services by using the language of the West, or to “add an air of affectation to those offerings”. English, as a symbol of a better world from behind the Iron Curtain, was a marker for achieving the desired sociocultural prestige (Bulawka 2006). as for the area discussed in the paper, one may observe a similar cultural phenomenon with regard to the everyday communication of marketers. Their jargon (one of the manifestations of the “new professions” in post-communist Poland) shows that borrowings, adapted in the different ways outlined above, may be a tool for the ennobling identification of this profession with Western models. These loanwords have often led to an exaggerated use of English in marketers’ everyday communication. The question of English borrowings in the academic foundations of marketing and the foundations of the theory of the field is somewhat different. English borrowings were adopted in Polish marketing discourse to name a new type of knowledge and new professional communication, which had varying results. The examples and contexts of communication practices under discussion illustrate that the observed cross-cultural transfer of marketing knowledge is a complex phenomenon. The transfer of foreign cognitive models cannot consist either solely in maintaining their foreign- language names or in “naturalising” them through simple, unreflective translation. The path in between, by finding a culturally appropriate word in the target language, also seems to be difficult. Various solutions are being sought in Polish marketing discourse, but in many cases a lack of harmonious translation of Western cognitive models into Polish language and cognitive space is evident. This has consequences not only in the sphere of specialist meanings – in 123SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMagdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The Role of English in the Shaping of Polish Marketing Discourse the conceptual and terminological area, but also on the axiological level, i.e., in the ethical dimension of communication (e.g., seeing people as “targets”). This dimension seems to be much more important in terms of the social impact of marketing discourse than the (un) aesthetics of the Polish language reshaped by English. In the case of naming behaviours, a language user usually has a choice: to use a loanword, to look for its Polish equivalent or to paraphrase a foreign term. on the other hand, the remodelling of values expressed in the language, as an effect of a hasty transfer of specialized English expressions or structures without negotiating their meanings, may lead to axiological changes that are not necessarily expected by Polish society, but still unconsciously adopted by it. The final finding is that the discourse under discussion, due to the influence of English, is a linguistic-cognitive hybrid of Western culture and Polish culture. for this hybrid, English, understood as a linguistic and cultural phenomenon, has become both a trigger (English as a reason for) and a marker (a component) of Polish marketing discourse. It can also be said that it has become a carrier of the power of Western marketing, which engulfed the Polish reality after 1989 in two ways: through the ideology inscribed in the professional literature of the field, which Polish professionals encountered and assimilated, and through the worldview created in public discourse by advertisements – the effects of marketing production. The study is a general view of the issue. Certainly, further in-depth research is needed, including consideration of the quantitative aspect, in order to examine the scale of the phenomenon and its possible dynamics (for example: the difference, or lack thereof, between the initial period of English borrowings, i.e., the 1990s, and the present state of affairs). The findings also suggest the need for a broader, comparative analysis of the phenomenon under study in the context of other post-socialist countries in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on whether English influenced the marketing discourse in a similar manner in those contexts. Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to the reviewers and editors who provided constructive comments and notes on earlier versions of this paper. References altkorn, Jerzy, ed. 2004. Podstawy marketingu. Kraków: Instytut Marketingu. altkorn, Jerzy, and teodor Kramer, eds. 1998. Leksykon marketingu. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne. Breeze, ruth. 2013. Corporate Discourse. 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Zurawicki, Leon, and Kip Becker. 1994. “Marketing Issues and Strategies for Change in the Centra/Eastern European and CIS Countries.” Journal of Euromarketing 3 (2): 61–90. https:// doi.org/10.1300 /J037v03n02_05. 127SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 127-147(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.127-147 UdC: 811.111’243:808.1 Markéta Malá, Gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Charles University, Czech republic Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing aBStraCt The paper contributes to the research on academic attribution by exploring syntactic-semantic patterns of English reporting verbs used by three types of academic writers, namely L2 novice (with Czech as their L1), L1 novice and L1 expert academic writers. It investigates the impact which both the EfL and EaP challenge has on the use of these verbs by L2 novice academic writers. our approach combines contrastive analysis and learner corpus research, focusing on academic writing in English in the discipline of economics. The results suggest that although similarities among the groups prevail, Czech novice academic writers tend to resort to patterns associated with informal, conversational rather than academic style. Pedagogical implications of the findings could include raising students’ awareness of the practice of appropriate academic reporting as one of the skills needed for them to accommodate themselves to the conventions of English as the academic lingua franca. Keywords: reporting verbs, academic written English, learner corpora, novice academic writers, EfL Glagoli poročanja v začetniškem znanstvenem pisanju v angleščini kot J1 in J2  PoVZEtEK Članek prispeva k raziskovanju pripisovanja avtorstva z identifikacijo skladenjsko-pomenskih vzorcev angleških glagolov poročanja, kakor jih uporabljajo tri skupine piscev, tj. začetniki v J2 (kjer je J1 češčina), začetniki v J1 in pa izkušeni pisci v J1. Članek ugotavlja, kakšen vpliv imajo izzivi v angleščini kot tujem jeziku oziroma jeziku stroke na uporabo tovrstnih glagolov pri tujejezičnih piscih, ki so začetniki pri znanstvenem pisanju. Uporabljeni pristop je kombinacija kontrastivne analize in raziskovanja s korpusom usvajanja, osredotoča pa se na znanstveno pisanje v angleščini na področju ekonomije. rezultati kažejo, da so si skupine med sabo pretežno podobne, se pa češki pisci začetniki pogosteje zatekajo k vzorcem, ki so bolj značilni za neformalni in pogovorni kot za akademski slog. V pedagoškem smislu ugotovitve nakazujejo npr. potrebo po dvigu ozaveščenosti o ustreznih praksah poročanja v znanstvenem pisanju kot eni od potrebnih veščin, s katerimi se tujejezični govorci približajo konvencijam angleščine kot »akademske lingue france«. Ključne besede: glagoli poročanja, akademska pisna angleščina, korpusi usvajanja tujega jezika, znanstveni pisci začetniki, poučevanje angleščine kot tujega jezika 128 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing 1 Introduction In academic discourse, referencing other authors is a crucial skill to indicate the writer’s belonging to the discourse community. Novice academic writers, however, find it difficult to use the varied ways of reporting in accurate and appropriate ways (cf. hyland 2002). This seems to be a hindrance to non-native English writers in particular, since they have to face not only the challenge of academic writing but also the general challenge of using English as a foreign language (EfL). In addition to this, trying to become members of the international academic discourse community, with English as its “academic lingua franca” (Mauranen, hynninen and ranta 2016), non-native novice academic writers have to “accommodate themselves to different epistemological and literacy conventions” (dontcheva-Navratilova 2014, 40; cf. Chovanec 2012). The differences between Czech and anglophone academic literacies most relevant to our study are associated with writer-reader interaction. traditionally, Czech academic discourse has been writer- rather than reader-oriented, characterized by a low degree of interactiveness, backgrounded authorial presence, and “patterns of interaction marked by symbiosis and avoidance of tension” among the members of the small academic community (dontcheva-Navratilova 2014, 42; cf. Chamonikolasová 2005; Čmejrková 1996; Čmejrková and daneš 1997). This is reflected, for instance, in the frequent use of impersonal structures, tentative formulation of claims, a lower degree of dialogicality, and generally lower number of bibliographical references. While a gradual shift towards the anglophone academic writing conventions can be observed in the English-language academic texts written by Czech writers, particularly after the year 2000 (Kozubíková Šandová 2019), the current Czech university students will have been exposed rather to the Czech “stylistic” tradition, with the main focus on “stylistic variation” (Čmejrková 1996, 142). Previous research into reporting verbs has focused mainly on the usage of reporting verbs across various disciplines both by experienced researchers (Swales 1990; hyland 1999; 2002) and learners of academic English (Jarkovská and Kučírková 2021, dealing with Czech learners; Charles 2006a, 2006b). The scope of the present study is narrowed to a single discipline, economics, in order to investigate how Czech learners of English use reporting verbs in their academic texts compared to native novice and expert academic writers. The current study contributes to the research by exploring syntactic-semantic patterns of reporting verbs and by highlighting the impact of both the “foreign language” (EfL) and “academic” (English for academic purposes – EaP) challenge on the use of these verbs by English L2 novice academic writers. 2 Theoretical Background It is generally acknowledged that citation, i.e., “the attribution of propositional content to other sources” (hyland 1999, 341), is an important constitutive feature of research papers. hyland (1999, 343) points out “its increasingly prominent role in the ways writers seek to construct facts through their communicative practices.” In academic writing we not only present our own work and ideas, but we refer to works of other researchers, their findings and claims. By citing other authors, we build a necessary framework for our research, placing it in 129SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing a larger context in order to “establish credibility by showing affiliation to particular views and methods, provide justification for arguments and positions, and/or claim novelty for a position or findings presented” (dontcheva-Navratilova 2008, 98). at the same time, “[s] ttttt ance plays a particularly important role in reporting, since the writer’s attitude to the reported proposition can be encoded in the reporting clause” (Charles 2006a, 493). reporting verbs, as one of the overt means of referring to other authors, are at the same time used to express the writer’s attitude to the cited authors and their findings.1 In recent decades, citation in academic discourse has received considerable attention. Some studies have explored the citation practices in selected disciplines, e.g., in medical and biomedical journal articles (Thomas and hawes 1994; dubois 1988), or agricultural biology and biochemistry (Shaw 1992). Numerous other studies have dealt with reporting in the field of English studies or second language acquisition (Manan and Noor 2014; Yeganeh and Boghayeri 2015; Jalilifar 2012), while the practical application of research into reporting verbs was discussed in Bloch (2010). Several studies concentrated specifically on the academic writing of English L2 writers. The reporting practices of L2 writers (mostly Chinese university students) were discussed in Kwon, Staples and Partridge (2018), or dontcheva-Navratilova (2008) for Czech learners, and lexical verbs used by L2 writers in academic discourse were explored by granger and Paquot (2015), who found differences in stylistic preferences between English L1 and L2 writers:2 EfL learners significantly underuse the majority of “academic verbs”, i.e., verbs like include, report or relate, that express rhetorical functions at the heart of academic writing, and instead tend to resort to “conversational verbs”, i.e., verbs like think or like, that are characteristic of informal speech (2015, 32). Considering the syntactic structures in which lexical verbs are used, they found that L2 writers “tend to restrict themselves to a very limited range of patterns, which contrasts sharply with the rich patterning that characterizes expert writing” (2015, 32). 3 Forms of Academic Citation and Functions of Reporting Verbs In general, there are two main forms of academic citation, namely integral and non-integral citation (cf. Swales 1990, 148–49). While in integral citation the author’s name is integrated in the sentence and a reporting verb is typically used, in non-integral citation the name of the author is given in brackets or in footnotes/endnotes. as noted by hyland (1999, 344), “[t]he use of one form rather than the other appears to reflect a decision to give greater emphasis to either the reported author or the reported message.” reporting verbs can be classified into three categories according to their function, or to be more specific, according to the activity or process they refer to (hyland 2002, 118; cf. Thompson and Ye 1991, 369–70): 1 drawing on Thompson and Ye (1991), hyland (1999) and dontcheva-Navratilova (2008), we refer to the person who is citing as the “writer” and the person cited as the “author”. 2 The learner data in this study comes from the International Corpus of Learner English, containing essays written by EfL university students of 16 different mother tongue backgrounds (Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, dutch, finnish, french, german, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, russian, Spanish, Swedish, tswana and turkish). 130 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing 1) Research acts. “Verbs in this category represent experimental activities or actions carried out in the real world” (hyland 2002, 118). They typically occur in statements of findings, e.g., observe, discover, notice, show, or procedures, e.g., analyse, calculate, assay, explore, recover. 2) Cognition acts. “These verbs are concerned with the researcher’s mental processes” (hyland 2002, 118), e.g., believe, view, assume. 3) Discourse acts. “These involve linguistic activities and focus on the verbal expression of cognitive or research activities” (hyland 2002, 118), e.g., ascribe, discuss, hypothesize, state, report, claim. as demonstrated by Thompson and Ye (1991) or hyland (1999; 2002), “apart from indicating the type of activity referred to – research acts, cognition acts and discourse acts – reporting verbs may be exploited by writers to take a personal stance towards reported information [...] or [...] the writer may attribute a position to the original author” (dontcheva-Navratilova 2008, 98). By using a specific reporting verb writers can express their attitude towards the original source and author, portraying “the author as presenting true information or a correct opinion”, e.g., acknowledge, demonstrate, identify, notice, prove, recognize; or “false information or an incorrect opinion”, e.g., confuse, disregard, fail, ignore, or giving “no clear signal as to [… their] attitude towards the author’s information/opinion”, e.g., advance, believe, claim, examine, propose (Thompson and Ye 1991, 372). Thus, reporting verbs enable the writer to take either a supportive (e.g., advocate, argue, hold), neutral (e.g., address, cite, claim, comment), tentative (e.g., believe, suggest), or critical (e.g., condemn, object) stance towards the reported claims (cf. hyland 1999, 350; 2002, 118–19). 4 Material and Method The approach adopted in the present study combines contrastive analysis and learner corpus research to explore the use of reporting verbs by three types of academic writers – English L2 novice academic writers, and English L1 novice and expert writers. for the purposes of our research, we have compiled two corpora of English undergraduate theses in the discipline of economics and business, one comprising texts written by students of the Prague University of Economics and Business between 2016 and 2020 (L2 novice corpus), and the other theses from three US universities written between 2012 and 20203 (L1 novice corpus). The third corpus (L1 expert corpus), which serves as a yardstick against which the students’ essays are compared, contains expert articles from the same field published in high-impact american journals (The Quarterly Journal of Economics and The Journal of Economic Perspectives) between 2020 and 2022.4 The corpora are comparable in size (one million tokens each, see table 1). We uploaded the corpora into Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al. 2014) and used the automatic lemmatization and part-of-speech tagging (tree tagger) provided by the tool. 3 The L1 undergraduate theses are texts written by students of department of Economics at Stanford University, University of Michigan and University of arkansas. 4 Since approximately half of the Czech students’ essays follow american English language norms, and half British English norms, the choice of american English L1 corpora for comparison was mostly due to the availability of comparable academic texts. 131SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing table 1. The corpora used in the present study. Corpora Tokens Words Number of texts L1-expert 1,005,723 780,500 116 L1-novice 1,018,226 764,848 84 L2-novice 1,011,026 775,979 51 The research comprised two stages. The first stage (Section 5.1) aimed at identifying the range and types of reporting verbs used by the three groups of writers. The reporting verbs were located in the three corpora semi-manually: parentheses were used as indicators of a possible attribution of content to a particular author or a group of authors. Searching the adjacent text manually, we excerpted the initial 300 tokens of reporting verbs from each corpus.5 Prepositional and phrasal verbs, e.g., account for, focus on, point out, come up with, were also included in the dataset. Instances of self-citation were disregarded, and so was attribution to organizations and the media. Since we focused on reporting verbs, non-integral citations and various verbless forms of reporting remained outside the scope of this paper. apart from prepositional forms (ex. 1a), these often comprised de-verbal nouns (ex. 1b) related to the reporting verbs. (1) a. According to Bhargavi (2003) there are three specific features common among remittance senders. (L2-novice) b. In Piketty, Saez and Zucman (2018), the estimate of rapidly growing wealth underlies the finding that top capital shares have surged in the past 20 years, reaching 56 percent in 2014. Conversely, the alternative assumptions in Smith, Zidar, and Zwick (2019) imply that, in 2014, only 41 percent of income for the top 1 percent comes from capital. (L1-expert) The reporting verbs were categorized using hyland’s (2002) functional classification, drawing on Thompson and Ye (1991) and Thomas and hawes (1994), into three classes: research (real- world) acts, cognition acts, and discourse acts (hyland 2002, 118ff; see also Section 3 above). While some verbs can generally belong to more than one category, following hyland (2002, 118), we tried to “attribute a particular meaning to all the verbs using this system”, relying on collocations for disambiguation where necessary. depending on its complementation, the verb offer, for instance, was classified as a research act verb in ex. (2a), a cognition act verb in ex. (2b), and a verb related to a discourse act in ex. (2c).6 (2) a. Mathioudakis et al. (2017) offer an analysis of groups of advanced (2G, 3G) biofuel feedstocks and their water footprint. (L2-novice) b. [...] whereas Ocampo (2004) offers a nuanced view, worrying particularly about procyclical macroeconomic policies and weak productivity growth. (L1-expert) 5 The number of texts needed to identify the initial 300 tokens of reporting verbs differed across the three corpora: eight papers (96,000 tokens) from the L1 expert corpus, 13 theses (140,000 tokens) from the L1 novice corpus, and five theses (85,000 tokens) from the L2 novice corpus. as a consequence, in each corpus there were individual texts that remained unexamined by this process at the first stage of the analysis. 6 Cf. also hyland’s (2002, 118–21) classification of analyse, view and critique, corresponding to the multi-word expressions in examples (2a-c), as verbs referring to research, cognition and discourse acts, respectively. 132 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing c. A current University of Chicago sociologist Robert Vargas (2020) has offered a trenchant critique of the Chicago Crime Lab for its history of research partnerships and deep entanglements with the Chicago Police Department. (L1-expert) our results (see table 4 below) differ from the overall functional distribution of reporting verbs presented in hyland (2002, 119)7 in showing a high percentage of research-act oriented verbs. This, however, may reflect the scope of the category in our approach. apart from prototypical research-act verbs, such as show, find or analyse, we included in the category the verb use, one of the most frequent verbs in our data. This decision can be justified by the fact that in all the corpora the verb occurs as a part of recurrent multi-word units which are used to report “experimental activities or actions carried out in the real world” (hyland 2002, 118), i.e., research acts, such as use […] data, approach, model, measure, method, etc.8 treating such multi-word units as reporting verbs resulted in the inclusion of individual occurrences of make, do and have in various functional classes, depending on their complementation, e.g., work done by […] (research), make […] conclusion (discourse), make […] assumptions (cognition). at the second stage of the research, five reporting verbs were selected on the basis of the results of the first stage, and their lexico-grammatical patterns were explored in detail (Section 5.2). We focused on the verbs (types) argue, say, suggest, note, and find. The discourse-act verbs argue and suggest rank among the most frequent reporting verbs in all three corpora. The representation of say and note, on the other hand, differs across the corpora, with say overused, and note underused in L2 theses, compared to L1 texts. Find was selected as the most frequent representative of the research verbs. Being generally infrequent in all the corpora (5.4% of the 900-word sample), verbs referring to cognition acts were not included in the selection. In order to examine the uses of the five selected verbs, we searched for all instances of the verb lemmata in the three corpora, randomized the results using the Sketch Engine “shuffle lines” function, and then manually selected the first 50 tokens of each verb (including only verbs in reporting function) from each corpus, if available (see table 2). It should be noted that in several cases (with verbs note, say and suggest) the number of tokens of the particular verb was lower than 50; in such cases, all available tokens were included. This stage of data collection revealed that Czech students are quite reluctant to use find as a reporting verb. out of all tokens of find in the corpora, it is used as a reporting verb in approximately 50% in the L1 corpora, but only in 20% in the L2-novice corpus.9 The 600 occurrences of reporting verbs (table 2) identified at stage two were analysed in terms of the syntactic pattern, voice and tense of the verb, and the animacy of the subject. Using bootstrapping, 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated for each population.10 7 The distribution of verbs in process categories in hyland’s (2002, 119) data was 35% research, 8% cognition, and 57% discourse act verbs. 8 The classification of use as a research-act verb corresponds to Jarkovská and Kučírková’s (2021, 136) approach. hyland (2002) does not mention the class of the verb explicitly. 9 The following example illustrates a non-reporting use of the verb find in the L2 corpus: On the other hand, Czechs found EU membership beneficial the most at the beginning of the refugee crisis. 10 Calc tool at https://www.korpus.cz/calc/ (accessed November 24, 2022) was used to establish CIs. 133SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing table 2. The numbers of reporting verbs analysed at stage two of the research. Verb L2-novice L1-novice L1-expert Total argue 50 50 50 150 find 50 50 50 150 note 14 50 50 114 say 28 8 4 40 suggest 46 50 50 146 Total 188 208 204 600 5 Analysis 5.1 Stage one The first stage of the research revealed some general tendencies in the use of reporting verbs across the three corpora. as shown in table 3, american students and expert academics display a similar range of reporting verbs (84 and 87 verb types, respectively; 33 verb types are shared by both groups of writers), but the students tend to repeat the same verbs frequently (ex. 3). (3) Wu et al. (2011) examine the heterogeneity of the lending channel of monetary policy with respect to foreign and domestic banks and find strong evidence of internal capital markets. The authors find consistent evidence that foreign banks are less responsive to monetary policy shocks by analyzing the loan granting behavior of banks. Gambacorta (2005) examines the bank lending channel and finds that this transmission channel of monetary policy is muted among banks affiliated with multinational banks. (L1- novice) Czech students, on the other hand, use a broader range of verb types than either group of american writers. This may reflect the traditional Czech approach to stylistic norms, postulating variation as a feature of “good” writing. at the same time, being new to the realm of academic discourse, Czech students seem to display the same uncertainty as their L1-novice colleagues, resorting to frequent, “well-used” verbs. table 3. Numbers of reporting verbs (types and tokens) in the stage one dataset. Reporting verbs L2-novice L1-novice L1-expert Total types 108 84 87 279 tokens 300 300 300 900 apart from the overall high proportion of research and discourse act verbs in our data, table 4 shows the differences in the representation of the three functional classes of verbs between expert writers, on the one hand, and novice academics on the other. Both groups of novice academic writers slightly overuse verbs referring to discourse acts, and underuse research- act oriented verbs, compared to expert writers (the difference, however, is not statistically significant). at the same time, american and Czech students differ in their lexical choices of reporting verbs both from the expert writers and from each other (table 5). 134 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing Some of the differences may be explained by the novice writers’ avoidance of “taking an explicit stance towards the sources cited” (dontcheva-Navratilova 2008, 101). however, within the class of research act verbs, all groups of writers prefer “to comment on research findings non-factively, with no clear attitudinal signal as to their reliability” (hyland 2002, 119), using the verbs find, analyze, use, study, examine, etc. The evaluative factive verb show, acknowledging the “acceptance of the author’s results or conclusions” (hyland 2002, 119) occurs more frequently in the L1 texts, especially in the expert ones (31 instances, as opposed to the five occurrences in L2 theses). The comparison of discourse act verbs across the three groups of writers reveals little similarity beyond the use of the frequent verbs argue (an “assurance” verb, “which introduce[s] cited material in [...] positive and conclusive terms” (hyland 2002, 121)) and the tentative verb suggest. The non-evaluative verbs state, focus on, and conclude are used frequently by novice writers, who may be reluctant to interpret the reported information. american students share the preference for the verbs note and propose with the expert writers. Czech students, on the other hand, were found to use a variety of verbs which are not frequent in the native writers’ papers – a) verbs which may be considered essential vocabulary for academic writing describe, explain, and define, and b) the verbs say, write, point out, and come with, which are not peculiar to academic writing.11 The use of come with something (ex. 4) for reporting may be considered a case of negative lexical transfer from Czech, where the expression that corresponds literally to the English one, viz. přijít s něčím, is used to present someone’s new suggestion, idea, plan, solution or explanation. (4) Daioglou et al. (Daioglou et al. 2017) come with a novel approach to life cycle analysis (LCA). (L2-novice) 11 group a) comprises verbs which appear on the written sub-list of the Oxford Phrasal Academic Lexicon (oPaL), a list of “the most important words to know in the field of English for academic Purposes” based on the Oxford Corpus of Academic English, see https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/wordlists/opal (accessed November 24, 2022). The verbs in group b) are not on the written sub-list of oPaL; at the same time, say, write, and come are listed among the 500 most frequent words on the New General Service List, “providing common vocabulary items that occur frequently across different texts” (Brezina and gablasova 2015, 1). table 4. The functional classification of reporting verbs in the three corpora, based on the 900- verb sample. Cognition acts Discourse acts Research acts Total (100%)freq. % CI freq. freq. % CI freq. freq. % CI freq. L2- novice 17 5.7 10–25 145 48.3 128–162 138 46.0 121–155 300 L1- novice 18 6.0 10–27 139 46.3 122–156 143 47.7 126–160 300 L1- expert 14 4.7 7–22 115 38.3 99–132 171 57.0 154–188 300 Total 49 5.4 36–63 399 44.3 370–428 452 50.2 422–481 900 135SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing table 5. The most frequent reporting verbs – functional classification.12 Discourse act verbs Research verbs Cognition verbs L2-novice describe (18), conclude (7), focus on (7), argue (7), say (7), explain (6), write (5), suggest (5), define (5), point out (4), come with (4), state (4), consider (4) use (31), find (13), analyze1 (9), create (9), do (7), identify (6), show (5), apply (4), develop (4) --- L1-novice note (26), argue (14), cite (11), suggest (10), state (10), conclude (9), focus on (7), propose (4), determine (4), support (4) find (45), show (14), use (11), study (9), conduct (7), examine (7), look at (6), utilize (5), analyze (5) believe (7) L1-expert note (13), report (11), discuss (10), argue (9), suggest (9), propose (7), present (5), document (4), consider (4) find (42), show (31), use (20), provide (10), estimate (10), develop (4), analyze (4), study (4), take (4) assume (4) 13 5.2 Stage two Three verb types proved to be frequent in all three corpora – argue, find and suggest. The characteristics of these verbs were compared across the three corpora in order to ascertain whether they also share the same patterns when used by different types of writers. The verbs note and say, are under- and over-represented, respectively, in the L2-novice theses. We explored their colligations and collocations, hoping to account for the Czech students’ (dis) inclination to use these verbs. 5.2.1 Argue, Find and Suggest 5.2.1.1 The Semantics of the Subject The subjects of reporting verbs argue, find and suggest were classified from the semantic point of view into two main classes – human (ex. 5) and non-human (ex. 6) – leaving aside the sentences with the anticipatory it and the formal subject there (eight instances). The classification of the implied subjects of subjectless non-finite clauses was based on the context of the superordinate clause (ex. 7, with an unexpressed human subject). (5) Further, Sevilla and Smith (2020) find that within couples, COVID-19 has increased the equality in time spent on childcare between men and women. (L1-novice) (6) Case studies  suggest that clinic staff and community health workers were providing “no-touch” treatment for dehydration and fever and engaged in social mobilization and disease surveillance (Vandi et al. 2017). (L1-expert) 12 The verbs frequently used in all three sub-corpora are highlighted in bold, those overused or used solely by Czech students in italics; the frequency is given in parentheses after each verb. 13 differences between British and american spelling (analyse vs. analyze) were disregarded, and the results were merged. 136 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing (7) Jovanović (2002, 6) summarizes these goals, suggesting that perhaps most important was the maintenance of peace, as it was mentioned three times in the Preamble alone. (L1-novice) table 6. The subject of the verbs argue, find and suggest. Group Human subject Non-human subject Total (100%) freq % CI freq. freq. % CI freq. L1-expert argue 44 96 41–46 2 4 0–5 46 find 36 72 30–42 14 28 8–20 50 suggest 25 50 18–32 25 50 18–32 50 total 105 72 94–115 41 28 31–52 146 L1-novice argue 46 92 42–49 4 8 1–8 50 find 37 74 31–43 13 26 7–19 50 suggest 25 50 18–32 25 50 18–32 50 total 108 72 97–119 42 28 31–53 150 L2-novice argue 42 89 37–46 5 11 1–10 47 find 37 76 31–43 12 24 9–18 49 suggest 29 63 23–35 17 37 11–23 46 total 108 76 98–118 34 24 24–44 142 Total 321 73 303–339 117 27 99–135 438 The overall analysis of the verbs argue, find and suggest revealed that the distribution of human and non-human subjects across the three corpora does not differ considerably. Both L1 and L2 writers clearly tend to use human subjects, the ratio of human to non-human subjects being approximately 3:1. The human subject is typically an author or a collective of authors, realized by a proper noun (e.g., Lemieux (2006) suggested that…) or a common noun such as author, researchers, scholars, academics (e.g., The authors argue that…) or a pronoun such as they, some, many (e.g., Many argue that…).  The non-human subject refers either to the text itself by a common noun such as study, paper, article, literature, review (e.g., Part of the literature argues that…) or the ideas contained in the text, such as theory, research (e.g., This theory suggest that…). alternatively, the non-human subject is the subject of the passive constructions (see below ex. 9). however, when focusing on the individual verbs, the distribution of human and non-human subjects was found to be different. While the verbs argue and find show a preference for human subjects (132 human vs. 11 non-human subjects with argue, 110 human vs. 39 non- human subjects with find), in the case of suggest the human and non-human subjects are almost equally distributed (79 human vs. 67 non-human subjects). This may be caused by the semantics of each verb. While the semantic load of argue seems to be more closely related to reasoning, the meaning of suggest is linked more to conveying information, which may be more easily carried out by both the author and the text.  137SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing Next, we investigated each of the corpora individually. In contrast with L1 corpora, L2 novice writers are the only group of writers who prefer human subjects with all three verbs, including suggest, which is used equally with human and non-human subjects in L1 corpora. In other words, L2 novice writers seem to underuse suggest with non-human subjects. 5.2.1.2 Voice The active is clearly the dominant voice used in reporting by all groups of writers. The group that uses the passive most is L2 novice writers (table 7). generally, this is in accordance with the traditional Czech academic writing instruction,14 stressing the impersonal character of the academic text as its typical feature. Čmejrková, daneš and Světlá (1999, 48), for instance, mention the passive as a common means whereby the ideas and findings of the researchers who constitute the discourse community can enter the academic text without the names of the researchers being mentioned explicitly (e.g. although the properties of the biological clock have been partly described [...], little has been said about the daily oscillation [...]). table 7. Voice (the verbs argue, find and suggest). Group Active Passive Total (100%)freq. % CI freq. freq. % CI freq. L1-expert 142 95 136–147 8 5 3–14 150 L1-novice 147 98 143–150 3 2 0–7 150 L2-novice 135 92 128–141 11 8 5–18 146 Total 424 95 415–432 22 5 14–31 446 Even though the frequencies are low, our data show that L2 novice writers use the preposition in in the passive patterns “as-(it)-(be)-Ved-in” and “S-be-Ved-in”, examples (8) and (9) respectively, which allows them to construe the source of knowledge as impersonal (rather than referring to the author). The preposition in was not attested in the passive patterns used by the L1 writers. What L2 writers fail to do, on the other hand, is use complex subject-raising infinitival constructions found in L1 writers’ texts (‘S-be-V-ed-inf ’, ex. 10). The pattern ‘it-be- Ved-clause’, preferred by L1 expert writers, is illustrated by ex. (11). table 8. Passive patterns (the verbs argue, find and suggest). Passive pattern L1-expert L1-novice L2-novice Total as-(it)-(be)-Ved-by/in 3 0 5 8 it-be-Ved-clause 4 0 3 7 S-be-Ved-by/in/0 0 1 3 4 S-be-Ved-inf 1 2 0 3 Total 8 3 11 22 14 as shown by Kozubíková Šandová (2019, 64), while there has been a shift towards the writer’s increased visibility in Czech academic texts, impersonal means of expression are still the preferred option, highlighting, among others, the writer’s reliance on generally accepted findings and conclusions. 138 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing (8) As was suggested in other works the willingness to travel to job or directly to move house is low in the Czech Republic. (Narovcova, 2015). (L2-novice) (9) Same conclusion can be found in a work done by Barro and Redlick (2011). (L2- novice) (10) Mobile homes have also been found to have a negative impact on single family home prices, although this research, from 1999, is somewhat outdated (Munneke et al. 113). (L1-novice) (11) It was found as well, that 44% of respondents use DS for less than a year (Harris Interactive, 2021). (L2-novice) 5.2.1.3 Tense The investigation of the tense of reporting verbs revealed noteworthy differences between L1 and L2 writers (see table 9). The L1 writers (both expert and novice) show a tendency to use the reporting verb in the present simple tense (78% and 77% respectively; ex. 12), while Czech students use the present tense less frequently (66%). The past simple tense, on the other hand, is twice as frequent in L2 texts (33%; ex. 13) than in L1 corpora (15% and 17%). table 9. tense (the verbs argue, find and suggest).15 Group Present simple Past simple Present perfect Total (100%)freq. % CI freq. freq. % CI freq. freq. % CI freq. L1-expert 108 78 98–117 21 15 13–30 10 7 4–16 139 L1-novice 105 77 95–114 23 17 15–32 9 7 4–15 137 L2-novice 89 66 78–100 45 33 34–56 1 1 0–3 135 Total 302 73 284–319 89 22 73–105 20 5 12–29 411 (12) Ellieroth (2019) finds that married women are less likely to leave the labor force in recessions. (L1-expert) (13) As Bajomi-Lazár (2014, p. 59) noted: “the state-owned National Lottery Company placed advertising worth 129 million forints in 2009 and 294 million forints in 2011 in the pro-Fidesz broadsheet Magyar Nemzet”. (L2-novice) The more pronounced preference of native speakers for the use of the present simple tense and more frequent use of the past simple tense by non-native speakers was noted before by other researchers (cf. Vogel 2012; Jarkovská and Kučírková 2021). according to Jarkovská and Kučírková (2021, 137), the use of the past simple “implies a greater distancing of the writer from another author’s reported message and less relevance to the writer’s research”. at the same time, “the use of past tenses may reflect the dating of the research, not necessarily the relationship of the writer to the cited author” (Kučírková 2021, 137). It can be argued that the differences between L1 and L2 texts described above might be due to the L2 writers being unaware of the convention of using the present simple as an unmarked tense for reporting other authors’ research. 15 only finite verb forms were included. 139SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing The use of the present perfect is marginal in all corpora (ex. 14), but it is the L2 writers that neglect it almost completely. This is not a surprising result given that, unlike the present and past tenses, the Czech grammatical system does not have a tense equivalent to the English present perfect. The higher proportion of present perfect verbs in L1 writing compared with L2 writing was also found by Vogel (2012, 80). (14) First, Saez (2002) has suggested a positive correlation between labor productivities and savings propensities. (L1-expert) 5.2.1.4 The Structural Patterns The pattern occurring most frequently in all three corpora is ‘(S)-V-clause’ (ex. 15a). as figure 1 shows, the prevalence of this pattern is the weakest in L2-novice academic writing. This seems to be related to the representation of the three verbs in the pattern: compared to L1 writers, Czech students tend to use the pattern with the verb argue to the same extent, but underuse it with the verbs find and suggest, preferring patterns with a noun phrase complementation instead (‘(S)-V-NP’, ex. 15b). It is interesting that L1 novice writers use the pattern ‘(S)-V-clause’ the most of all three groups. This could be due to its status of the prototypical reporting pattern, which L1 students seem to be aware of, and overuse the pattern as a marker of the academic register. (15) a. However, Hitris and Posnett (1992) suggest that parameters related to the financing and delivery of health care may have direct or indirect effects on national demand for health care, [...]. (L1-novice) b. Blanden and Machin (2008) presented a study, which found significant differences between poor and rich children before they are influenced by any kind of institutional education. (L2-novice) The pattern ‘(S)-V-clause’ is characterized by a clausal complementation of the reporting verb, the clause being a nominal clause in the syntactic position of an object, typically introduced by the complementizer that (ex. 16). That is occasionally omitted, i.e., the clause is linked to the verb asyndetically (ex. 17). table 10 shows the distribution of these two subtypes. figure 1. Pattern competition – the representation of the most frequent patterns ‘(S)-V-clause’ and ‘(S)-V-NP’ in the three corpora, compared to all the other patterns. 140 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing table 10. ‘(S)-V-clause’ subtypes. Pattern L1-expert L1-novice L2-novice Total (S)-V-that-clause 103 96% 113 91% 77 89% 293 (S)-V-clause asyndetic 4 4% 11 9% 9 11% 24 Total 107 100% 124 100% 86 100% 317 The analysis shows that the omission of that is limited to argue and suggest. although the clauses with that clearly outnumber the asyndetic ones, our data reveal a greater tendency to omit that by novice writers, both L2 (nine instances) and L1 (11 instances), while there are only four instances of omitted that by L1-expert writers. Since the complementizer that is frequently omitted in informal speech (cf. Quirk et al. 1985, 1049), our results indicate that learners’ writing is influenced by informal, spoken-like features, as pointed out by gilquin and Paquot (2008, 45) or hasselgård (2015, 172). The syntactic pattern ‘(S)-V-clause’ comprises not only finite, but also non-finite reporting verbs in the active voice complemented by a that-clause. In all three corpora, sentences containing a finite reporting verb with the subject (ex. 16–17) are far more frequent (293 instances) than the subjectless ones (i.e., those displaying a non-finite reporting verb; 24 instances, ex. 18).16 (16) McLaren (2002) argues that voters do not necessarily perceive EU membership through the cost-benefit analysis or the utilitarian model generally but are concerned about their nationstate. (L2-novice) (17) Dinan (2007, 1122) argues a weak West Germany meant a weak Western Europe against the growing Soviet Bloc… (L1-novice) (18) Jovanović (2002, 6) summarizes these goals, suggesting that perhaps most important was the maintenance of peace. (L2-novice) In addition, L2 users also use the phrasal verb find out instead of the more appropriate find (ex. 19). (19) Green et al. (2015) found out that the Rohingya had suffered first four stages of genocide out of six, that were outlined by Daniel Feierstein (L2-novice) Leaving the pattern ‘(S)-V-clause’ aside, figure 2 shows the representation of the other patterns in our data. Being used as a threshold value, the frequencies in the L1-expert articles are depicted as a line; the vertical bars indicate over- and underuse of the patterns by novice academic writers. The second most frequent syntactic pattern is ‘(S)-V-NP’, attested only with the verbs find (in most cases) and suggest. Whereas the L1-expert and L2-novice corpora contain a similar number of instances of this pattern (25 and 27 instances, respectively), L1 novice writers seem to use this pattern less frequently (18 instances), preferring the pattern with 16 In our data, no non-finite reporting verbs with an overt subject were attested in the pattern with clausal complementation. 141SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing clausal complementation instead. In the L1-expert corpus, the ‘(S)-V-NP’ pattern is strongly associated with the verb find (20 instances; ex. 20). Novice writers, on the other hand, especially L2 writers, use the pattern with both find and suggest (8 instances with suggest in L1-novice and 15 in L2-novice corpora; ex. 21). (20) Jha (2015) […] fails to find support for Tawney’s secondary claims about the gentry’s role in the English Civil War… (L1-expert) (21) Becker suggests the use of alternative punishment for the non-violent criminals… (L2- novice) as mentioned above, L1 novice writers were found to avoid the impersonal pattern ‘it-be-V- ed-clause’ (ex. 22). They also seem reluctant to use the as-patterns (ex. 23). Compared to L1 expert writers, L2 novice writers overuse two types of patterns: ‘S-V-NP-Comp’ and ‘S-be-V- ed(-prep)’. With 16 tokens, the former pattern is the third most frequent pattern used by the Czech students (ex. 24). The Czech equivalent of the construction (“shledávat něco nějakým”) is strongly associated with formal style,17 which may lead L2 novice writers to employ the corresponding English pattern as an academic register marker. The ‘S-V-NP-Comp’ pattern only occurs with the verb find in both L2-novice theses and L1-expert articles. The pattern ‘S-be-V-ed(-prep)’ (ex. 25) is generally infrequent, and not limited to a single verb (although it does not occur with argue). The prepositional phrase specifies the author or source of the information reported. (22) In fact, it has been argued that worker board representatives are typically moderate actors and that minority board representation itself may have contributed to overall more cooperative labor relations in Germany (Thelen 1991). (L1-expert) 17 Cf. the relative frequency of the verb shledat in Czech academic texts (13.31 per million words), newspaper reporting (6.97 per million words) and spoken texts (0.16 per million words) in the corpora SYN2015 and ORAL_v1, available from http://www.korpus.cz (accessed November 24, 2022). figure 2. over- and underuse of reporting patterns (except the ‘(S)-V-clause’ pattern) with the verbs argue, find and suggest by novice academic writers (compared to L1-expert writers). 142 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing (23) Logarithmic transformation approximates the growth rate of wages as is suggested by Mincer (1974). (L2-novice) (24) Moreover, the author finds the topic and its goal adequately relevant for the present and utterly crucial for the future due to the actual situation. (L2-novice) (25) Same conclusion can be found in a work done by Barro and Redlick (2011). (L2- novice) 5.2.2 Say and Note 5.2.2.1 Say The verb say is overused by L2 novice writers, which is in line with granger and Paquot (2015, 32), who note that L2 writers “tend to resort to ‘conversational verbs’, […] characteristic of informal speech”. If expert L1 writers use the verb at all, it is always to introduce (at least partial) direct quotation, marked by inverted commas (ex. 26). In L1-novice theses, say is used in the same way in five out of the eight occurrences of the verb. Czech students not only use the verb say more frequently (28 times), but also employ it in a wide variety of patterns, often with non-human subjects18 (ex. 27). direct quotes introduced by say are rare in L2- novice essays (3 instances). (26) Stigler said “no” to the first question because the likely result of a minimum wage would be the discharge of “workers whose services are worth less than the minimum wage.” (L1-expert) (27) The theory says, that once we know the costs and the demand for certain goods, the firm can then set the appropriate price (Bain 1942). (L2-novice)19 as shown in table 11, Czech students use the verb say both in active and in passive patterns. Example 28 illustrates the tendency of Czech students to employ the passive as a means of impersonal generalized expression. This pattern with the anticipatory it, a modal verb and a passive verb was found to be used frequently as a means of hedging (cf. impersonal stance bundles in Biber, Conrad and Cortes 2004, 389; hyland 2008, 18), as these structures “largely convey a reluctance to express complete commitment to a proposition, allowing writers to present information as an opinion rather than accredited fact” (hyland 2008, 18). (28) Overall, it can be said that there is an increasing trend to buy French products in all industries (Escadrille, 2019). (L2-novice) for Czech learners, the pattern ‘it-be-V-ed-clause’, illustrated by ex. (28), appears to be the kind of pattern referred to as a “phraseological teddy bear” by hasselgård (2019, 340), i.e., a pattern which appears to be “familiar and unobjectionable” to the learners,20 “a multi-word unit that learners use more frequently and in more contexts than native speakers do.” 18 out of the 28 instances of the verb in the L2-novice data, the verb say is used with a non-human subject nine times (32.1%). L1 novice and expert writers were not found to use say with non-human subjects. 19 The comma following the verb say is a frequent mistake of Czech writers; a negative transfer from Czech, where a that-clause has to be separated from the reporting verb by a comma. 20 The popularity of the pattern ‘it-be-V-ed-clause’ with Czech learners can also be influenced by the corresponding Czech impersonal pattern with a clausal subject in post-verbal position (“dá se říci, že …” – “can be said that…”). 143SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing 5.2.2.2 Note as shown by hyland (2002, 121), the verb note is used to “signal a supportive role for the reported information in the writer’s argument, often by attributing a high degree of confidence to the proposition by the original author.” This is perhaps why note is often used to report facts supported by quantitative data, stressing the reliability and objectivity of the author’s findings (ex. 29). The verb is underused by L2 novice writers in comparison with L1 writers. Both groups of L1 writers display the same preference for the active patterns ‘(S)-V-clause’ and ‘(S)-V-NP’ with the writer construed as the subject (ex. 30 and 31). The dependent clause is always introduced by that. While L1 novice writers generally use the verb note in the present tense, L1 expert writers employ the past tense to a larger extent (34% of finite note-clauses). This may be explained by Shaw’s (1992, 316) observation that “past-tense verbs are generally associated with content which is supporting detail for a higher-level statement”, which could suggest a more intricate structure of argumentation in expert articles, but the sample is too small to allow much generalization. (29) Housewife home production hours have fallen by about 11 percent between the 1920s and 2010 – and Ramey (2009) notes even larger declines among all women. (L1- expert) (30) Bajpai and Dholakia (2011) note that ASHAs rarely performed outreach to smaller hamlets or villages, because of the higher cost of traveling to these villages. (L1-novice) (31) Tawney noted the emergence of a class of commercialized farmers in the sixteenth and seventeenth century who rose relative to other groups in society (see Table I; Coss 2005 on the origins of the English gentry). (L1-expert) The underuse of the verb note by Czech learners seems to be related to the reporting verbs each group of writers prefers to use in the most frequent reporting patterns, ‘(S)-V-clause’ and ‘(S)-V-NP’. as illustrated in figure 3, the verbs argue, find, note and suggest are distributed evenly in these patterns in the texts written by L1 writers. Czech students, on the other hand, overuse two discourse-act verbs, representing the opposite poles of “doubt” and “assurance” (hyland 2002, 121), namely the tentative verb suggest, and the verb argue “attributing a high degree of confidence to the proposition by the original author” (hyland 2002, 121). L2 novice writers are also the only group to use the verb say extensively in these patterns. table 11. The patterns of the verb say. Pattern L1-expert L1-novice L2-novice Total (S)-V-clause/quote/NP 4 8 22 33 it-be-Ved-clause 3 3 as(-be)-Ved-prep 1 1 there-be-Ved-inf 1 1 as-S-V 1 1 Total 4 8 28 40 144 Markéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing figure 3. The representation of verbs in the two most frequent reporting patterns ‘(S)-V-clause’ and ‘(S)-V-NP’. 6 Conclusion When writing their first extensive academic works, Czech university students have to face several types of challenge: like all novice academic writers, they have to manifest good knowledge of the practices of the academic discourse community which they are joining. for Czech novice academic writers this is further complicated by the fact that not only is the language of the community different from their mother tongue, but they may also find the anglophone academic epistemological and literacy conventions different from the traditional Czech ones. Since referring to the findings and ideas of others lies at the centre of the academic knowledge construction and presentation, it is likely to reflect all these factors. Before focusing on the differences, however, let us note that similarities among the groups prevail. In their choice of reporting verbs and patterns, all academic writers represented in our dataset display to some extent awareness of the “communicative and institutional purposes” of the register (cf., for instance, the high representation of verbs referring to research acts in all three corpora, in line with the inductive research orientation of the discipline of economics, or the preference for the active pattern ‘(S)-V-clause’), and the “ideational interests and interpersonal practices” of their academic discourse community (groom 2005, 258), manifested, e.g., in the avoidance of the explicit expression of stance by the reporting verb. Novice writers, both L1 and L2, were shown to rely on patterns associated with informal, conversational rather than academic style, such as the omission of the conjunction that linking the reporting verb to its clausal complement. By the same token, novice writers, in comparison with L1 expert academics, tend to overuse verbs referring to discourse acts, and underuse research-act oriented verbs peculiar to the academic domain. Novice writers often employ non-evaluative verbs state, focus on, conclude, which allow them to refrain from interpreting the reported information. 145SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESMarkéta Malá, gabriela Brůhová, Kateřina Vašků Reporting Verbs in L1 and L2 English Novice Academic Writing as mentioned above, for L2 Czech students the stylistically appropriate choice of the reporting verb and a particular reporting pattern is further complicated by their not being native English speakers. obviously, the impact of Czech can be seen in the negative lexical transfer, which may be illustrated by the reporting pattern come with something, a verbatim translation counterpart of the Czech pattern “přijít s něčím”. More subtle manifestations of the EfL challenge can be sought in the preferences for particular reporting patterns with particular verbs. Czech learners, for instance, rely on nominal complementation of the verb suggest to a larger extent than L1 novice and expert writers, who prefer clausal complementation. taking the individual patterns as the starting point, we can observe that L1 expert and novice writers use the pattern ‘(S)-V-clause’ with all the verbs argue, find, note and suggest; L2 novice writers use it mostly with argue, but to a much lesser extent with the other verbs, preferring the non-academic reporting verb say instead. The verb say is generally overused by the L2 writers. There are also two patterns which occur predominantly in L2 novice theses, viz. ‘S-be-Ved(- prep)’ and ‘S-V-NP-Comp’, the latter being restricted to the verb find. L2 novice writers were shown to stick to practices and patterns which they find familiar. This overgeneralization results in the Czech learners’ using animate human subjects not only with the same verbs as L1 writers (argue, find), but extending this as a rule to other reporting verbs (suggest). Similarly, L2-novice writers appear to overuse the past tense of reporting verbs, perhaps applying their general knowledge of the English tense system, with the preterite used to report past events, rather than the more specific disciplinary conventions. The last factor which influences the choice of particular reporting patterns is perhaps the most challenging not only for L2 novice writers, but also for their teachers, who should draw the students’ attention to the fact that the anglophone academic discourse community they are about to enter draws on different, more reader-oriented conventions. for Czech novice academic writers this may mean, for instance, refraining from some of the impersonal and passive reporting patterns, and generally increasing the degree of attribution to other authors in their academic texts. our findings complement the existing research on the use of reporting verbs by Czech writers (dontcheva-Navratilova 2014; Jarkovská and Kučírková 2021) by comparing Czech writers to both L1 novice and L1 expert writers. In the present paper, we hope to have highlighted the importance of raising students’ awareness of appropriate academic reporting as one of the skills needed for them to accommodate themselves to the conventions of English as the academic lingua franca. as a suggestion for further research, it would be beneficial if future studies could focus contrastively on how Czech learners use reporting verbs in English and in Czech in order to reveal the potential interference of L1. References Biber, douglas, Susan Conrad, and Viviana Cortes. 2004. “If you look at…: Lexical Bundles in University Lectures and textbooks.” Applied Linguistics 25 (3): 371–405. https:// doi.org/10.109c3/applin/25.3.371. 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Yeganeh, Maryam tafaroji, and Mahnaz Boghayeri. 2015. “The frequency and function of reporting Verbs in research articles Written by Native Persian and English Speakers.” Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 192: 582–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.097. 149SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods aBStraCt Phonological neighborhood density is known to influence lexical access, speech production and perception processes. Lexical competition is considered the central concept from which the neighborhood effect emanates: highly competitive neighborhoods are characterized by large degrees of phonemic co-activation, which can delay speech recognition and facilitate speech production. The study investigates phonetic learning in English as a foreign language in relation to phonological neighborhood density and onset density to see if dense or sparse neighborhoods are more conducive to the incorporation of novel phonetic detail. also, the effect of voice-contrasted minimal pairs is explored. The results indicate that sparser neighborhoods with weaker lexical competition provide the most optimal phonological environment for phonetic learning. Moreover, novel phonetic details are incorporated faster in neighborhoods without minimal pairs. The results indicate that lexical competition plays a role in the dissemination of phonetic updates in the lexicon of foreign language learners. Keywords: aspiration, austrian german, Czech, English as a foreign language, lexical competition, minimal pair, phonetic learning, phonological neighborhood Širjenje fonetičnih novosti znotraj fonoloških soseščin PoVZEtEK gostota fonološke soseščine vpliva na dostop do leksike, govorno produkcijo in procese zaznavanja. Leksikalno tekmovanje naj bi bilo osrednji koncept, iz katerega izhaja učinek soseščine: za zelo tekmovalne soseščine je značilna velika stopnja fonemske koaktivacije, ki lahko upočasni prepoznavanje govora in olajša govorno produkcijo. Študija raziskuje fonetično učenje v angleščini kot tujem jeziku v povezavi z gostoto fonološke soseščine in gostoto začetka, da bi ugotovili, ali so za vključevanje novih fonetičnih podrobnosti bolj ugodne goste ali redke soseščine. raziskava ugotavlja tudi učinek minimalnih parov z zvenečnostnim kontrastom. rezultati kažejo, da redkejše soseščine s šibkejšim leksikalnim tekmovanjem zagotavljajo najbolj optimalno fonološko okolje za fonetično učenje. Poleg tega se nove fonetične podrobnosti hitreje vključijo v soseščinah brez minimalnih parov. Pokaže se, da ima pri učenju tujega jezika leksikalno tekmovanje pomembno vlogo pri širjenju fonetičnih novosti v besedišču. Ključne besede: pridihnjenost, avstrijska nemščina, češčina, angleščina kot tuji jezik, leksikalno tekmovanje, minimalni par, fonetično učenje, fonološka soseščina Eva Maria Luef Charles University, Czech republic Pia Resnik University College of teacher Education Vienna/Krems, austria Tomáš Gráf Charles University, Czech republic 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 149-168(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.149-168 UdC: [811.111’243:37.091.3]:81’34 150 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods 1 Introduction Word-initial plosive aspiration, being a feature of the majority of English varieties (e.g., Watt and Yurkova 2007; Berry and Moyle 2011; docherty et al. 2011; Chodroff et al. 2015; Sonderegger 2015; Morris 2018), can represent a phonetic challenge for learners of English whose first language is non-aspirating, such as austrian german and Czech (Moosmüller, Schmid, and Brandstätter 2015; Skarnitzl and rumlová 2019). from an articulatory viewpoint, aspiration is the period between an initial burst of frication and the start of voicing (Klatt 1975; abramson and Whalen 2017), which is commonly measured as voice-onset time (or Vot). The length of Vot – and thus aspiration – can vary significantly between languages and may or may not have a contrastive function (Cho, Whalen, and docherty 2019). In English, german, and Czech plosives are commonly classified as “fortis” – in the case of longer Vots – and “lenis”, which are characterized by shorter or negative Vots (Klatt 1975; Skarnitzl 2011; Chodroff et al. 2015; Luef 2020). definitions of long-lag Vot (or fortis) differ between the three languages. The average range of fortis Vot in varieties of English spoken in North america is between 65 and 120 ms (Berry and Moyle 2011); aspiration is slightly less pronounced in British speakers and Vots range between 45 and 100 ms (docherty et al. 2011; Przedlacka 2012; Sonderegger 2015). from a cross-linguistic universalist viewpoint, Vots starting at approximately 50 ms are classified as slightly aspirated, values above 90 ms are considered moderately aspirated, and values above 120 ms fall into the category of highly aspirated (Cho and Ladefoged 1999). This puts English fortis Vots in the low to medium aspiration categories. By contrast, austrian german (hereinafter referred to as “austrian”) and Czech fortis Vots range well below the English ones, with austrian fortis plosives being characterized by Vots of 26.1–66 ms (Luef 2020; Moosmüller and ringen 2004). as opposed to Standard Middle/Northern german with moderate degrees of word-initial aspiration (Jessen and ringen 2002), austrian german is generally classified as non-aspirated or weakly aspirated in the majority of phonological and stylistic contexts (Bürkle 1995; Muhr 2007; Wiesinger 2009). Czech Vots are typically in the short-lag Vot domain of approximately 14–32 ms (Skarnitzl 2011; Kaňok and Novotný 2019). The lack of aspiration in word-initial plosives in austrian and Czech learners of English results in the typical low-aspirated foreign language (L2) English varieties encountered in speakers from austria and the Czech republic. This is especially prominent in learners at lower and medium proficiency stages, but may persist even in highly proficient learners of English (Pospíšilová 2011; ambrožová 2014; Skarnitzl and rumlová 2019; Kong-Insam 2021). 1.1 What Influences Vot duration? The duration of Vot can be influenced by a variety of factors in a given language, including idiosyncratic variation (allen, Miller, and deSteno 2003; Ladd and Schmid 2018), sociolinguistic factors (e.g., age and gender, see Swartz 1992; Bóna 2014), biological factors (menstrual cyclicity, see Whiteside, hanson, and Cowell 2004), as well as lexical or segment frequency in foreign language learners (Luef and resnik, in press). In addition, studies have consistently shown that one systematic influence on word-initial Vot duration is the density Eva Maria Luef, Pia Resnik, Tomáš Gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods 151SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods of the phonological neighborhood of a target word (e.g., Baese-Berk and goldrick 2009; Peramunage et al. 2011; Schertz 2013; Buz, tanenhaus, and Jaeger 2016; Nelson and Wedel 2017). a phonological neighborhood is the sum of all words that differ by one phonological segment via addition, deletion, or substitution (the Levenshtein distance, see Levenshtein 1966), and these neighborhoods constitute a crucial feature of the structure and organization of the mental lexicon (aitchison 1987; Vitevitch 2002b). See figure 1 for a schematization of the phonological neighborhood of the target word “ache” in foreign language learners of English (EfL) at the a2 proficiency level. of the phonological neighborhood of a target word (e.g., Baese-Berk and Goldrick 2009; Peramunage et al. 2011; Schertz 2013; Buz, Tanenhaus, and Jaeger 2016; Nelson and Wedel 2017). A phonological neighborhood is the sum of all words that differ by one phonological segment via addition, deletion, or substitution (the Levenshtein distance, see Levenshtein 1966), and these n ighborh ods constitute a crucial fe ture of the structure and organization of the mental lexicon (Aitchison 1987; Vitevitch 2002b). See Figur 1 for a schematization of the phonological neighborhood of the target word “ache” in foreign language lear ers of English (EFL) at the A2 proficiency level. FIGURE 1. Exemplary phonological neighborhood of “ache” in EFL learners of English at the A2 level. Neighbors differ by one segment. Phonological neighbors are known to impact the speed and efficiency of lexical access in speech production and perception (see Vitevitch and Luce 2016 for a review). Upon activation of a word in a phonological neighborhood, activation spreads along shared segments to neighbors of the activated word, and this activation spreading is highly competitive (see the Neighborhood Activation Model or NAM, Luce and Pisoni 1998). Lexical competitor words (i.e., the neighbors) receive co-activation from the target word and compete for activation until the target is eventually selected (Marslen-Wilson 1990; Luce et al. 2000; Haigh and Jared 2007; Friedrich et al. 2013). Psycholinguistic theory predicts that in dense neighborhoods co- activation of shared segments leads to facilitated word production processes (Goldinger, Luce, and Pisoni 1989; Gahl and Strand 2016; Karimi and Diaz 2020) that result from the strengthening of phonemic representations through repeated co-activation (Vitevitch 2002b). In speech perception, on the other hand, dense phonological neighborhoods cause retrieval delays and impede speech recognition, since target words become more difficult to identify within the cloud of activated neighbors (Vitevitch and Luce 2016). The phonological locus of neighbor formation – in other words the specific segment that differs between two neighbors – is also a matter of interest (Yiu and Watson 2015). Words overlapping in the onset phoneme (“onset neighbors”) show especially strong activation sharing (Marslen-Wilson and Zwitserlood 1989; Vitevitch 2002a; Vitevitch, Armbrüster, and Chu 2004). According to speech recognition models (TRACE, Shortlist), this is caused by inhibitory connections between words at the lexical level (McClelland and Elman 1986; Norris and McQueen 2008). figure 1. Exemplary phonological neighborhood of “ache” in EfL learners of English at the a2 level. Neighbors differ by one segment. Phonological neighbors are known to impact the speed and efficiency of lexical access in speech production and perception (see Vitevitch and Luce 2016 for a review). Upon activation of a word in a phonological neighborhood, activation spreads along shared segments to neighbors of the activated word, and this activation spreading is highly competitive (see the Neighborhood activation Model or NaM, Luce and Pisoni 1998). Lexical competitor words (i.e., the neighbors) receive co-activation from the target word and compete for activation until the target is eventually selected (Marslen-Wilson 1990; Luce et al. 2000; haigh and Jared 2007; friedrich et al. 2013). Psycholinguistic theory predicts that in dense neighborhoods co-activation of shared segments leads to facilitated word production processes (goldinger, Luce, and Pisoni 1989; gahl and Strand 2016; Karimi a d diaz 2020) that result from the strengthening of phonemic representations throug r peated co-activation (Vitevitch 2002b). In speech percepti n, on th other hand, dense phonological neighb rhoods caus retrieval delays and i p de speech recognition, since target words become more difficul to identify within the cloud f activated neighbors (Vitevitch and Luce 2016). The p onological locus of neighbor formation – in other words the specific segment that differs between two neighbors – is also a matter of interest (Yiu a d Watson 2015). Words overlapping i the onset phoneme (“onset eighb rs”) show especially strong activation sharing (Marslen-Wilson and Zwitserlood 1989; Vitevitch 2002a; Vitevitch, armbrüster, and Chu 2004). according to some spee h recognition models (traCE, Shortlist), this is caused by inhibitory connections between words at the lexical level (McClelland and Elman 1986; Norris and McQueen 2008). 152 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods Lexical competition in phonological neighborhoods has been suggested to be an important driver of variation in fortis Vot (Nelson and Wedel 2017). Numerous studies have found fortis Vot to become hyperarticulated (i.e., lengthened) in dense phonological neighborhoods (Baese-Berk and goldrick 2009; goldrick, Vaughn, and Murphy 2013; Nelson and Wedel 2017). It is assumed that lexical competition leads to an enhancement of acoustical features as speakers try to compensate for speech recognition difficulties caused by dense neighborhoods (Munson and Solomon 2004; Wright 2004). Specifically, higher levels of co-activation shared by the members of a neighborhood as well as slower lexical retrieval speed of words embedded in denser neighborhoods may contribute to Vot hyperarticulation (Baese-Berk and goldrick 2009). The presence of a minimal pair with a word-initial voicing contrast in a neighborhood – i.e., words that differ only by the word- initial voicing feature like bat-pat (henceforth referred to as “minimal pairs”) – can lead to even more extreme hyperarticulation as competition is sensitive toward phonetic contrasts (Schertz 2013; Buz, tanenhaus, and Jaeger 2016; Nelson and Wedel 2017). however, dense neighborhoods may not always lead to hyperarticulation, and contradictory findings have been presented by gahl and colleagues (2012, 2016) for English, and Valentina and Staszkiewicz garcia (2019) for Italian. Their research demonstrated that phonetic reduction affects words in denser neighborhoods more strongly. higher degrees of co- activation from a higher number of neighbors renders the acoustic profile of words more automatized, similar to lexical frequency effects (e.g., Bybee 2002). In this framework of phonological neighborhood effects, words do not adopt unique phonetic features to outcompete neighbors, but neighborhood pressures keep phonetic patterns homogenous across all words (i.e., phonetically reduced in denser neighborhoods). These findings can be understood in terms of competition theories as known from ecology and economics, where competition can favor but also limit innovation in populations (Pigot and tobias 2012; Wilson 2014). Strong competition can standardize behaviors of constituents as they vie for a particular resource. In order to gain access, certain behaviors become favored and disseminated in a population. This can resemble a type of niche development or specialization effect (Pearman et al. 2008). In alternative scenarios of competition, constituents may try to reduce the effects of competition by diversifying their behaviors and exploring alternative ways to obtain a resource (Svanbäck and Bolnick 2006). This has the effect of increasing the variance of possible behaviors. Lexical competition in dense phonological neighborhoods may be subject to similar competition pressures, where Vot phonetics are either forced into homogenous acoustic patterns or become diversified in order for individual words to accrue activation and excel over their lexical competitors. The exact factors stipulating phonetic homogenization or diversification remain to be explored. one crucial piece of information that is highly relevant for a discussion of different competition effects in lexical neighborhoods is the type of speech under investigation. In general, experimentally elicited laboratory speech is known to be more clearly and slowly articulated, and hyperarticulation can be more extreme than in spontaneously occurring speech (de Jong, Beckman, and Edwards 1993; see Smiljanić and Bradlow 2008, for results on conversational speech elicited in laboratory settings). for instance, voiceless Vots are generally hyperarticulated in clear laboratory speech (as opposed to conversational laboratory 153SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods speech, see Smiljanić and Bradlow 2008). research by gahl and colleagues (2012) suggests that high phonological neighborhood density elicits hyperarticulation only in laboratory speech but not in natural, spontaneous speech, where hyperarticulation is more prevalent in sparser neighborhoods (gahl, Yao, and Johnson 2012). It is possible that competition effects are different in the two types of speech, possibly due to articulatory differences, such as more constant speech rates in read laboratory speech (Kello and Plaut 2003) and a faster speech rate in spontaneous conversational speech (Bard and aylett 2005; adda-decker and Lamel 2018). In addition, the attention being paid to each token and segment is higher in experimentally elicited isolated utterances than in spontaneous connected speech (gahl, Yao, and Johnson 2012). faster and more reduced spontaneous speech may experience weaker competitive pressures, leading to the competition-induced phonetic diversification in sparser neighborhoods (hence hyperarticulation) as described by gahl and colleagues. The slower and more articulate laboratory speech could raise phonological awareness in speakers, and thus lead to stronger competition effects in denser neighborhoods. a question that has not been explored so far is the role of lexical competition in phonetic learning. as suggested by the hyperarticulation hypothesis (e.g., Nelson and Wedel 2017), a word with an innovative Vot variant has a competitive advantage by virtue of standing out in a field of competitor words lacking the innovation. The innovative word can accrue the majority of its activation, whilst leaving little co-activation to be spread to its neighbors. Through this, lexical access, recognition, and retrieval of the innovative target word become faster and more efficient. Based on the two prevailing competition theories (see above), there are two scenarios of how phonetic learning could be impacted by neighborhood density / lexical competition. first, strong competitive forces can have the effect of standardizing phonetic patterns in a phonological neighborhood, thereby reducing the chances of an innovative variant becoming introduced and spread. The conservative phonetic standard of the neighborhood is repeatedly reinforced through co-activation, keeping segmental acoustics trapped in its present state and bound to the acoustics of the neighbors. a Vot innovation is less likely to gain a foothold under such circumstances, and we may see a higher likelihood of phonetic novelty in sparser neighborhoods with weaker competition. Second, competition may increase phonetic variance in words because competitors phonetically diverge from one another in order to lessen the effects of competition and carve out a phonetic space for themselves where they can accrue activation. here, phonetic variation can be seen as a tool to outcompete competitor words and gain an advantage over them with a unique acoustic profile. Eventually the target word refines its acoustic profile and (gradually) moves away from the neighborhood acoustic standard. The majority of research on phonological neighborhood effects assumes that competition is rather abstract in the sense that any possible segmental difference similarly affects it (e.g., Luce and Pisoni 1998; Vitevitch and Luce 1998: Storkel 2002, Vitevitch and Luce 2016). according to this account, competition acts before the initiation of phonetic encoding – the mapping of an utterance onto speech motor programs for articulation (see, e.g., Laganaro 2019). In this theoretical framework, the words bat and cat compete with one another and spread co-activation among the shared segments. alternative theoretical accounts of lexical competition accommodate the serial encoding of segments and posit that competition acts 154 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods chronologically on a segment-by-segment basis (Marslen-Wilson and Zwitserlood 1989; fricke 2013). Competition arises and is resolved at the segmental level, with bat and ban competing with each other for the duration of the first two segments but bat and cat not being competitors. Phonetic similarity in phonological neighborhoods adds another layer of complexity, as phonetic relationships become part of the competition equation. a common way to test how phonetics impact lexical competition is the analysis of voice-contrasted minimal pairs. Competition may cause hyperarticulation in the minimal pairs in order to increase their discriminability (“contrast-driven hyperarticulation”, Baese-Berk and goldrick 2009; Peramunage et al. 2011; Kirov and Wilson 2012; Schertz 2013; Buz, tanenhaus, and Jaeger 2016; Nelson and Wedel 2017). Thus, the exact phonological locus of lexical competition is a crucial criterion for theoretical accounts of how competition unfolds in a phonological neighborhood. The present study was designed to shed light on the relationship between lexical competition and the learning of aspiration in a foreign language. Specifically, we focus on phonological neighborhood density and the advancement of aspiration acquisition in two learner groups of English as a foreign language: laboratory speech of austrian and natural spontaneous speech of Czech learners of English. The results of this study can help understand how new phonetic variants are disseminated in a learner’s lexicon and inform about phonological neighborhood characteristics that are most conducive to learning. The following research questions are posed: 1. Which neighborhoods (dense, sparse) show the most advanced rate of aspiration production by learners? 2. What is the effect of onset neighbors on the production of aspiration? 3. What is the effect of minimal pairs on the production of aspiration? 4. do neighborhood effects hold across different EfL speaker groups and type of speech? 2 Methods 2.1 Participants We recruited 21 austrian students of English at the University of Vienna during the academic year 2018/19 for a reading task in their foreign language English. The austrian data was experimentally elicited (= laboratory speech). data from Czech students of English Studies at Charles University in Prague (during the academic years 2012, 2013, and 2014) were obtained from the Czech Lindsei Corpus (“LINdSEI_CZ”, see gráf 2017). Speech was elicited in the form of semi-structured interviews and is regarded as natural conversational speech (= spontaneous speech). English proficiency levels of all participants were B2 or higher (with C1 representing the majority), according to the Common European framework of reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2018). The Czech Lindsei Corpus includes information on the proficiency levels of the speakers; the austrian students self-assessed themselves based on previous proficiency tests they had taken at their university. all participants were between 19 and 27 years of age. They gave written consent to have their data used for linguistic experimentation. 155SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods 2.2 data Collection 2.2.1 austrian Laboratory Speech a total of 12 fortis-initial nouns were selected from a larger dataset of laboratory speech that focused on English word-initial plosive consonants produced by austrian speakers (see Luef and resnik, in press, for details). data were elicited in a sentence reading task consisting of over 80 short English sentences and phrases, read once at a comfortable speed and in the same order by each participant. The target words selected for the present study were fortis-initial monosyllabic nouns, placed in sentence-initial position (and preceded by a pause) in their carrier sentences (e.g., Cats are active at night). all three places of articulation were included (bilabial, alveolar, velar), and plosive combinations with three vowel types were possible: high vowels ([i, ɪ]), mid vowels ([e, ɛ, æ, ʌ]), and low vowels ([a, ɑ, ɒ]). Consecutive sentences did not contain target words starting with the same plosive. In order to minimize habituation effects of the plosives and their acoustic patterns, participants rated the level of difficulty of each sentence in their first language as easy, medium, or difficult (german: leicht, mittel, schwer). See table a1 in the appendix for an overview of the carrier sentences. a Zoomh4n digital audio recorder and a Sennheiser ME67 microphone were used for the recordings, and speech was sampled at a rate of 44.1 khz and 16-bit depth. The sample size for the austrian models was 251 tokens, involving 12 types, and 21 speakers. 2.2.2 Czech Spontaneous Speech a total of 47 fortis-initial mono-syllabic nouns of all three places of articulation were cut from the spontaneous speech of 34 participants in the corpus data. In order to achieve a comparative sample size to the austrian data, we had to include a larger number of types. due to the rarity of nouns in sentence-initial or phrase-initial position in the corpus (whole sentences are rare in spontaneous speech), target nouns could appear in any sentence position. target words started with bilabial, alveolar, and velar word-initial plosives, followed by either high vowels ([i, ɪ]), mid vowels ([e, ɛ, æ, ʌ]), or low vowels ([a, ɑ, ɒ]). Words appearing in obstruent clashes were removed (e.g., “best type”, “his teeth”), and high-frequency phrases, such as “kind of”, were also excluded from the sample as they can show extreme phonetic reduction in connected speech. The sample size for the Czech models was 155 tokens, 47 types, and 34 speakers. 2.3 Procedure target words were manually cut from the audio files and further processed with the Praat acoustic software (Boersma and Weenink 2019). two annotation tiers were established: one for overall word duration and one for Vot of the word initial plosive. durations (in seconds) were extracted with an automated script. The burst of the stop was identified as the start of Vot and overall word duration (abramson and Whalen 2017). The onset of glottal pulsing, indicated by visible pitch on the spectrogram (pitch settings: 100–600 hz for women, 75–300 hz for men; see Vogel et al. 2009), was treated as the end of Vot. The end of overall word duration was marked when the waveform cycle had ceased and the sound was completely faded (see figure 2). 156 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods FIGURE 2. Example annotation of the target word “test” as produced by a Czech speaker. Two coders compared annotation judgements of 5% of the data and they agreed at a level of Pearson’s r = 0.99 (root mean square error / RMSE = 0.02) for word durations and r = 0.71 (RMSE=0.01) for VOT onset. In order to normalize word durations and VOTs for speech rate, an individual speech rate per syllable was calculated for each participant. To do this, three text / speech-medial sentences (that were filler sentences in the Austrian sample and not in close proximity to the target words in the Czech sample) were measured in terms of their durations (sum of all word durations) and divided by the total number of syllables per sentence (see Jacewicz et al. 2009). This speech rate value was then multiplied with all word durations and VOT measurements per participant and later converted to milli-seconds by multiplying it by 1,000. The Austrian part of the study was approved by the Internal Review Board of the first author’s former university (Seoul National University) under IRB No. 1710/002-002. a. Variables Neighborhood density measures were based on the database of L2-English phonological neighborhood data previously compiled by Luef (2022). The C1 level was selected for the present study and all phonological neighbors of target words at that proficiency level were extracted. Onset density was obtained by manually sorting the phonological neighbors and counting the ones sharing the word-initial plosive within a given neighborhood. Similarly, the presence of a minimal pair word differing in the word-initial plosive voicing contrast (e.g., ghost – coast) was checked manually. English lexical frequency rates (token frequency) and plosive frequency rates were calculated with Clearpond for English (Marian et al. 2012) and subsequently z-scored before analysis. Vowels were categorized according to their articulatory position as high, mid, or low (Ladefoged 2001). b. Statistical Models figure 2. Example an otation of the target word “test” as produced by a Czech speaker. two coders compared annotation judgements of 5% of the data and they agreed at a level of Pearson’s r = 0.99 (root mean square error / rMSE = 0.02) for word durations and r = 0.71 (rMSE=0.01) for Vot onset. In order to normalize word durations and Vots for speech rate, an individual speech rate per syllable was calculated for each participant. to do this, three text / speech-medial sentences (that ere filler sentences in the austrian sample and not in close p oximi y to the target words in the Czech sample) were measured in terms of their durations (sum of all word durations) nd divided by the total number of syllables per sentence (see Jacewicz et al. 2009). This speech rate value was then multiplied with all word durations and Vot measurements per participant and later converted to milli-seconds by multiplying it by 1,000. The austrian part of the study was approved by the Internal review Board of the fi st author’s former university (Seoul National University) under IrB No. 1710/002-002. a. Variables Neighborhood density measures were based n the database of L2-English phonological neighborhood data previously co piled by Luef (2022). The C1 level was selected for the present study nd all phonological neighbors of targ t w ds at that proficiency level were extracted. onset density was obtained by manually sorting the phonological neighbors and counting the ones sharing the word-initial plosive within a given neighborhood. Similarly, the presenc of a minimal pair word differing in the word-initial plosive voicing contrast (e.g., ghost – coast) was checked manually. English lexical frequency rates (token frequency) and plosive frequency rates were calculated with Clearpond for English (Marian et al. 2012) and subsequently z-scored before analysis. Vowels were categorized according to their articulatory position as high, mid, or low (Ladefoged 2001). b. Statistical Models Linear mixed models are extensions of linear regression models containing both fixed effects and random effects (Bates et al. 2014). They have become an increasingly popular method of analyzing data in which participants respond to multiple items (Brown 2021). 157SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods different linear mixed models were run to test the influence of the independent variables – (a) phonological neighborhood density, (b) onset density, and (c) minimal pair presence – on the (normalized) Vot duration in word-initial plosives. The following control variables that have been documented to have an effect on Vot were included: lexical frequency rate, (onset) plosive frequency, word duration (in ms), and type of vowel that immediately follows the onset plosive. as random effects, the identity of the participant (“Id”) and “word” were included. to keep type I error at the nominal level of 0.05, we further included random slopes of all fixed effects for “Id” and “word” (Schielzeth and forstmeier 2009; Barr et al. 2013). as an overall test of the influence of the fixed effects, a likelihood ratio test was conducted (dobson 2002; forstmeier and Schielzeth 2011), and the full model was compared with a respective null model that lacked a specific fixed effect but was otherwise identical to the full model. The significance of individual fixed effects was tested by comparing the full model with a respective reduced model lacking the effect to be tested. Collinearity was not an issue, with maximum generalized variance inflation factors below 3 in the austrian sample and below 2.3 in the Czech sample (fox and Monette 1992; field 2005). different models were calculated with the austrian laboratory data and the Czech spontaneous speech data. all models were implemented in r (rStudio team 2020) using the function lmer of the package lme4 (Bates et al. 2014). Collinearity diagnostics were obtained with the package car; r-squared values for all models were obtained with the package MuMIn. 3 Results In both laboratory austrian and spontaneous Czech speech, the duration of fortis Vot increased from bilabial to alveolar to velar plosives. aspiration was most advanced in velar plosives, and spontaneous Czech speakers produced bilabial and alveolar fortis plosives with more aspiration than laboratory austrian speakers (see figure 3). FIGURE 3. Bilabial plosives show the shortest, velar plosives the longest VOTs. Czech spontaneous speech was characterized by higher aspiration values. In laboratory Austrian speech, neighborhood density and minimal pair presence, but not onset density, were significant predictors of VOT duration in fortis plosives (see Table 1). TABLE 1. Results of the laboratory speech (Austrian) linear mixed effects model. Predictors Estimate SE t χ2 p (Intercept) 211.75 64.11 3.3 Lexical frequency 12.95 4.77 2.7 4.44 0.035* Plosive frequency -77.43 21.25 -3.64 5.96 0.015* Word duration 227.8 181.79 1.25 1.18 0.28 Vowel Neighborhood density -10.28 -6.04 14.9 3.92 -0.69 -1.54 0.52 9.66 0.47 0.0018** Onset density 0.79 8.48 0.1 0.01 0.93 Minimal pair presence 74.6 31.46 2.37 3.92 0.047* Marginal R2=0.16, conditional R2=0.51 p t k Cz. spont. Austr. lab. Cz. spont. Austr. lab. Cz. spont. Austr. lab. 0 200 400 600 speech VO T (n or m al ize d) figure 3. Bilabial plosives show the shortest, velar plosives the longest Vots. Czech spontaneous speech was characterized by higher aspiration values. 158 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods In laboratory austrian speech, neighborhood density and minimal pair presence, but not onset density, were significant predictors of Vot duration in fortis plosives (see table 1). table 1. results of the laboratory speech (austrian) linear mixed effects model. Predictors Estimate SE t χ2 p (Intercept) 211.75 64.11 3.3 Lexical frequency 12.95 4.77 2.7 4.44 0.035* Plosive frequency -77.43 21.25 -3.64 5.96 0.015* Word duration 227.8 181.79 1.25 1.18 0.28 Vowel Neighborhood density -10.28 -6.04 14.9 3.92 -0.69 -1.54 0.52 9.66 0.47 0.0018** onset density 0.79 8.48 0.1 0.01 0.93 Minimal pair presence 74.6 31.46 2.37 3.92 0.047* Marginal r2=0.16, conditional r2=0.51 Specifically, sparse neighborhoods showed longer Vot durations, and were thus indicative of improved aspiration production (see figure 4). figure 4. The dotted linear regression line (with confidence intervals) shows that aspiration was more progressed in sparser neighborhoods in laboratory austrian speech. Neighborhood density was not significant in the spontaneous Czech speech sample (see table 2), but onset density and minimal pair presence had an effect on aspiration (see figures 5 and 6). In spontaneous Czech speech, sparser onset neighborhoods proved to be more conducive to the advancement of aspiration (see figure 5). 159SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods table 2. results of the spontaneous speech (Czech) linear mixed effects model. Predictors Estimate SE T χ2 p (Intercept) 176.39 54.79 3.22 Lexical frequency 22.14 10.92 2.03 2.84 0.09 Plosive frequency -20.27 11.89 -1.7 1.95 0.16 Word duration 72.22 16.76 4.3 9.89 0.002** Vowel Neighborhood density -42.6 5.44 38.26 2.88 -1.11 1.89 2.19 2.87 0.33 0.09 onset density -12.75 4.95 -2.58 5.78 0.016* Minimal pair presence -54.59 21.1 -2.59 3.6 0.05* Marginal r2=0.17, conditional r2=0.57 figure 5. The dotted linear regression line (with confidence intervals) shows that aspiration was more advanced in sparse onset neighborhoods in spontaneous Czech speech. In both laboratory austrian and spontaneous Czech speech, the presence of minimal pairs differing in the voicing contrast in the word-initial plosive affected the progression of aspiration, with aspiration being more advanced in neighborhoods without minimal-pair neighbors (see figure 6). Minimal pair presence affected laboratory austrian speech to a larger degree: Vot in spontaneous Czech speech did not differ between minimal-pair and no-minimal-pair neighborhoods (Wilcoxon: W=4426, p=0.7), whereas laboratory austrian speech differed significantly between the two neighborhood conditions (W=5045, p=0.0002). These findings are in agreement with the competition-induced hyperarticulation hypothesis of laboratory 160 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods speech being more strongly affected by competition effects (e.g., gahl, Yao, and Johnson 2012). a post-hoc analysis demonstrated that the spread of the Vot data was different for the two types of minimal pair neighborhoods (see figure 7). FIGURE 7. Spread of the VOT data in neighborhoods with (“1”) and without (“0”) minimal pairs (Austrian and Czech data pooled).   4 Discussion This study investigated the effects of phonological neighborhood density on the progression of aspiration of word-initial plosives in two groups of EFL learners (speakers of Austrian German and Czech) using different types of speech (laboratory, spontaneous). It was shown that sparse (onset) neighborhoods provide a better learning environment for aspiration acquisition. The presence of a minimal pair within a neighborhood also had an effect, with minimal pairs providing a worse learning environment for the acquisition of aspiration. The results of the two study groups showed similarities, but also some differences. The results obtained from the Austrian speakers show that a low number of phonological neighbors facilitated the advancement of aspiration in target words. It is known from previous literature that phonological neighborhood effects in speech production generally lead to the strengthening of articulation-relevant features of phonological representations (Vitevitch 2002b). As a result, phonological segments are produced faster and phonetically more accurately in denser neighborhoods (Vitevitch 2002b). One could assume that such neighborhoods facilitate phonetic learning. However, this was not reflected in our results. We hypothesize that the spreading of phonetic co-activation in denser neighborhoods creates a homogeneity bias that forces co-activated segments to a stricter adherence to the phonetic standard form that is constantly reinforced through joint activation. Phonetic deviation is less 0 200 400 600 0 1 Minimal pair presence VO T (s pe ec h- ra te n or m al iz ed ) figure 7. Spread of the Vot data in neighborhoods with (“1”) and without (“0”) minimal pairs ( u trian and Czech data pooled). FIGURE 6. Aspiration was generally more advanced in neighborhoods without minimal pairs (“0”) differing in the word-initial voicing contrast in Austrian laboratory and Czech spontaneous speech. Minimal pair presence affected laboratory Austrian speech to a larger degree: VOT in spontaneous Czech speech did not differ between minimal-pair and no-minimal-pair neighborhoods (Wilcoxon: W=4426, p=0.7), whereas laboratory Austrian speech differed significantly between the two neighborhood conditions (W=5045, p=0.0002). These findings are in agreement with the competition-induced hyperarticulation hypothesis of laboratory speech being more strongly affected by competition effects (e.g., Gahl, Yao, and Johnson 2012). A post-hoc analysis demonstrated that the spread of the VOT data was different for the two types of minimal pair neighborhoods (see Figure 7). Austr. lab. Cz. spont. 0 1 0 1 0 200 400 600 minimal pair presence (0=no, 1=yes) VO T (n or m al iz ed ) figure 6. aspiration was generally more advanced in neighborhoods without minimal pairs (“0”) differing in the word-initial voicing contrast in austrian laboratory and Czech spontaneous s eech. 161SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods 4 Discussion This study investigated the effects of phonological neighborhood density on the progression of aspiration of word-initial plosives in two groups of EfL learners (speakers of austrian german and Czech) using different types of speech (laboratory, spontaneous). It was shown that sparse (onset) neighborhoods provide a better learning environment for aspiration acquisition. The presence of a minimal pair within a neighborhood also had an effect, with minimal pairs providing a worse learning environment for the acquisition of aspiration. The results of the two study groups showed similarities, but also some differences. The results obtained from the austrian speakers show that a low number of phonological neighbors facilitated the advancement of aspiration in target words. It is known from previous literature that phonological neighborhood effects in speech production generally lead to the strengthening of articulation-relevant features of phonological representations (Vitevitch 2002b). as a result, phonological segments are produced faster and phonetically more accurately in denser neighborhoods (Vitevitch 2002b). one could assume that such neighborhoods facilitate phonetic learning. however, this was not reflected in our results. We hypothesize that the spreading of phonetic co-activation in denser neighborhoods creates a homogeneity bias that forces co-activated segments to a stricter adherence to the phonetic standard form that is constantly reinforced through joint activation. Phonetic deviation is less likely to become established and spread in these neighborhoods. Conversely, low-density neighborhoods are characterized by less co-activation among segments and thus novel phonetic features may more easily be introduced and disseminated. The reduced lexical competition in sparse neighborhoods could allow improved implementation of the aspiration feature. In spontaneous Czech speech the neighborhood density effect that we observed was restricted to onset neighbors. Similar to what was found for “regular” neighborhoods in austrian speech, low density in Czech speakers predicted better implementation of aspiration in word production. Previous literature indicates that phonological onset neighbors share more co-activation with one another (Marslen-Wilson 1987), and the activation levels in a neighborhood influence the strength of the phonological links (Vitevitch 2002a). Czech speakers seem to pay more phonological attention to onset segments and may have the phonetic variants of the onsets more deeply engrained. a consequence of this is less flexibility to incorporate new features. Words residing in low-onset-density neighborhoods receive less co-activation from the fewer onset neighbors, providing a more inclusive environment for phonetic change. our findings demonstrate that lexical competition effects are similar in different groups of speakers and in different types of EfL speech. Specifically, less competition – demonstrated through sparser phonological neighborhoods – provides an advantage in terms of the acquisition of novel phonetic features. reduced segmental co-activation puts less standardizing pressure on segments, and this could result in greater phonetic freedom for the segments, hence phonetic innovation can be introduced and spread more easily. What could have played a role in the different neighborhood effects shown for our two study groups are various differences between laboratory and spontaneous speech. first, spelling biases 162 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods exert larger influence in reading tasks (damian and Bowers 2003; Cutler, treiman, and van ooijen 2010; Bauch, friedrich, and Schild 2021), with inconsistent phoneme representation causing a recognition delay (such as in the present study /k/ being represented by or ). In addition, articulatory planning and phonological encoding (i.e., the process of sequentially constructing the phonological form of a target token before articulatory gestures can be prepared in spoken word production) tend to work differently in read and spoken language (Castles and Coltheart 2004; ganushchak and Chen 2016). greater reliance on auditory cues in spoken language may put the phonological focus on the serial assembly of phonological units and thus the onset segments, hence the onset neighborhood effect in the Czech spontaneous speech sample. The differences in neighborhood effects between our two groups may, of course, also be the results of first-language transfer effects. follow-up studies should investigate EfL speakers of other non-aspirating languages to see whether our findings can be generalized to other populations. furthermore, comparing austrian spontaneous speech to Czech laboratory speech may also yield interesting insights that can help further our understanding of neighborhood effects and aspiration acquisition. our two study groups showed striking similarities concerning aspiration in neighborhoods with a voice-contrasted minimal pair. Both austrian laboratory and Czech spontaneous speakers showed more progressive aspiration when neighborhoods did not include a minimal pair word. as first language research has shown, competition-associated hyperarticulation is often more pronounced in minimal-pair-containing neighborhoods, since phonetic discrimination is especially important in this context (Nelson and Wedel 2017). This means that minimal pairs are subject to competition pressures that shape their features in a way that magnifies phonetic contrast. While this was not directly confirmed by the present results, it is possible that the absence of hyperarticulation-furthering pressure frees up word forms to adopt novel phonetic patterns and increase phonetic variation in a neighborhood. More variation could mean a higher likelihood of introducing a new phonetic feature. Support for this assumption stems from the fact that range and variance of Vot was higher in the neighborhoods without minimal pairs (see figure 7). It seems that minimal-pair neighborhoods are characterized by a higher degree of phonetic homogeneity, an assumption in line with the contrast-enhancing lexical competition hypothesis outlined earlier (e.g., Baese-Berk and goldrick 2009; Nelson and Wedel 2017). our findings indicate that phonetic learning of aspiration is not equally diffused among all words in a foreign language lexicon but is dependent on the characteristics of the phonological neighborhoods in which words are embedded. Lexical competition seems to play a role in phonetic dissemination, and relaxed lexical competition (i.e., sparser phonological neighborhoods) allows a greater degree of phonetic variation, which ultimately aids the learning of novel phonetic detail. The fact that our findings are largely generalizable to different speaker groups and speech types underscores the significance of lexical competition in foreign-language phonetic learning. future studies should focus more closely on the relationship between phonetic variation and lexical competition during the build-up of phonological neighborhoods in foreign language learners. as neighborhood densities change over the course of word learning, some neighborhoods may turn out to be more prone to the incorporation of new phonetic detail, 163SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESEva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods whereas other may be more resistant. an unequal phonetic diffusion in the mental lexicon can have implications for lexical processing (recognition, retrieval, production) at various stages of language learning. 5 Conclusion The present study demonstrated that phonological neighborhood characteristics play a role in the introduction and dissemination of novel phonetic detail in the lexicon of foreign language learners. Phonological neighborhood density, onset neighborhood density, as well as the presence of voice-contrasted minimal pairs in a neighborhood all affected the degree of aspiration production in both spontaneous Czech and laboratory austrian EfL speech. This argues for the involvement of lexical competition effects in phonetic learning where activation competition impairs the diffusion of phonetic innovation, possibly due to stronger phonetic conformity biases exerted by denser phonological neighborhoods. Data Availability The data underlying the analyses can be accessed at: http://hdl.handle.net/11234/1-4915. References abramson, arthur S., and douglas h. 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Cowell. 2004. “hormones and temporal Components of Speech: Sex differences and Effects of Menstrual Cyclicity on Speech.” Neuroscience Letters 367 (1): 44–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2004.05.076. 168 Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods Wiesinger, Peter. 2009. “die Standardaussprache in Österreich.” In Deutsches Aussprachewörterbuch, edited by Eva-Maria Krech, Eberhard Stock, Ursula hirschfeld, and Lutz-Christian anders, 229–58. Berlin: de gruyter. Wilson, andrew J. 2014. “Competition as a Source of Constraint on Life history Evolution in Natural Populations.” Heredity 112: 70–78. https://doi.org/10.1038/hdy.2013.7. Wright, richard. 2004. “factors of Lexical Competition in Vowel articulation.” In Papers in Laboratory Phonology VI, edited by John Local, richard ogden and rosalind temple, 26–50. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Yiu, Loretta K., and duane g. Watson. 2015. “When overlap Leads to Competition: Effects of Phonological Encoding on Word duration.” Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 22: 1701–8. https:// doi.org/10.3758 /s13423-015-0828-1. Appendix table a1. Carrier sentences for the austrian data. target words are in initial position. 1. Cans have to be recycled. 2. Cats are active at night. 3. Cups you can find in the upper left shelf. 4. Kids have to go to school. 5. Kings of England. 6. Kiss for you, kiss for me. 7. Pets are not allowed in the apartments. 8. Pills are generally prescribed by your doctor. 9. Punch contains a lot of sugar. 10. tests will not be written this semester. 11. ticks carry lots of diseases. 12. tins have to be recycled. 169Eva Maria Luef, Pia resnik, tomáš gráf Diffusion of Phonetic Updates within Phonological Neighborhoods SPECIaL ISSUE artICLES The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards Educating Transcultural Communicators aBStraCt With the globalization of English, multilingual speakers of other languages have started to influence it linguistically and culturally, potentially challenging its established norms and standards. This paper first addresses terminological issues related to the area of global Englishes and English as a lingua franca, then upon reviewing curricular documents relevant to the Czech educational context it summarizes findings from a pilot study conducted at local academically oriented high schools, which reveal that the English teachers still seem to associate “English” literature with inner circle creative production. Intending to bridge the gap between theory and practice, we designed and piloted several lesson plans taking heed of a broader conception of the anglophone literary canon inclusive of works from across all Kachruvian circles. We postulate that extended exposure to such literary creativity may help raise a generation of transcultural communicators, i.e., language users who thrive in dynamic language interactions across cultures. Keywords: global Englishes, English as a lingua franca, literary creativity, multicultural communicators, teacher education Vloga angleške literature pri poučevanju angleščin: premik proti izobraževanju transkulturnih komunikatorjev PoVZEtEK Z globalizacijo angleščine pridobivajo večjezični govorci drugih jezikov vpliv nanjo tako jezikovno kot kulturno ter predstavljajo potencialen izziv za ustaljene norme in standard. V članku najprej obravnavamo terminološka vprašanja na področju globalnih angleščin in angleščine kot lingue france ter nato sledeč pregledu kurikularnih dokumentov, ki so pomembni za češko izobraževalno okolje, povzamemo ugotovitve pilotne raziskave, ki smo jo opravili v lokalnih gimnazijah. te razkrivajo, da profesorji angleščine “angleško” literaturo še vedno povezujejo s kreativno produkcijo notranjega kroga. da bi premostili vrzel med teorijo in prakso, smo zasnovali in pilotirali več učnih načrtov, ki vključujejo širše razumevanje anglofonskega literarnega kanona, vključno z deli iz vseh krogov po Kachruju. Predpostavljamo, da lahko večja izpostavljenost tovrstni literarni kreativnosti pomaga vzgojiti generacijo transkulturnih komunikatorjev, tj. uporabnikov jezika, ki se uspešno znajdejo v dinamičnih medkulturnih jezikovnih interakcijah. Ključne besede: globalne angleščine, angleščina kot lingua franca, literarna kreativnost, medkulturni komunikatorji, izobraževanje učiteljev Jiřina Dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech republic 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 169-194(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.169-194 UdC: [811.111’243:37.091.3]:821.111 170 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... 1 Literature and WEs/GEs Scholarship: Terminological Issues and Key Questions to discuss literary creativity within the area of World Englishes / global Englishes in the broadest sense of these terms and their application in ELt,1 we will first briefly define how these terms are understood and how their understanding has evolved in recent years (Quinn Novotná 2013, 2014). The study of World Englishes (WEs) dates back to the late 1970s, but came under the linguistic spotlight especially after Kachru proposed his concentric circle model (1986).2 according to the original version of this model, the inner circle is where English is spoken as a native language (e.g., the UK, the USa, Ireland, etc.), the outer circle where English is used as a second language (e.g., in India, Singapore, etc.) and the expanding circle where English is used as a foreign language (e.g., the Czech republic, Japan). Since the rise of the WEs paradigm, several other terms and paradigms, such as global Englishes (gEs), English as an International Language (EIL), and English as a Lingua franca (ELf), among others, have been used in the literature, all essentially trying to capture the historical and current global role(s) of English.3 traditionally, World Englishes or New Englishes are associated with the second English diaspora, i.e., with countries such as India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Singapore, etc. (see: Jenkins 2009, 24–25) – the so-called outer circle countries mentioned above which were former British or american colonies (see below). Jenkins (2006, 157) offers a simple definition of WEs “to refer to the indigenized varieties of English in their local contexts of use”. More recently, the term has acquired many other uses and has become a non-stigmatized term both for traditional (applied) linguists and for WEs and ELf researchers when referring to either EIL or ELf, or both. Even though the field of studying WEs is a well-established section of English linguistics, it was not chosen for the purposes of our study as an umbrella term since it does not encompass all facets, varieties, and so on of gEs. It is, for example, less suitable for the study of global virtual communities of practice, which are characteristic of the young generation of English users. English as an International Language (EIL) historically preceded the later dominant term of English as a Lingua franca (ELf); EIL has been associated with the Inner Circle English (ICE), which is also referred to as English as a Native Language (ENL), English as a Mother tongue (EMt), Standard English (SE), or BaNa English (see also Pakir 2009, 225). ICE has been viewed as a “model” language, and the word “international” in EIL meant that the English that speakers from the outer and Expanding Circles were to acquire would be used for communication with native speakers of English, mostly from the UK and the USa. This rather narrow inner circle orientation is still very common in the ELt discourse. 1 We will be using the abbreviation ELt (English Language teaching) throughout the paper as we consider it an all-inclusive umbrella term (referring also to teaching English as a foreign Language or tEfL / teaching English as a Second Language or tESL / teaching English to Speakers of other Languages or tESoL). for a discussion of terminological distinctions and conflicts within the field, see Mcarthur (2005). 2 We use the Kachruvian concentric circle model in this study as a starting point since it is well-established in the discipline, and has had an immense impact on the study of World Englishes; at the same time, we are aware both of its contribution and its limitations (see Jenkins 2009, 18; Bruthiaux 2003, 160). 3 for more on the ongoing terminological debate see Seidlhofer (2011, 1–27), Quinn Novotná (2012, 26–36), Jenkins, Cogo, and dewey (2011, 281–315), Bolton (2004, 369), and Mauranen (2018, 106–19). It is beyond the scope of this paper to review (even briefly) the extensive critique each of these terms and paradigms has been subjected to over the last two decades. Jiřina Dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... 171SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... finally, Jenkins (2009, 164), defines ELf4 as “communication between people with different linguacultures whether they are considered native speakers or non-native, second or foreign language users”, cf. Baker (2011, 197). Seidlhofer (2011, 7) tends to think of “ELf as any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option.” Mauranen5 (2018, 4–5) sees “ELf as similect contact”, in other words, “[w]hen people use English as a Lingua franca, it is these similects6 that come into contact with each other: speakers of, say, a dutch-based similect talk to speakers of an Italian-based similect, producing English as a Lingua franca.” having briefly sketched out the terminological and conceptual differences and complexities, we have made a decision to treat global Englishes (and not global English) as an umbrella term and use it interchangeably with the terms listed above. The usage of gEs as an inclusive and neutral term has been gaining prominence7 in the last decade, and one of the reasons is that all the other above-mentioned terms (WEs, EIL, ELf – we only selected the most dominant ones) each represent a certain paradigm and have connotations that for researchers from other (sub-)fields can be problematic and/or – as research progresses – have become dated. We understand the term gEs as an overarching term that puts Englishes written and spoken from across all three Kachruvian concentric circles on an equal footing. It thus avoids hierarchization of different varieties of English, some of which were formerly classified as “central”, and highlights both unity (common language – English) and diversity (local and individual variation). The paradigm of World Englishes (WEs) has been around for about half a century.8 having said that, fairly little empirical attention – perhaps due to the complexity and multifaceted nature of the issue – has been given to the topic of literary creativity in/through gEs and their implications for teaching English as a foreign/international/second language,9 or for teacher training in this domain. In this paper, we first sum up our four-year engagement with the topic of literary creativity within global Englishes. Second, we report on our pilot project of surveying the status of 4 for different phases of ELf research see Jenkins (2015). a good overview of the notion of ELf is provided by Ishikawa and Jenkins (2019). 5 In her unpublished lecture (feb 22, 2016, UCL London) anna Mauranen defined ELf as a second-order contact between similects which include native English varieties. 6 “Thus, for instance finglish, the kind of English spoken by L1 speakers of finnish, is a similect.” Mauranen (2018, 4). 7 to illustrate this, Jennifer Jenkins’ World Englishes. A Resource Book for Students (2009), for example, was renamed in its third edition to Global Englishes. A Resource Book for Students (2014); see also galloway, McKinley, and rose (2021). 8 The journal World Englishes first appeared in 1978; most studies on English as an International Language (EIL) and International / Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) came out in the 1990s; and English as a Lingua franca (ELf) has been researched since the late 1980s culminating with the launch of the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca in 2012. 9 for example, gEs literature is absent from one of the few publications that try to bridge the gap from theory to ELf- aware practice – Kiczkowiak and Lowe (2019). In the Czech context, credit has to be given to Michaela Čaňková who published two textbooks focussing on literature; Open Channels (1997) has a section in Chapter 15 on diverse writers, many of whom are non-British Booker Prize laureates; her goal is, however, to teach about anglophone literature, rather than through it. 172 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... teaching literature in English classes at academically oriented high schools10 in the Czech republic and on the subsequent process of designing ready-made lesson plans for high- school teachers. The progress within this project has been presented at several conferences in the Czech republic and abroad. We designed these lesson plans to promote intercultural (IC)11/transcultural (tC)12 values, ELf-awareness and students’ agency through WEs literary works, and to integrate our theoretical findings with the goals specified in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe 2001) and the Curriculum Framework for Czech High Schools (Jeřábek, Krčková, and hučínová 2022). With that, we briefly report on the teachers’ and students’ experience with piloting the lesson plans. When it comes to culture, literature, teaching and innovation, very few theoreticians or teaching practitioners would disagree with any or all of the following statements (emphasis added): a) whether it comes to teaching and learning a foreign, second or mother tongue, reading literary works is beneficial;13 according to Maley (2012, 300; emphasis added), they “offer a rich and varied linguistic resource, and as such, provide the kind of input [...] regarded by many as essential for effective language learning, in contrast to the more restricted and narrow exposure offered by many pedagogically-driven texts. They are also an ideal source for the development of language awareness: of language variation [...], of social appropriacy, of ideological bias, [...] etc.;” b) literature encodes both latently and explicitly the “native” and/or adopted cultural background and experience of its author; c) having spread globally, regionally and socially, the English language varies and forms several distinct “major” varieties (e.g., British, american, australian, Indian, Nigerian English) and an even greater number of less defined ones (e.g., EuroEnglish, Chinese English, etc.); d) any innovation in education (for a comprehensive summary on innovation in Second Language teacher Education – SLtE – see Quinn and Klečková 2021, 175) may first be encountered with resistance. What follows from these observations is that students should be encouraged to read in the target language, but that when they do they should, and inevitably will, encounter some 10 In the Czech republic, we refer to these particular high schools as gymnázium i.e., secondary/high/comprehensive schools which are geared towards the maturita exam, a secondary school-leaving examination, the equivalent of the British a levels, american Sat, or abitur in germany. These types of high schools in the Czech republic are either four, six or eight years long and include students aged 11–18. Students get examined in four subjects of which Czech and either one foreign language or mathematics are mandatory. The mandatory part – common for all schools – is issued by a state-run organization CErMat (Centrum pro zjišťování výsledků vzdělávání – Centre for the Measurement of Educational achievement); the individual part is specific to every school and is developed locally by the heads of subject committees and senior teachers. English is one of the five foreign languages of choice (along with german, french, Spanish, russian). The ratio of English being selected by students during the most recent exam in fall 2021 was 78%. for a complete statistical data overview see: https://vysledky.cermat.cz/data/. 11 Intercultural sensitivity is one of the key tenets of The oECd PISa global Competence framework (oECd 2018, 4). 12 While we are aware of the differences between the terms inter-/cross-/pluri-/multi-/transcultural, for the purposes of this study, we will use transcultural as an umbrella term for them all. 13 for nine advantages of teaching literature, see Ur (2012). 173SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... (linguistic and cultural) variation.14 In the case of English, “[...] although we cannot hope to ‘teach’ the many varieties of English which our students will encounter in the gEs world, we can give a certain limited exposure to them through the medium of literary texts drawn from a variety of geographical sources” (Maley 2012, 309). Therefore, we feel the need to ask: what is the place of literature in language teaching? how can we reflect in ELt the fact that an ever-rising number of non-native speakers not only use English daily, but also write literary works in it? Moreover, we should not stop here at defining the purpose of the use of literature as such in language teaching, but also pose questions as to the English literary canon: which authors and works are “representative” of this immense variation, who is the arbiter15 of determining which ones are “representative”, and what it is that they should represent? finally, building on these ideas and questions raised in our recent chapter (Quinn Novotná and dunková 2021, 162–75), we try to describe how this may impact teaching English as a second/foreign language (through literature) and help to raise and educate a generation of – to coin a new term – transcultural communicators, i.e., language users who thrive in dynamic language interactions across languages and cultures.16 2 Literature in Teaching and Learning: A Historical Probe Literature has always played a role in ELt (Maley 2012, 299; Kramsch and Kramsch 2000, 568); its incidence, however, changed in the course of the last century with the rise of different teaching methods and approaches. In the first decades of the 20th century, learning a foreign language essentially meant studying literary texts written in that language (Kramsch and Kramsch 2000, 554). In the second half of the century with the advent of Communicative Language teaching (CLt), literature began to be pushed somewhat to the periphery of the teaching interest (hall 2015, 113). Literature in ELt has been more recently used mostly as a tool for teaching receptive reading skills and a means to expand students’ vocabulary, and has come to be considered “an authentic window on a foreign language and society” (Kramsch and Kramsch 2000, 568). While typical goals of literature use had been to diffuse aesthetic, cultural and moral values (Kramsch and Kramsch 2000, 569), with the rise of CLt teachers aiming to make learners competent communicators increasingly began to apply it as a means of showing them how native speakers speak and live. 3 Literature and Curricular Documents The current officially promoted role of literature can be, at least to some degree, established by the way it is treated in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, teaching, assessment (Council of Europe 2001) and in the Curriculum Framework for Czech high schools (Jeřábek, Krčková, and hučínová 2022). In the former, reading literary texts was placed among activities listed under the “aesthetic uses of language” section together with 14 We presuppose differences between the so-called standard English and other varieties/dialects/similects would be pointed out and focused on by the teacher and/or teaching materials, such as in our lesson plans as detailed in section 5. 15 The question of the “custody” or ownership of English has been a controversial topic, and was originally discussed already in 1994 by henry Widdowson. 16 transcultural language interaction is “communication where interactants move through and across, rather than in- between, cultural and linguistic boundaries, thus, ‘named’ languages and cultures can no longer be taken for granted and in the process borders become blurred, transgressed and transcended” (Baker and Sangiamchit 2019, 472). 174 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... singing, retelling, performing plays, etc. (Council of Europe 2001, 56). Based on critique regarding the inattention to the specific place of literature in language teaching in its original 2001 edition, CEfr started to recognize it in 2018, when a newly issued companion volume (Council of Europe 2018) added specific competence descriptors, introducing three illustrative scales for assessing skills connected with reading and working with literary texts (alter and ratheiser 2019, 377–86). Since CEfr is applied to many different European languages, teachers cannot realistically expect any particular recommendations as to what kind of literary texts or other cultural artefacts they can use to achieve the important goal of “plurilingual and intercultural education”.17 Since no specific texts or sources that the teacher/trainer can or should use are determined or suggested and no typified canon, or “pool of literary resources” – to avoid the somewhat potentially controversial concept of a (unified, clearcut) canon – is delineated in CEfr, its users are indeed provided with a ‘framework’ which gives teachers freedom in selecting and compiling a literary pool and teaching materials to best suit their local students’ needs. Czech schools are advised to follow the national Curriculum framework,18 which poses a challenge in that it contains a single general section on foreign languages. from the perspective of ELt, not treating languages separately can be problematic for two reasons. first, English is the most common language selected for the final school-leaving examination.19 Second, the currently most common role of English is that of a global lingua franca, a markedly different status from other foreign languages commonly taught in Czech high schools.20 While it may be argued that most teachers do not necessarily read these state-drafted documents (see our results section below) and instead teach what they deem important for their students to successfully pass their final examination, it is also true that these documents set the overall tone and help to (re-)shape priorities. for English, we believe, the lingua franca status should be recognized and reflected in this and other similar documents, as this would have a major effect on how English is viewed, taught, and also tested. While some students wish to strive to study or work in inner circle countries, most will use English as a pragmatic communicative tool, as an international (business, academic, intercultural, diplomatic, tourist) lingua franca. 4 Literature in ELT – Pilot Study as part of the overture and preparation for our pilot study, we performed a qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2012) of four teacher training manuals (ttM) commonly used in 17 Italicized on the website. for more see the “Platform of resources and references for plurilingual and intercultural education”: https://www.coe.int/en/web/platform-plurilingual-intercultural-language-education/the-founding- principles-of-plurilingual-and-intercultural-education. 18 Individual schools use the document as a framework to design their own school curricula, individual teachers then have autonomy to decide how they will realize the goals sketched in the school curriculum. for our study, we have worked with the Curriculum Framework for Czech High Schools (Jeřábek, Krčková, and hučínová 2022). 19 See footnote 10. 20 for other major languages taught see the previous footnote. additionally, while some of these locally dominant foreign languages can be used as a chosen lingua franca in various situations, it is indisputable that in the Czech setting, this type of engagement with English is impossible to avoid in both tertiary education and the professional setting. 175SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... the Czech republic (Scrivener 2011; Ur 2012; Watkins 2014; harmer 2015). The decision to select these particular publications was based on two criteria – publication date and scope. Since we were primarily interested in examining the current situation, we wanted the analyzed publications to have been published within the last decade.21, 22 ttM are very powerful tools that both perpetuate certain “accepted” world-view(s), methodologies and ideologies and/or serve as instruments of change and innovation in language education. tracing the potential link between the growing body of literature written in English by authors for whom English is not a mother tongue, and the actual teaching practice within ELt, we decided to look at the ttM to see if any of these developments are in fact reflected in them and thus in teacher training. In order to ascertain how authors of general teacher training manuals (as opposed to, for instance, publications specifically dedicated to literature teaching)23 approach the study of literature, we thought it important to choose publications with a broad scope, i.e., publications concerned with the teaching of all language skills and forms. We examined the books with the following two questions in mind: 1) do the publications include textual material related to the study of literature? 2) If so, does the textual material have a global Englishes orientation? We found that the examined ttMs appear to devote limited attention to how and what literature should be taught. Urʼs A Course in English Language Teaching (2012, 223) differs from the other analysed publications in that she recognizes that the canonicity of English literature has shifted to include texts written “by authors from other countries where English is an official or major language such as Canada, Nigeria or India. More recently, the range has been widened still further to include translated literature.” having reviewed the literature on the topic (Quinn Novotná and dunková 2021) and the relevant sections pertinent to literature, culture and gEs within the selected teacher training manuals, we decided to gauge what the actual teaching reality is when it comes to the role of literature in the English as a foreign Language (EfL) classroom in the Czech republic. In 2018, we conducted a thus far unpublished quantitative-qualitative pilot24 study on this topic at academically oriented high schools. The survey was administered online via an anonymous questionnaire using the SurveyMonkey25 platform (the complete set of questions can be referenced in appendix I; all eleven survey questions were formulated in English). Seven questions were multiple-choice items, usually including a comment box at the top as well; a 21 That is, at the time of the analysis. Interestingly, since this research project was started, only one of these manuals, namely, The Practice of English Language Teaching by Jeremy harmer (2015) has been updated with a 2019 edition. It would be commendable to replicate the study using the same methodology on this title and perhaps other similar recently published general teacher training manuals. 22 as discussed in hovorka’s unpublished Ma thesis (2016), some of the manuals are arguably also undergoing slow changes taking heed of the global role(s) of English. 23 an example of such a publication would be Literature in the Language Classroom by Collie and Slater (1987, part of the Cambridge handbooks for English teachers series). 24 This project came to a halt due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the closure of schools. 25 See https://www.surveymonkey.com/. 176 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... few questions, namely questions 2, 6, 7 and 9, were open-ended. having a singular and clearly defined goal, i.e., to find out more about if and how literature is used in the ELf classroom in the Czech republic, and trying to keep the survey brief, questions were organised in one linear flow, and no thematic groupings were deemed necessary. to analyse the collected data we used simple descriptive statistics. While our data are not representative of all high schools, the sample is illustrative of academically oriented state high schools in the capital. 4.1 respondents We approached 33 English teachers, mostly from Prague, selected by the means of convenience sampling. all initially agreed to participate, with 20 of them eventually answering the survey questions. Therefore, the results report 20 participants as 100%. according to the results from question 11, which elicited demographic information, the majority, i.e., 18 out of 20 of our respondents, are Czech, 17 are female, eight are aged 41+, and 15 have over 10 years of teaching experience. While the survey was anonymous, the respondents were given an option to disclose which school they teach at, and these included: gymnázium Jana Keplera, gymnázium Nad Kavalírkou, gymnázium Na Zatlance, gymnázium Nad Štolou, and gymnázium Nad alejí. 4.2 results In question 2 “What textbook(s) – if any – do you use in your lessons?” teachers indicated that the textbooks they use include: English File, Keynote, Masterclass, Insight, Maturita Solutions, Complete PET, and Complete FCE; in a follow-up question number 3, 75% (15) of them stated that these textbooks contain literary texts. Upon a more detailed question as to who these literary texts are written by, nine teachers responded anglo-american authors and six a mixture of anglo-american and international authors;26 one teacher chose international authors, and four respondents were not aware whether the textbooks they use contain literary texts. Seven teachers gave a positive answer when asked “do you supplement the textbook(s) with additional literary texts?” (question 5); when further prompted “which ones/who are they by”, eight teachers listed the following authors (in alphabetical order):27 William Blake, robert Burns, roald dahl, Charles dickens, John fowles, William golding, graham green, Ernest hemingway, James Joyce, denis Leary,28 William Saroyan, david Sedaris, William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, and oscar Wilde; groups of authors/collections: Penguin editions, graded 26 as the pilot questionnaire focused on obtaining as open-ended answers as possible, we chose not to provide a definition for “international authors” and rather left it to the respondents to define the term by themselves. 27 regarding possible response bias: while we may assume honest and accurate answers from our respondents, they may feel like they need to appear more erudite, traditional and conformist, and therefore in their responses reply with names traditionally associated with erudition, like Steinbeck, Blake and Burns, but in reality draw their teaching material from other or even no anglophone authors. This is a common potential bias inherent to the research method of questionnaires as explained, for example, in Menter et al. (2011, 143–44). It is curious (and perhaps somehow alarming) to note that while the majority of respondents were female teachers, they chose to include only male authors. 28 The fact that one of our respondents reported having used the american actor and comedian denis Leary as a literary resource text in their classroom (without specifying which particular one) illustrates that while some choices, such as this one, may be controversial (due to language, themes, style, register and other characteristics) in one classroom, they may prove useful for pedagogical aims in different educational settings. 177SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... readers, Lake Poets, Irish short stories, and anglo-american writers; and a few particular works: A Line Made By Walking by Sara Baume, The Great Gatsby by f. Scott fitzgerald, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark haddon, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, and The Color Purple by alice Walker. from the above list it is fairly obvious that the teachers rather randomly use examples of both more or less canonical (i.e., works traditionally found in school reading lists)29 and/or popular authors, mostly British, North american, and Irish, i.e., coming exclusively from inner circle countries. The teachers further reported (due to the reasons listed below) that these works are often discussed within elective seminars or assigned as extra work (mostly for highly motivated/advanced students pursuing the higher level maturita in English Language).30 In their answers to questions 6 “Why do you (not) use literary texts?” and question 7 “do literary texts have any added value for you in teaching?”, all 20 respondents largely agreed that literature has added value, and report including literature for the following reasons (the answers have been grouped thematically, as the questions were open response): • to pass on cultural values, • to provide historical, socio-cultural, philosophical context and background; to inform about current issues, about British/american life and institutions, to broaden students’ horizons, etc., • to improve students’ reading and comprehension skills, and pronunciation; e.g., through song lyrics, • to expand students’ vocabulary and implicitly teach grammatical structure; to explore literary style and authors’ deviations from standard usage, • to motivate (quoting here verbatim: “it is fun, relaxing”; “to entertain”; “for the pleasure of it”; “to provide a ‘real and authentic experience’”; “to improve their marks, to share their love for literature”; “students can enjoy the language and see that the knowledge of a foreign language really works”; “it can help explore the possibilities of language”; “to show to students how the book is relevant to them – personal connections, etc.”), • to prepare students for topics addressed in the maturita school-leaving examination, • to promote critical thinking (students are, for example, required to write book reviews and encouraged to read between the lines), • to provoke discussion. When juxtaposed with the scholarly literature on the topic of teaching literature, these motivations are somewhat predictable. What is perhaps more intriguing is, first, the lack of 29 We are aware that the definition or scope of which works are considered canonical is problematic and may vary from school to school, from country to country. Based on maturita examination questions and English department course syllabi provided privately by our colleagues from three different faculties of Education and a faculty of arts and Philosophy in the Czech republic, such list(s) often include anglophone authors such as geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Charles dickens, Jane austen, george orwell; Edgar allan Poe, Mark twain, Ernest hemingway, William faulkner, Emily dickinson, tennessee Williams, to name a few. Knowing these authors and their work is considered key for any high school student, and, of course, for any English major. 30 Lower level maturita in English language = B1/PEt, higher level maturita in English language = B2/fCE. for detailed requirements see Curriculum Framework for Czech High Schools (Jeřábek, Krčková, and hučínová 2022, 13). 178 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... systematic work with literature (for example, a step-by-step introduction of graded readers) and, second, the almost exclusive orientation on male inner circle authors. Without passing judgement on individual teachers’ choices, we are simply reporting the current situation. In line with our initial questions, we also note that any change in teaching practice may be encountered with resistance, and that change in practice needs to go hand in hand with changes in attitudes to WEs/gEs and with the “reform in teachers’ perceptions making them aware of the spread of English and its status in the present world” (Sadeghpour and Sharifian (2019, 246) quoting Brown (1995, 233–54)). Considering that, the lack of diversity among the responses was striking, and it invites considerations as to how to motivate teachers to expand the literary repertoire from which they could choose so that it better reflects both the immense variation of English and also so that it brings in various voices (including marginalized ones). When asked (question 8) “Would you like to use literary texts more?” 65% (13) of the teachers provided affirmative answers; two teachers offered a further clarification, one specifying the conditions/groups in which they could apply this: “I adjust the amount of lit[erature] to the preferences of the group so it would mean more literature-minded groups :-)”, the other wishing to introduce works “by a new generation of authors eg Sara Baume.”31 This brings us to question 9, the first one to probe the teachers’ openness to “different” anglophone literatures: In 1988, the award-winning author Earl Lovelace published a short story “Joebell and america”. his work features non-standard English with structures such as: “Joebell find that he seeing too much hell in trinidad so he make up his mind to leave and go away.” do you think that there is any value in introducing students to such texts? Why? We chose this particular snippet of the short story as it brings together trinidadian dialect patterns while still being comprehensible to students and teachers largely familiar mainly with standard English. as such the sample illustrates the linguistically and culturally heterogeneous tapestry of present-day Englishes. from the 20 respondents, only two would “due to low level of students” avoid introducing such texts at all. on the opposite side of the spectrum, there were three enthusiastic responses in favour. one of these pointed out that students “have to get used to / recognize non- standard English and discuss what implications it has”, while the other highlighted that [it is] [d]efinitely a value since it’s important to know that languages, and especially English, are constantly in transition, that they have a past, present, and future. Languages are powerful and can be used to discriminate as well as empower. although from a rather limited dataset, such replies suggest a slow shift (cf. teachers’ attitudes discussed by Quinn Novotná (2012) and dunková (2018)) towards a more aware teacher who is able to see the value of literature as an exponent of linguistic and cultural variation for their students, i.e., present and future multicultural (MC) language users. 31 We have reproduced the replies verbatim as recorded. 179SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... fifteen responses, a clear majority, oscillate between a neutral “yes” and a “yes, but” / “yes, under XY condition”. These teachers favour the idea of introducing non-standard Englishes into their lessons, yet they have a few reservations. These include, for example, the need for a proper context [since] [p]ostcolonial literature may be confusing to students especially because of the language used. So to compare different ‘Englishes’ of the world – definitely yes. But I wouldn’t let the students read Caribbean (or Indian or any other postcolonial literary works which don’t follow the traditional English syntax and grammar) without any context or explanation. Maybe only advanced students. The argument that such texts should be covered only with certain students came up often in the data, e.g., “[with] the best; advanced; higher-level; C1–C2 level; older; university students”. Some teachers point out that such exposure is preferable either “after [students] have understood the concept of a standardized language” or as long as students are (made) aware that such texts contain “non-standard” features. Later, we will argue that these perceived limitations related to students’ proficiency need not be a problem when it comes to exposure to various Englishes. two teachers stated that introducing non-standard Englishes “can be good for discussions, expressing different opinions, and practicing grammar structures, idioms, etc.” and that “[g] enerally, reading international authors provides cultural and historical context – helping them bridge empathetic ideas that we are all just people.” to sum up the above, we note that the surveyed teachers seem fairly open to introducing “non-standard” English literature(s) into their lessons, but they feel that it should be used mainly/solely with higher-level students (above B2). The preliminary results of this pilot study suggest that authentic literary works may indeed be somewhat on the fringe of English teachers’ interest and outside of the scope of ordinary (high-)school curricula due to various reasons the respondents mentioned such as “time, level, age, [being] confusing [...] because of the language used”. Literary texts are mainly used with higher-level students and not in a systematic way. Therefore, it may not create enough opportunities for the students to discover the current global variety of Englishes. further investigation will be needed to support this and other points that surfaced in the survey. 4.3 Implications Based on the relatively small dataset in our study, we cannot arrive at any general conclusions, yet what we anticipate is that if teachers were offered more inspiration and methodological support, e.g., ready-made lesson plans offering literary samples from a diverse range of authors from across all Kachruvian circles and from within their sub-varieties, literature lists, anthologies, graded readers, recordings, etc., they would be inclined to including these sources into teaching English and they may be more likely to use them both with lower-level and higher-level students alike. 180 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... If we, again, refer back to the goal of “plurilingual and intercultural education” postulated in the CEfr, and ask how to promote intercultural/transcultural values32 in ELt – literature (poetry and fiction) written in global Englishes offers itself as an ideal source and vehicle of such values. It would be worthy of further exploratory studies whether or not and why literature is systematically employed in the English classrooms in the Czech republic and in other countries in (Central) Europe. In the final section of this paper, we report on the process of designing ready-made lesson plans for teachers with (pointers to) resources provided for them which could help to bring the benefits of tC education through gEs literature more to their daily teaching practice. out of the ten lesson plans we devised, the lesson plan chosen as an example for this study is aimed at a B2 level (which correlates with the upper level of English state maturita exam) – therefore a lower level than the teachers in the survey most commonly reported as fitting for introducing gEs literature. hence, it shows a way of employing a variety of texts and Englishes across a greater range of levels of language students. 5 Lesson Plans: A Move From Theory Towards Raising Transcultural Communicators over the last three decades scholars (Kachru 1986, 2000; Kachru and Smith 2008, 165) have pointed out that “contact literatures”, i.e., “outer and expanding circle English literatures” had been for a long time overlooked, subject to controversies regarding canonicity (see Kachru 2005), and stayed therefore somewhat on the fringes of scholarly interest. Nevertheless, already in the 1980s ashcroft, griffiths and tiffin (1989) stressed the “range and strength of these literatures”, and talked about the “process of incorporation” of such literatures within the established literary canon. Kachru and Smith (2008, 167–8) point out that “contact literatures have by now earned a prominent place in world literatures, as is obvious from the numerous prestigious awards such works have won. These include: (1) the Nobel Prize in literature (2) the Booker Prize (3) the Betty trask award (4) the Neustadt Prize (5) the Pulitzer Prize” and “they are now [...] exploitable for teaching English literatures and world Englishes in other contexts, too.” In order for these ideas to reach the classroom33 – not just academic debates – what is “require[ed of ] ELt professionals” to [t]each “English as a pluricentric language” [is to] develop mindsets appreciative of the diversity that characterizes the English language (Clyne and Sharifian 2008). gEs cannot be implemented into a teaching program successfully without a reform 32 CEfr (Council of Europe 2001) operates with the term intercultural while, as stated, we decided to use transcultural as the umbrella term. In this case we mention both to emphasize that the values CEfr mentions are, in fact, transcultural. to understand transculturality and its values see, for example, Slimbach (2005, 211) when he states that “transcultural learners can see themselves as the vanguard of an increasing swath of humanity that must be able to move in and out of daily contexts where nationalities, languages, ethnicities, and classes coexist.” 33 as Ur (2012, 223) pointed out, the shift to incorporating various authentic texts is not only necessary, but already on its way: It used to be taken for granted that the literature taught to learners of English should be classic British or american literature. Later this was expanded to include more modern English literature, and works written by authors from other countries where English is an official or major language such as Canada, Nigeria or India. More recently, the range has been widened still further to include translated literature. Most of us are teaching English today as an international language, for the purpose of global communication. It makes sense, therefore, to choose literature from as wide a range of sources as possible, including all the categories mentioned above. 181SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... in teachers’ perceptions, making them aware of the spread of English and its status in the present world (Brown 1995). Sadeghpour and Sharifian (2019, 254) point out in their study a “disconnection between theoretical knowledge and pedagogical practices”, and their data “shows that the majority of teachers aired doubts about the feasibility of teaching English as a pluricentric language. This is probably because gEs are not ‘readily specified as a teaching and learning construct’ (Bayyurt and Sifakis 2017, 6)”.34 If English teachers are to teach literature precisely for the reasons mentioned above, i.e., cultural knowledge, examples of language in use and promotion of personal growth, it follows that expanding the range of texts used beyond the traditional native English-speaking communities will contribute to a deeper understanding of the current English-speaking world. In an attempt to move towards closing the gap between the abundant theoretical literature (see also Quinn Novotná and dunková 2021) and common curricular documents discussed thus far, and the actual teaching practice, we have designed, since 2018, ten ready-made lesson plans for high school teachers (Quinn Novotná and dunková 2021, 167). In these teaching materials we have explored ways to promote transcultural values and ELf-awareness, and in turn foster students’ (and teachers’) agency. Ideally, we wish to integrate traditional linguistic goals (as specified in the Curriculum Framework for Czech High Schools) with raising MC awareness (as specified in the CEfr, see above). Below (see appendices II, III) we provide a sample lesson plan which includes poems35 and excerpts from poems that prompt students to reflect, through English, upon their own culture and the potential or actual loss of their own identity or upon their fluidity. Building on the above-mentioned idea that reading literary works is beneficial in language learning, let us summarize what additional benefits could ensue from including transcultural works by authors from across all three Kachruvian circles. on a practical level, a more inclusive approach helps to: • provide a rich source of different cultures for transcultural awareness-raising, • promote and reflect on (a) local36 culture(s) through English(es)37 (e.g., by reading expanding circle/global Englishes authors such as amy tan, Jhumpa Lahiri, and others), 34 Sadeghpour and Sharifian (2019, 255) summarize findings of research studies on WEs in ELt materials and state that “the inclusion of WEs and cultural conceptualization tied to WEs can enhance students’ awareness of the diversity of English and change students’ negative attitudes toward WEs.” 35 These particular poems have been selected since they all touch upon the issues of linguistic and cultural identity and how it can be problematic, fragile, and fluid. Thus, this lesson plan opens space for discussions of these relatively new concepts and ideas. The texts have been also chosen to be comprehensible to lower level students as a springboard to more challenging samples in our lesson plan collection showcasing, for example, texts written in strong local dialects (e.g., “disnea Matter” by Irvine Welsh). 36 What this may mean, will differ locally and based on particular students’ needs. In the (Central-)European context, for example, it is commendable to include topics/questions/authors that deal with this cultural and geo-political area. But since students may indeed be using English globally, this may again vary. 37 or as graddol (2006, 117; original emphasis) notes, “as English becomes more widely used as a global language, it will become expected that speakers will signal their nationality, and other aspects of their identity, through English. Lack of a native-speaker accent will not be seen, therefore, as a sign of poor competence.” 182 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... • promote and reflect on the students’ own current38 English idiolect and/or regional varieties of English (e.g., Czech/german/Korean English).39 In view of rising glocal and geopolitical tensions, we should – parallel to raising digital communicators and perhaps even more urgently – aspire to raise and educate transcultural communicators (tCs). The inclusion of tC literary works in the canon can facilitate this. The tC from the next generation of foreign/second language/lingua franca learners will be, as we envisage: • bi-/multilingual/multicultural, yet respectful of local values/cultures,40 • interested in (g)local identities and able to reflect on their own cultural and linguistic identity, • empathetic and tolerant of ‘otherness’, • capable of code and culture switching naturally, • capable of (linguistically/culturally) accommodating easily, • creative with language; i.e., will also (trans-)language41 easily (possibly at the expense of accuracy but not necessarily so), • able to deal (critically) with change and complexity. Cultural education through belles-lettres is just one piece of the mosaic of this bigger educational/pedagogical goal. With English gradually becoming a “basic skill” (graddol 2006, 72), we can only anticipate that for most, especially younger, speakers it will become a means to a “varied” end (i.e., as an academic/scientific/medical/pop-culture lingua franca, etc.) and less of a target per se. 6 Concluding Remarks With the ever-rising number of second-language and foreign-language users, and with more and more children growing up with ELf as a part of their language profile, non-native speakers increasingly use English to assert their (fluid) identities (including by writing literary works through gEs/ELf). Moreover, recently it is becoming increasingly accepted that one can no 38 The adjective “current” is vital here; we perceive the identity of English users as always being in the process of change and oscillation between learner and users and other identities and developing proficiencies (Quinn Novotná 2012, 104). 39 The topic of one’s relationship with one’s English language variety has been present in the works of many authors (regardless of their nationality, language profile, and/or ethnicity). to name a few examples: James Kelman’s Greyhound for Breakfast (1988), Irvine Welsh’s “disnae Matter” in The Acid House (1994), Ken Saro-Wiwa’s novel Sozaboy: A Novel in Rotten English (1985), or amy tan`s story “Mother tongue” (1990). 40 This is especially relevant in countries such as the Czech republic and Slovakia, which may be largely mono-lingual/- cultural, but are, for one thing, geographically located in a plurilingual area (being directly surrounded by Slovak, Czech (respectively), german, Polish, Ukrainian, and hungarian speakers); and for another, have non-negligible ethnic and linguistic minorities, so it is not just because of their surrounding neighbours, but also because of internal diversity that multicultural and transcultural sensitivity is important for nations such as Czechs and Slovaks. 41 When it comes to non-standard Englishes in mainstream literacy, “a translingual approach to Englishes serves as an alternative to current ways of thinking about literacy instruction” (Smith 2017, 1). ELt differs from mainstream literacy in a few ways but the idea of expanding the approach is the same. We also agree that “all citizens – monolingual and multilingual alike – must be prepared to engage with Englishes that help them to meet the demands of interacting communicatively in a diverse society” (Smith 2017, 6). What we deem problematic is terming these Englishes as non- standard and seeing the translingual approach as an alternative; in our understanding, this further perpetuates the problematic binary divide which we wish to overcome. 183SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... longer identify languages with nation-states (see also Pujolar 2007) and cultures with certain areas or groups. With the rise of global communities of practice language is often emergent in every new situation, and therefore any such identification is virtually impossible.42 as suggested above, we do not propose that (t)EfL be replaced by ELf/gEs or one canon by another, as “models [and paradigms] can coexist” (Quinn Novotná 2012, 257). taking into account there may be many limitations that dictate what a glocal canon could look like, we envisage a broad pool of emergent literature(s) that teachers could tap into to create their own reading lists and teaching materials. Including what we broadly define as ELf literature, which is produced by authors from the expanding circle written for international audiences, including the first/second/foreign/whole spectrum of Englishes; these may include works written in a sterile, international English (among other characteristics bleached of all local idiom)43 in thick, rich, hybrid transcultural and transdialectal works, locally immersed works and/or any fluid mixture in between. This would facilitate and support the teachers’ and students’ own choice of suitable texts and hence an appropriate intercultural focus tailored to the current (local/educational) needs, while allowing them to remain aligned with the particular institutional and curricular requirements. By creating new connections and juxtapositions and including different voices, often neglected or marginalized, while not omitting traditional canonical literary texts, we do not aim to divide but rather to bridge gaps and divisions. Ultimately, we propose that introducing a broad spectrum of literary texts (from a wide range of authors) to both novice and experienced teachers and teacher trainees can provide them with yet another tool or vehicle for educating their students on the ever-expanding and evolving usage of present-day English(es), and thus to progressively help develop transcultural communicators. acknowledgements: We would like to sincerely thank our colleague Matouš turek and Kateřina Šmídová for their help with the editing process. We would also like to thank Šárka Císařová for the countless hours she has devoted to developing and piloting our lesson plans with us. Textbooks Cited Brook-hart, guy. 2014. Complete First 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. davies, Paul a., and tim falla. 2017. Maturita Solutions 3rd Edition. oxford: oxford University Press. dummett, Michael, and col. 2016-2018. Keynote. Boston: National geographic Learning. gude, Kathy, and Michael duckworth. 2012. Masterclass. oxford: oxford University Press. Latham-Koenig, Christina, Clive oxenden, and Kate Chomacki. 2019. English File 4th Edition. oxford: oxford University Press. May, Peter, and Emma heyderman. 2019. Complete Preliminary 2nd Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wildman, Jayne. 2013. Insight. oxford: oxford University Press, References alter, grit, and Ulla ratheiser. 2019. “a New Model of Literary Competences and the revised CEfr descriptors.” ELT Journal 73 (4): 377–86. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccz024. 42 for more on this topic see Wenger (1998). 43 authors who represent this type of English are, e.g., Yiyun Li, Jhumpa Lahiri, J. M. Coetzee, Katie Kitamura, Xiaolu guo, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Eva hoffman; we would like to thank Justin Quinn for sharing with us in our private email communication some of his ideas on the topic from his planned book. 184 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... ashcroft, Bill, gareth griffiths, and helen tiffin. 1989. The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures. London: routledge. Baker, Will. 2011. “Intercultural awareness: Modelling an Understanding of Cultures in Intercultural Communication through English as a Lingua franca.” Language and Intercultural Communication 11 (3): 197–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2011.577779 . Baker, Will, and Chittima Sangiamchit. 2019. “transcultural Communication: Language, Communication and Culture through English as a Lingua franca in a Social Network Community.” Language and Intercultural Communication 19 (9): 471–87. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2019.1606230. Bayyurt, Yassemin, and Nikos Sifakis. 2017. “foundations of an EIL-aware teacher Education.” In Preparing Teachers to Teach English as an International Language, edited by aya Matsuda, 3–18. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bolton, Kingsley. 2004. “World Englishes.” In The Handbook of Applied Linguistics, edited by alan davies and Catherine Elder, 367–96. oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470757000.ch15 . Brown, Kimberley. 1995. “World Englishes: to teach or Not to teach?” World Englishes 14 (2): 233–45. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.1995.tb00353.x. Bruthiaux, Paul. 2003. “Squaring the Circles: Issues in Modeling English Worldwide.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics 13 (2): 159–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/1473-4192.00042. Clyne, Michael, and farzad Sharifian. 2008. “English as an International Language.” Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31 (3): 28.21–28.16. https://doi.org/10.2104/aral0828. Collie, Joanne, and Stephen Slater. 1987. Literature in the Language Classroom: A Resource Book of Ideas and Activities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Council of Europe. 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). https:// www.coe.int /en/web/common-european-framework-reference-languages. —. 2018. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Companion Volume with New Descriptors. https://rm.coe.int/cefr-companion-volume-with-new- descriptors-2018 /1680787989. —. n. d. “Plurilingual and Intercultural Education: definition and founding Principles.” Platform of resources and references for plurilingual and intercultural education. https:// www.coe.int/en/web/platform-plurilingual -intercultural-language-education/the-founding-principles- of-plurilingual-and-intercultural-education . Čaňková, Michaela. 1997. Open Channels Student’s Book. Prague: Leda. dunková, Jiřina. 2018. “Learner goals and attitudes about Mistakes in the Czech republic: a Clash between EfL and ELf?” In Contextualising English as a Lingua Franca: From Data to Insights, edited by Xavier Martin-rubió, 149–69. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. galloway, Nicola, Jim McKinley, and heath rose. 2021. “global Englishes and Language teaching: a review of Pedagogical research.” Language Teaching 54 (2): 157–89. https://doi.org/10.1017 /S0261444820000518. graddol, david. 2006. English Next: Why Global English May Mean the End of “English as a Foreign Language.” London: British Council. hall, geoff. 2015. Literature in Language Education. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. https:// doi.org/10.1057 /9781137331847 . harmer, Jeremy. 2015. The Practice of English Language Teaching. harlow: Pearson Education Limited. hovorka, Marek. 2016. “The role of English in the globalized World and Its reflection in Current teacher training Manuals.” Master’s thesis, Charles University. Ishikawa, tomokazu, and Jennifer Jenkins. 2019. “What Is ELf? Introductory Questions and answers for ELt Professionals.” The Center for ELF Journal 31: 1–10. http://doi.org/10.15045/ELf_0050101. Jenkins, Jennifer. 2006. “Current Perspectives on teaching World Englishes and English as a Lingua franca.” TESOL Quarterly 40: 157–81. —. 2009. World Englishes: A Resource Book for Students. 2nd ed. New York: routledge. —. 2014. Global Englishes Third Edition. A Resource Book for Students. London: routledge. https:// doi.org/10 .4324/9781315761596 . 185SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... —. 2015. “repositioning English and Multilingualism in English as a Lingua franca.” Englishes in Practice 2 (3): 49–85. https://doi.org/10.1515/eip-2015-0003. Jenkins, Jennifer, alessia Cogo, and Martin dewey. 2011. “review of developments in research into English as a Lingua franca.” Language Teaching 44 (3): 281–315. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0261444811000115 . Jeřábek, Jaroslav, Stanislava Krčková, and Lucie hučínová, eds. 2022 Rámcový vzdělávací program pro gymnázia. Prague: Výzkumný Ústav Pedagogický v Praze. https:// www.edu.cz/rvp-ramcove-vzdelavaci-programy /ramcove-vzdelavaci-programy-pro-gymnazia- rvp-g/#2-aktualizace-rvp-pro-gymn%C3%a1zia-s-%C3 %Ba%C4%8dinnost%C3%ad-od-1- z%C3%a1%C5%99%C3%ad-2022. Kachru, Braj B. 1986. “The Power and Politics of English.” World Englishes 5 (2–3): 121–40. https:// doi.org/10 .1111/j.1467-971X.1986.tb00720.x . —. 2000. “asia’s Englishes and World Englishes.” English Today 16 (1): 17–22. https://doi.org/10.1017 /S0266078400011391. —. 2005. Asian Englishes: Beyond the Canon. Asian Englishes Today. hong Kong: hong Kong University Press. Kachru, Yamuna, and Larry E. Smith. 2008. Cultures, Contexts, and World Englishes. New York: routledge. Kohn, Kurt. 2018. “MY English: a Social Constructivist Perspective on ELf.” Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 7 (1): 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2018-0001. Kiczkowiak, Marek, and robert J. Lowe. 2019. Teaching English as a Lingua Franca: The Journey from EFL to ELF. Stuttgart: dELta Publishing. Kramsch, Claire, and olivier Kramsch. 2000. “The avatars of Literature in Language Study.” The Modern Language Journal 84 (4): 553–73. https://doi.org/10.1111/0026-7902.00087 . Maley, alan. 2012. “Literature in Language teaching.” In Principles and Practices for Teaching English as an International Language, edited by Lubna alsagoff, Sandra Lee McKay, guangwei hu, and Willy a. renandya, 306–26. New York: routledge. Mauranen, anna. 2018. “Second Language acquisition, World Englishes, and English as a Lingua franca (ELf).” World Englishes 37 (1): 106–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12306. Mcarthur, tom. 2005. Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. oxford: oxford University Press. Menter, Ian, dely Elliot, Moira hulme, Jon Lewin, and Kevin Lowden. 2011. A Guide to Practitioner Research in Education. London: SagE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473957770 . oECd. 2018. The PISA Global Competence Framework. https://www.oecd.org/pisa/handbook-PISa-2018-global-Competence.pdf . Pakir, anne 2009. “English as a Lingua franca: analyzing research frameworks in International English, World Englishes, and ELf.” World Englishes 28 (2): 224–35. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467- 971X.2009.01585.x. Pujolar, Joan. 2007. “Bilingualism and the Nation-State in the Post-National Era.” In Bilingualism: A Social Approach, edited by Monica heller, 71–95. London: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057 /9780230596047_4. Quinn, Justin, and gabriela Klečková. 2021. Anglophone Literature in Second-Language Teacher Education: Curriculum Innovation through Intercultural Communication. London: routledge. Quinn Novotná, Veronika. 2012. “World Englishes and English as a Lingua franca: a reflection of global Paradigmatic Changes in the Czech republic.” Phd diss., Charles University. —. 2013. “on the Potential transformation of English textbooks – a global Perspective – Part I.” Lingua Viva 17: 22–31. http://www.pf.jcu.cz/research/lingua_viva/lv17.php. —. 2014. “on the Potential transformation of English textbooks – a global Perspective – Part II.” Lingua Viva 18: 9–19. https://www.pf.jcu.cz/research/lingua_viva/lv18.php. Quinn Novotná, Veronika, and Jiřina dunková. 2021. “World Englishes, English as a Lingua franca, and Literature.” In Anglophone Literature in Second-Language Teacher Education: Curriculum Innovation through Intercultural Communication, edited by Justin Quinn and gabriela Klečková, 162–74. London: routledge. 186 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... Sadeghpour, Marzieh, and farzad Sharifian. 2019. “World Englishes in English Language teaching.” World Englishes 38 (1–2): 245–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12372. Scrivener, Jim. 2011. Learning Teaching. oxford: Macmillan Education. Schreier, Margrit. 2012. Qualitative Content Analysis in Practice. London: SagE Publications. Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. oxford: oxford University Press. Slimbach, richard. 2005. “The transcultural Journey.” Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad 11: 205–29. https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v11i1.159. Smith, Patriann. 2017. “Nonstandardized Englishes in Mainstream Literacy Practice” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education, edited by george W. Noblit. oxford: oxford University Press. https:// doi.org/10 .1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.18. Ur, Penny. 2012. A Course in English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https:// doi.org/10.1017/9781009024518. Watkins, Peter. 2014. Learning to Teach English. Peaslake: delta ELt Publishing. Wenger, Etienne. 1998. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBo9780511803932. Widdowson, henry g. 1994. “The ownership of English.” TESOL Quarterly 28 (2): 377–89. https:// doi.org/10.2307/3587438. 187SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... Appendix 1. Questionnaire 1) dISCLoSUrE StatEMENt This questionnaire is voluntary, anonymous and solely serves the purpose of scientific research in applied linguistics. There are no disclosures either commercial or for profit. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the research team: quinn@ langdpt.cas.cz Please click ‘yes’ if you understand and agree to the terms of this research and its anonymity. Please click ‘no’ if you do not agree and do not wish to take part in this research. Thank you. 2) What textbook(s) – if any – do you use in your lessons? 3) do(es) the textbook(s) contain literary texts? a. Yes b. No c. Not sure (comment) 4) are those literary texts written by: a. anglo-american authors b. International authors c. Both d. None e. other (please specify) 5) do you supplement the textbook(s) with additional literary texts? a. Yes b. No c. If so, which ones / what are they (short stories, novels, poems, song lyrics)? Who are they by? (Comment) 6) Why do you (not) use literary texts? (time, level, etc.) 7) do literary texts have any added value for you in teaching? (cultural, artistic, etc.) Please, comment. 8) Would you like to use literary texts more? a. Yes b. No c. other (please specify) 9) In 1988, the award-winning author Earl Lovelace published a short story “Joebell and america”. his work features non-standard English with structures such as: “Joebell find that he seeing too much hell in Trinidad so he make up his mind to leave and go away.” do you think that there is any value in introducing students to such texts? Why? 10) Bonus question: have you read the last updated version of CEfr? If so, what is your take on the newest changes? 188 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... a. Yes b. No c. Please comment: 11) demographics a. Nationality, b. Mother tongue(s), c. age, d. Sex e. Years of teaching experience f. at your high school, what grades do you teach? (Comment) 189SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... Appendix 2. Sample Lesson Plan: Language and Identity Teacher Notes VERSION A (Lower-)intermediate Time: 2x45 mins, Level: B1, Age: 12–15+ for B1 students teachers will use the same sample texts provided below with more scaffolding, help, and easier follow-up production tasks. Lesson aims remain the same. VERSION B (Upper-)intermediate Time: 2x45 mins, Level: B2/C1, Age: 15–19+ Lesson aim(s): 1 Raising transcultural awareness • cultural perception – to enable students to view their own culture from outside • give students a chance to reflect upon their own (cultural/linguistic) identity; Questions: What do students identify with? What does it mean (for them) to be Czech / other nationality? How do they think “Czechness” is viewed from the outside? (Supply your own nationality.) • sensitizing students to issues connected with loss of identity and being forced into embracing a new culture/language (not just English) • raising awareness about ELf usage of English 2 Aims: language skills: reading, speaking, writing i. reading poems “Accent” by rupi Kaur “Discourse on the Logic of Language” by Marlene Nourbese Philip “Search For My Tongue” by Sujata Bhatt ii. Speaking: follow-up discussion of language and identity 3 Linguistic aim(s); Figurative language: - alliteration, repetition, word play: my mammy tongue, my mummy tongue, my momsy tongue, my modder tongue, my ma tongue; no tongue to mother tongue me - metaphors: … if english and my mother tongue made love - personification: And if you lived in a place where you had to speak a foreign tongue – your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out. - rhetorical questions: What does it matter…. What is my mother tongue… Vocabulary: trinidadian English, new words, neologisms: momsy tongue; mother tongue me (use of conversion from a noun to a verb), to father tongue (a novel collocation analogically modelled on mother tongue) 190 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... Grammar: Identifying “non-standard” grammar structures and discussing whether they aid or prevent understanding; Conditionals - the teacher will concept check understanding of the form and meaning of the second and zero conditional. In sample 1 and 3 are the authors talking about the past or present experience or hypothetically? If english and my mother tongue made love… 2nd conditional What does it matter if my mouth carries two worlds? ZEro text 3 - written mostly in 2nd conditional Answer these questions: 1) What do the three poems have in common? 2) What kind of feelings and experience do the poets describe? 3) have you ever felt in a similar way? When? Why? You can expect answers about: language stigma, accents, xenophobia, split between cultures/different worlds, trauma, frustration, lexical playfulness, code/culture switching identity Production: active use of the second conditional: If I spoke English perfectly I would… Creative tasks for a follow-up lesson (and/or to be done as homework); 4 different options of creative production to cater for different learning styles: 1. option 1: Illustrate (visually) one of the poems 2. option 2: Write a poem Lower level students can write very short poems in “their” English (see also Kohn 2018); they can share & provide feedback as the whole class option 3: Learn one poem by heart and recite it in front of the class. 3. option 4: Write a short reflection. Process-oriented creative production and speaking (reading aloud, exchanging peer feedback). Students will have an opportunity to compose their creative texts in small steps, cooperatively with multiple rounds of feedback. Methodological steps: Choosing one of the four options, brainstorming ideas, writing the first draft, reading aloud in group, peer feedback, re-writing, mingling groups reading aloud, exchanging comments; choosing the most creative/fun/original texts; reflection on the learning process. 191SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... Appendix 3. Lesson Plan “Language and Identity” (Authors: Veronika Quinn Novotná, Jiřina Dunková, Šárka Císařová) Language and identity a) Lead-in questions 1) have you been to India and trinidad and tobago? If not, would you like to go? 2) What do the two countries have in common? 3) What problems might people face when moving to a different country/culture? b) Read three short bios. Find 3 things the authors have in common.   APPENDIX 3: Lesson Plan “Language and Identity” (Authors: Veronika Quinn Novotná, Jiřina Dunková, Šárka Císařová) Language and identity a) Lead-in questions 1) Have you been to India and Trinidad and Tobago? If not, would you like to go? 2) What do the two countries have in common? 3) What problems might people face when moving to a different country/culture? b) Read three short bios. Find 3 things the authors have in common. 1. 2. 3. 1. Rupi Kaur born 1992 in India; she immigrated to Canada as a child, settled in Toronto where she works as a poet, writer, illustrator, and performer. 2. Marlene Nourbese Philip born 1947 in Trinidad and Tobago; now lives in Canada. She practised law before completely switching to writing. 3. Sujata Bhatt born 1956 in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and brought up in Pune, India until 1968. She is a Gujarati speaker now living in the USA as a freelance writer. c) Vocabulary work. Match these words with visuals: spit, offspring, rot, anguish, languish. d) Read the following three poems or listen to your teacher reading the poems. e) Answer these questions: 1) What do the three poems have in common? 2) What kind of feelings and experience do the poets describe? 3) Have you ever felt in a similar way? When? Why? TEXT 1: “Accent” by Rupi Kaur, in: The Sun and Her Flowers 1. Rupi Kaur born 1992 in India; sh immigrated to Canada as a child, settled in toronto where she works as a p et, writer, illustrator, and performer. 2. Marlene Nourbese Philip born 1947 in trinidad and tobago; now lives in Canada. She practised law before completely switching to writing. 3. Sujata Bhatt born 1956 in ahmedabad, gujarat and brought up in Pune, India until 1968. She is a gujarati speaker now living in the USa as a freelance writer. c) Vocabulary work. Match these words with visuals: spit, offspring, rot, anguish, languish. d) Read the following three poems or listen to your teacher reading the poems. e) Answer these questions: 1) What do the three poems have in common? 2) What kind of fe lings and experience do the poets describe? 3) have you ever felt in a similar way? When? Why? 192 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... TEXT 1: “Accent” by Rupi Kaur, in: The Sun and Her Flowers my voice is the offspring of two countries colliding what is there to be ashamed of if english and my mother tongue made love my voice my father’s words and my mother’s accent what does it matter if my mouth carries two worlds TEXT 2: “Discourse on the Logic of Language” by Marlene Nourbese Philip English is my mother tongue a mother tongue is not a foreign lang lang lang language languish anguish a foreign anguish English is my father tongue a father tongue is a foreign language therefore English is a foreign language not a mother tongue what is my mother tongue my mammy tongue my mummy tongue my momsy tongue my modder tongue my ma tongue I have no mother tongue no mother to tongue no tongue to mother tongue me glossary:  languish = strádat, trpět anguish = muka modder = mother; feature of trinidadian English creole  193SPECIaL ISSUE artICLESJiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... TEXT 3: “Search For My Tongue” by Sujata Bhatt  I search for my tongue. . . . You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue I ask you, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue. You could not use them both together even if you thought that way; and if you lived in a place where you had to speak a foreign tongue— your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out. Literature in focus Which poem is your favourite? Which of these poems do you find: figurative, experimental, literal, imaginative, playful, repetitive, symbolic, metaphorical? Can you find some poetic devices such as: personification, alliteration, codeswitching, or word play. Follow-up questions:  1) What problems may people have when they live in a foreign country? 2) What do you think it may feel like when someone is forced to or decides to leave their home country to live abroad?  3) If you had to live in a foreign country, would you like to “blend in” – to speak like a native speaker and accept their cultural values? Let’s get creative! Homework/ Follow-up class work: Option 1: Illustrate one of the poems. You can draw, paint, take or download pictures, and/ or create a storyboard. Option 2: Write a poem (1 or 2 stanzas) about what happens in your mind/head when you speak English or another foreign language. In this poem you can reflect on your relationship to your mother tongue(s), to English, and/or other languages you speak/understand and how they relate to your identity. Examples: (by Quinn Novotná, Císařová) Czenglish, Spanglish, dangling, juggling languages, I´m mumbling. Stumbling. Help! Czech, choking, chiming bells, can’t think of the right word for kaštan, castaña in Spanish. Chestnut!!! Charming brain. I have a voice in my head which is correcting me. Or is it my teacher? Or both? Error, error! What a terror!!! I want not to worry about how I speak. If you wish, you can try to write a haiku :) (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables) 194 Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... She came and showed me. That you can be deaf and speak. Nine languages. Wow! - by Quinn Novotná Creative writing. a different way to English and drinking coffee. - by Kateřina holubová Option 3: Learn one poem by heart and recite it in front of the class. Option 4: Write a short reflection. You can react to one of the quotations below. do you agree or disagree? “One language sets you in a corridor for life. Two languages open every door along the way.” - frank Smith “The more languages you know, the more you are human.” – Czech proverb We are all citizens of one world, we are all of one blood. To hate people because they were born in another country, because they speak a different language, or because they take a different view on this subject or that, is a great folly. Desist, I implore you, for we are all equally human. . . . Let us have but one end in view: the welfare of humanity. – John amos Comenius or start like this: • Last night I dreamt in English… • One day I woke up and spoke English with a Japanese/French accent…. • If I spoke English perfectly… Jiřina dunková, Veronika Quinn Novotná The Role of English Literature in Teaching Englishes: Moving Towards ... Part III Varia 197VarIa 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 197-210(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.197-210 UdC: 821.111.09-31-055.2:142.72 Fatmah Al Thobaiti taif University, Saudi arabia Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction aBStraCt Newspaper headlines show that awareness of intimate partner violence is a complicated issue that needs further examination. Works of fiction narrated by women trapped in abusive relationships are useful sites for the exploration of what intimate partner violence usually includes, and the identification of subtle behaviours that can be defined as violent and abusive but usually go unnoticed. This article submits two contemporary works of fiction, First Love and the Fifty Shades series, for a study of the covert mechanisms of emotional abuse. to understand such mechanisms, the article engages with feminist as well as postfeminist contemporary thinking on intimate partner violence. The analysis shifts the focus back to the male abuser by carefully depicting how he uses under-recognized, gendered forms of power to abuse his partner. The aim is to elucidate the capacity of first-person narratives to allow access to the abused woman’s mind, while simultaneously provoking questions about the abusers’ behaviours, making them a more powerful tool for understanding intimate partner violence than a newspaper report. Keywords: intimate partner violence, contemporary fiction, feminist theory, covert emotional abuse Lik nasilneža v prozi sodobnih pisateljic PoVZEtEK Naslovi v časopisih pričajo o tem, da je poznavanje problematike nasilja v intimnih partnerskih odnosih kompleksno področje, ki ga je nujno poglabljati in razvijati. Prozne pripovedi žensk, ujetih v nasilnih partnerskih odnosih, so zelo uporabne za seznanjanje s temeljnimi značilnostmi partnerskega nasilja in za prepoznavanje vedenj, ki jih lahko označimo za nasilje in zlorabo, a se jih praviloma niti ne opazi. V tem članku na podlagi romanov v seriji Petdeset odtenkov sive in first Love preučujem prikrite mehanizme čustvenega nasilja. Kot osnovo za razlago teh mehanizmov se v članku nanašam na sodobna feministična in postfeministična spoznanja s področja nasilja v intimnih partnerskih zvezah. V analizi pozornost preusmerjam z žrtve na nasilneža in natančno prikažem načine, na katere nasilni partner uporablja manj opazne oblike vzpostavljanja premoči za zlorabo partnerice. Moj namen je osvetliti pomen prvoosebnih leposlovnih pripovedi za vpogled v psiho zlorabljenih žensk in problematizacijo vedenja nasilnežev. Ključne besede: intimno partnersko nasilje, sodobna proza, feministična teorija, prikrito čustveno nasilje 198 fatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction 1 Introduction Intimate partner violence has long been one of the main focuses of feminist studies. These studies have significantly expanded through the addition and refinement of historical, sociological, psychological, political, and cross-cultural perspectives. today, we have reached a period referred to as “post-awareness”, defined as “our conviction that we have progressed beyond our past denial, that we are now not only savvy about but roundly condemn this form of violence and its perpetrators, and that we are sympathetic to and supportive of abused women” (Shoos 2017, 7). Yet, we still see headlines like the following in newspapers: “a New Covid-19 Crisis: domestic abuse rises Worldwide” (taub 2020) and “harrowing domestic Violence- PSa reminds Us abuse Is Still happening Behind Closed doors” (Spary 2020). “Post-awareness”, then, is too ambitious a term to describe the complexity of intimate partner violence today, a complexity that stems from three issues related to this post-awareness attitude. firstly, implicit in the term “post-awareness” is the idea that the job is done, and women are now aware enough and empowered enough to protect themselves, although the headlines reveal that this is not the case. Secondly, the term “post-awareness” is misleading because it shifts the focus, from discussing patterns of abuse in relationships and how they are related to the inequality between men and women in society, to blaming “aware” victims for not owning up to the responsibility for their choices. Understanding intimate partner violence through the concepts of choice and responsibility, the finger is pointed back at the victim, the woman, and men are let off the hook. Cynthia gendrich and angela hattery observe that discussing domestic violence as a woman’s issue “can be dangerous since […] it can take the spotlight off of the perpetrators’ actions and put it on the victims” (2004, 296). In discussions of intimate partner violence, the focus needs to be directed at both sides of the relationship. Thirdly, despite the wide discourse today about different issues related to intimate partner violence, it is still discussed under general phrases like “domestic abuse” and “domestic violence”, and defined widely as “behavior by an intimate partner or ex-partner that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm, including physical aggression, sexual coercion, psychological abuse and controlling behaviors” (Who 2021). In their efforts to theorize intimate partner violence and its relationship to masculinities, Lucas gottzen, Margunn Bjornholt, and floretta Boonzaier find this definition problematic because “it obscures the gendered nature of violence” (2021, 3). abuse in intimate relations, they believe, “needs to be contextualized as an expression of inequality and gender power” (2021, 3). Not only that, but similar to definitions of “domestic abuse” and “domestic violence”, that of intimate partner violence is both too broad and too vague. heather humann (2014, 9) describes these phrases as: catch-all phrases that describe any number of problematic behaviors that range from emotional abuse like mocking, insults, and other types of putdowns, to various types of physical abuse such as punching, pinching, and kicking, but these terms can also refer to even grayer offenses such as rape, maiming, attempted murder, and murder. She finds this vagueness worrying because it minimizes the impact of domestic abuse against women. The use of two phrases to refer to “a wide range of abusive behaviors points to 199VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction an inadequacy in both the way our society expresses and deals with an entire catalog of problems associated with abuse perpetrated against women” (humann 2014, 9). a reason for the difficulty in finding a functional definition for intimate partner violence is that part of its mechanisms, while being covert and hard to detect, carry harmful effects similar to those of overt mechanisms. Compared to overt mechanisms of abuse that are easier to spot, there is far too little discussion of covert mechanisms. acknowledging that the topic of intimate partner violence in general needs further study and noting the gap in studies covering mechanisms of abuse, this article focuses on covert mechanisms of emotional abuse that are part of a larger pattern of gender-based power and control, used by men against women in intimate relationships. This study is timely because, as gottzen, Bjornholt, and Boonzaier note, “intimate partner violence is part of the gendered consequences of the CoVId-19 crisis” (2021, 4). however, what makes the study of covert mechanisms of emotional abuse challenging is that they are rarely recognized by their victims. as Marti Loring points out in her study of emotional abuse, while overt emotional abuse is “openly demeaning,” covert emotional abuse “is more subtle but no less devastating to victims” (1994, 2–3). Because the woman cannot put her finger on it, covert emotional abuse can be more harmful than the overt version. Besides the potential psychological damage to her, the woman would take the blame for it; she might be described as oversensitive, delusional, or emotional. an important space where thorough discussions of covert emotional abuse are found is novels depicting abusive relationships. Because of their length and detailed examination of the characters’ development throughout the stages of a relationship, these novels provide a magnifying glass through which we can observe a range of covert emotionally abusive behaviours and their consequences. further, both texts analysed in this article use a first- person narrative, which provides access to the abused woman’s mind and reveals how most of the time she fails to read the covert mechanisms of emotional abuse as harmful. Viewing the repetitive pattern of these mechanisms as narrated by the victim, who does not recognize their harmful effects, gives readers moments of recognition in which they feel they know more than the character herself while sympathizing with her. In Uses of Literature, rita felski (2008, 23) describes these moments of recognition as follows: Suddenly and without warning, a flash of connection leaps across the gap between text and reader; an affinity or an attunement is brought to light. […] I feel myself addressed, summoned, called to account: I cannot help seeing traces of myself in the pages I am reading. Indisputably, something has changed; my perspective has shifted; I see something I did not see before. What happens in first-person narratives of abuse is that in these moments of recognition, the reader lives the experience of being abused, and what it is like not to be able to be consciously aware of the terms of abuse. however, because, unlike the female protagonist, readers are not involved emotionally with the abuser, they can eventually see the abuse for what it is. as Spiers notes, “first-person narrative fiction challenges the reader to assess, or reassess, their own interior processes, generating room for the accommodation and also exercise of critique” (2018, 45). This capacity of first-person narratives to allow access to the abused woman’s 200 fatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction mind while simultaneously provoking questions about the abuser’s behaviours is what makes them a more powerful tool for understanding intimate partner violence than newspaper reports. Johnson emphasizes the political importance of the first-person narrative, “individual women’s stories, narrow in scope and deep in reflection, aid in advancing the complexity of feminist social theory” (2002, 5). gwynne also notes, “first-person narratives have long been central to feminist consciousness-raising” (2013, 7). Therefore, this article employs two contemporary works of fiction narrated by female protagonists in its investigation of covert mechanisms of emotional abuse, complementing the extant body of critical work devoted to the evaluation of fiction’s representation of gendered violence against women in intimate relationships. The first novel is gwendoline riley’s First Love, which tells the story of thirty-three-year-old Neve, a woman who is trapped in a toxic marriage. The novel depicts how her husband, Edwyn, uses under-recognized, gendered forms of power to abuse his wife. his behaviours range from belittling and taunting, to threatening and manipulating. By portraying this range of offenses, First Love identifies many subtle behaviours that can be defined as abusive but sometimes go unnoticed. further, First Love represents the complex situation of the female protagonist: while she is aware of overt mechanisms of emotional abuse and their harmful effects – she witnesses the abusive relationship of her parents – she does not seem to be aware of covert mechanisms of such abuse. Neve feels destroyed and weakened, but because she cannot quite define the problem, she does not leave her toxic marriage. another contemporary work of fiction by a female author that can be studied for the detection of covert mechanisms of emotional abuse is the Fifty Shades series by E. L. James. The Fifty Shades series was on the best-seller lists for a long time, and collectively sold about 34.9 million copies. It depicts the romantic relationship between the young, recently graduated anastasia Steele and the twenty-eight-year-old billionaire Christian grey. Their story involves a central tension between BdSM practices and romance: Christian is into BdSM and ana tries to heal him of past trauma. Initially, Christian and ana’s relationship seems harmless since the BdSM part of the story involves both sides signing a consent contract; however, many scholars have declared that the series contains intimate partner violence beyond the BdSM practices. Bonomi, altenburger, and Walton, for example, note that beyond BdSM, the Fifty Shades series is based on the “power imbalance in Christian and anastasia’s relationship, including behaviors consistent with those observed in chronically violent couples and the significant adverse impacts of the abuse for anastasia as experienced by abused women” (2013, 734). Even before they become a couple and discuss the consent contract, behaviours such as stalking, intimidation, and humiliation are present in the relationship. “Within Christian and anastasia’s relationship”, Bonomi, altenburger, and Walton note, “consent and egalitarian negotiation processes are not formally decided, and Christian uses a range of coercive strategies to control multiple aspects of anastasia’s behavior” (2013, 736). Like Neve in First Love, anastasia reflects the “post-awareness” complexities of teetering between feeling empowered by awareness – she signs the consent contract detailing most aspects of this relationship – and feeling controlled by the abusive behaviours of the man she is in a relationship with (Boyd 2015, 103). The paradoxes found in the Fifty Shades books, Boyd (2015, 103–4) notes, 201VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction metaphorically represent the ones facing women – particularly young women – in our culture today. […], the conflicts anastasia feels and the critics’ competing/ contradictory responses to the book highlight the complicated choices that women now make as they navigate a terrain where even various types of feminists are conflicted and quite often opposed to one another. The examination of the detailed portrayal of covert mechanisms of emotional abuse in First Love and the Fifty Shades series acknowledges the difficulty of understanding and dealing with intimate partner violence, and the complex situation of women trapped in such relationships. Both first-person female narrators in the books exhibit an acceptable degree of awareness, yet they still do not leave their abusive relationships – which raises the question of “why?” While the answer to this is complex and multi-faceted, this article explores one part of the issue, namely that since these women are oblivious to the repetitive patterns of covert abuse they are subjected to by their partners, they cannot really identify the problem and so decide to leave them. as the analysis will reveal, a great part of covert emotional abuse works by blaming the victim for her abuse, which further clouds her judgment over who is at fault for the relationship turning harmful. This article shifts the focus back to the abuser by tracing and analysing the covert mechanisms of emotional abuse used by men in an intimate relationship. for this, the article refers to Marti Loring’s identification of six practices in an intimate relationship that can be distinguished as abusive. a careful examination of the behaviours of the male protagonists in both works examined in this study reveals that they use all six covert mechanisms of abuse in their interactions with their partners. Examining covert mechanisms of emotional abuse as part of gender-based power and control, the following section discusses feminist and postfeminist concepts related to the study of intimate partner violence and its depiction in fiction. 2 Intimate Partner Violence, Feminism, and Fiction The last decade has witnessed a surge in the public and political debate about intimate partner violence. With social media movements, such as #metoo, and celebrity gossip, (e.g., the case of rihanna and Chris Brown), a wide and colliding discourse about intimate partner violence has been generated across many academic and social platforms (Burke 2020; Murphy 2019; regulska 2018). The exploration of these discussions reveals a clash between two feminist perspectives on the issue of intimate partner violence. The first strand of opinions, dating back to second-wave feminism, focuses on intimate partner violence in relation to patriarchal values. as donald dutton notes, this strand acknowledges “the powerful and complex role of social factors in creating the context in which violence [against wives] occurs” (2007, 37). Laurie Maguire (2002, 155), for example, believes that many aspects of patriarchal culture itself facilitate violence against women: obviously, any culture that views women legally as objects owned and traded by men, that views women spiritually as evil and in need of subjugation and physical correction, that views women intellectually as inferior and institutionalizes this view in education, politics, and law, that views women physically as substandard versions of men, and that views marriage as a hierarchy rather than a partnership is likely to lead to abuse. 202 fatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction Identifying patriarchal values as reasons behind intimate partner violence, this view calls for making the personal political, breaking the silence around the issue, and increasing awareness of patriarchal beliefs and practices that can be mobilized and used to abuse women. While not rejecting social inequalities related to gender as reasons behind intimate partner violence, the second strand of opinions, representing postfeminist perspectives deeply individualizing and neoliberal in form, refocuses the attention on the woman herself by discussing notions of choice, empowerment, and personal improvement (Mcrobbie 2007, 721). In this way domestic violence, Patterson and Sears note, “has come to be aligned with notions of choice – a concept that is very popular within the idea of the neoliberal and postfeminist subject” (2011, 6). This shift is an important part of the postfeminists’ rejection of the traditional view of self-sacrifice as a feminine ideal (see rodier and Meagher 2014). Neoliberal and postfeminist studies, rodier and Meagher note, “position women as free from gender oppression; they individualize and depoliticize domestic violence with the effect of making women who remain in abusive relationships responsible for their abuse” (2014, 183). Victim-blaming, then, is a strong undercurrent in postfeminists’ notions of choice and responsibility, especially when applied to intimate partner violence. The burden is placed on the abused woman’s failure to exercise her free choice and leave the relationship. feminist values of solidarity and support, as angela Mcrobbie notes, are thus displaced by discourses of agency and “condemnation of those who remain unable or unwilling to help themselves” (2009, 73). rodier and Meagher also emphasize that rather than adopt “transformative political perspectives on gendered violence”, postfeminism asks us to “use our freedom to successfully navigate sexist waters” (2014, 186). These perspectives which demand that women individually free themselves from intimate partner violence are grounded in fantasies of freedom, power, and agency. The “can-do” girl functions as a “powerful ideal”, suggesting that all young women enjoy this power now (harris 2004, 8), while the reality of many young women is nowhere near this image. to adequately address the complexity of intimate partner violence, the examination of individual experiences needs to be connected to an analysis of the larger pattern of gender- based power and control in society. What women in violent relationships need, rodier and Meagher (2014, 191) believe, is, feminist analysis not only of individual acts of violence between men and women, but also of the social frameworks described by feminist scholars as rape culture, and, moreover, of the symbolic violence that ensues in environments that perpetuate the discourses of post-feminism and neoliberalism. Individualization of violence against women removes men and culture from the picture and frames “personal terms in a way that turns the idea of the personal-as-political on its head” (gill 2007, 153). Karen Boyle states, by individualizing cases of abuse, “men’s violence becomes reframed as an issue of women’s mental health and the perpetrators remain virtually invisible” (2005, 174). Thus, while we need to acknowledge women’s increased awareness of intimate partner violence, we should not deal with this issue solely as a woman’s problem. 203VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction The exploration of the similar and recurring patterns of emotional abuse depicted in contemporary fiction by women, such as First Love and the Fifty Shades series, puts the male abuser and the larger pattern of gender-based power and control squarely back in the picture. Patterns of intimate partner violence represented in contemporary fiction by women are documented by many researchers. Their studies have focused, for example, on popular series such as Twilight and its representation of a controlling and abusive male partner (Collins and Carmody 2011; Borgia 2014; Brody 2014). Likewise, the Fifty Shades series caused much public controversy over its representation of the central romantic relationship. The controversy resulted from the tension between supporting concepts of choice and worrying about the normalization of the patterns of abuse found in the narrative. on the one hand, the Fifty Shades series is praised for liberating the main female character, ana (Wright 2012; harrison and holm 2013; hutcherson 2012; Midori 2012). on the other hand, it is considered an instruction manual for intimate partner violence (flood 2012; alibhai-Brown 2012; armentrout 2012). despite the claim of liberating ana, the discussion of liberation within a story narrating a conventional love plot, in which the relationship between the man and woman is emotionally and economically unequal, undermines any potential for female liberation and empowerment. Likewise, riley’s depiction of intimate partner violence in First Love is the subject of continuing inspection, examination, and reviews from readers. It is seen to reveal patterns of abusive practices by some men in heterosexual relationships (adams 2017; Wade 2017). Through her detailed description of the development of the relationship between Edwyn and Neve in First Love, riley is able to illuminate otherwise underestimated patterns of intimate partner violence. What these discussions of intimate partner violence in fiction are missing is a focus on covert mechanisms of emotional abuse which are hard to recognize when they are subtle, insidious, delivered in a calm voice, or camouflaged as a joke. as noted above, this article focuses on analysing the representation of covert mechanisms of emotional abuse in contemporary fiction by women in an attempt to further understand the complexity of intimate partner violence. The following analysis traces the depiction of covert emotional abuse in First Love and the Fifty Shades series. 3 Analysis In Emotional Abuse, Loring (1994, 5) identifies six mechanisms of covert emotional abuse: 1. discounting, 2. Negation, 3. Projection/accusation, 4. denial (of abuse by the abuser), 5. Negative labelling, 6. Subtle threats of physical and/or emotional abandonment, or actual physical and/or emotional abandonment. These six mechanisms can be detected in the way First Love and the Fifty Shades series carefully portray the verbal, physical and emotional interactions between men and women in abusive 204 fatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction relationships. The first mechanism of covert emotional abuse noted in these interactions is the expression of subtle threats of abandonment (or violence). The male abuser’s use of subtle threats of abandonment is detected in First Love when Edwyn tells Neve: “what makes you think you can treat me like this, hm? When I’m making the money, I’m paying the bills, I’m making your life possible” (riley 2017, 128). Though not explicit, the message is: if you don’t follow my orders, I’ll leave you and your life will be impossible. When she complains about his lack of affection, he replies: “I won’t be anyone’s carer. do you get that?” (riley 2017, 116). The message gets clearer when Neve “saw that [her] suitcase was out, in the living room, open, and with all of [her] clothes thrown in, hangers and all” (riley 2017, 113). Edwyn, as it seems, does not allow Neve to feel safe in the relationship. She is always under the threat of him leaving her or kicking her out of the house. In Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian’s subtle threats are warnings of physical violence and punishment concealed as jokes. on a flight to visit her mother, ana receives the following message on her phone from Christian: “I know what you’re trying to do – and trust me, you’ve succeeded. Next time you’ll be in the cargo hold, bound and gagged in a crate” (James 2011, 392). He reminds her: “You need to learn to manage my expectations. I am not a patient man” (James 2011, 304). Verbal threats are dangerous acts of covert emotional abuse because they reflect the abuser’s aim of intimidating and controlling his partner. So, even if they are not carried out, these subtle threats should not be accepted lightly as a joke. further, Christian is directing the blame for his use of threats onto ana’s inability to meet his expectations, making her responsible for her own abuse. Subtle threats of violence can also be expressed through the display of violent body language around the partner. The male protagonists in First Love and the Fifty Shades books use violent body language around their female partners. When Edwyn talks to Neve, he “slam[s] his hand against the side of the cupboard” (riley 2017, 110). another time, “he smack[s] his hand onto the table” (riley 2017, 106). he sits “feet apart, fists clenched, glaring at [Neve] over on the settee” (riley 2017, 4). In Fifty Shades Freed, violent body language can be seen when ana reveals to Christian that she is pregnant and he “bangs his fist on the table, making [her] jump, and stands so abruptly he almost knocks the dining chair over” (James 2012b, 80). also earlier in Fifty Shades of Grey, when ana eagerly greets a male colleague in front of Christian, he “watches [her] like a hawk, his eyes hooded, his mouth a hard impassive line. his tone becomes clipped and cool” (James 2011, 30). The display of violent body language is dangerous because it is registered in the victim’s mind and drives her to unconsciously picture herself in the place of the table or the door. The second mechanism of covert emotional abuse identified in the novels is negative labelling. This is detected, for example, in the male abuser’s description of his female partner as “disgusting”. When Neve vomits on herself one night, Edwyn tells her: “you enjoy being sick on yourself, don’t you? I’ve never known anyone else who enjoys being sick on themselves. […] Is that something you find acceptable, or civilized, or fun?” (riley 2017, 111). he not only makes her feel ashamed and guilty for being sick, but also exaggerates and accuses her of enjoying it. as francesca Wade notes, “[Edwyn] is obsessed with a single occasion, which took place years ago, when Neve was sick from drinking too much. his memory seems exaggerated, yet he overrides hers furiously, eroding her sense of identity as well as her voice” (2017). he tells Neve: “Your breath stinks. You smell like rotten vegetables” (riley 2017, 129). 205VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction These expressions of disgust get into Neve’s head, and she feels “shame” (riley 2017, 63) and “self-disgust” (riley 2017, 116). In Fifty Shades of Grey, Christian’s feelings of disgust towards ana’s body can be detected in the conditions he includes in his submissive contract. he includes mandatory exercise, a personal trainer four times a week, and personal hygiene: “The Submissive will keep herself clean and shaved and/or waxed at all times. The Submissive will visit a beauty salon of the dominant’s choosing […] and undergo whatever treatments the dominant sees fit” (James 2011, 172–73). These conditions suggest that there is something wrong with ana’s body requiring it to go through regular grooming for Christian to accept it. ana expresses her annoyance with this regime of “grooming” that she considers “time- consuming, humiliating and painful” (James 2011, 85). ana does not perform these rituals of cleaning for herself, which is why she considers them a burden. The expression of disgust towards vomit and body hair mentioned above could be related to Julia Kristeva’s philosophy of the abject, things that signify an unstable boundary between the inside and outside of the body and therefore often evoke a bodily reaction of nausea. The feeling of disgust is a reaction to aspects in life that threaten the sense of boundaries between ourselves and the world, or between ourselves and others – to what “disturbs identity, what does not respect borders, positions, rules” (Kristeva 1982, 4).  In patriarchal societies, this threat of uncontrollability and lack of boundaries is associated with the woman’s body more than the man’s. as Elizabeth grosz argues, a woman’s “volatile” body is shamed in the West and has been viewed “as a formless flow; as viscosity, entrapping, secreting […] a formlessness that engulfs all form, a disorder that threatens all order” (1994, 203). Male fluidity, on the other hand, is not only viewed as controlled but also as powerful and productive, with a specific purpose and an outcome. These contradictory views “enabled men to associate women with infection, with disease, with the idea of festering putrefaction” (grosz 1994, 206). associating women’s bodies with uncontrollability and formlessness undermines any challenges to the social power of men. demanding women to regularly shave, diet, wear makeup and beautify themselves results in “the feel and conviction of lack, of insufficiency, of never being good enough” (Bordo 2003, 166). What happens is that “through the pursuit of an ever-changing, homogenizing, elusive ideal of femininity […] female bodies become docile bodies – bodies whose forces and energies are habituated to external regulation, subjection, transformation, ‘improvement’” (Bordo 2003, 166). Viewing a woman’s body as formless, disgusting, or lacking, then, is a form of objectification and control. It suggests that there is something inherently wrong with the woman’s body, and therefore it should be regularly observed and regulated. Labelling their female partner’s bodies as “disgusting” in First Love and the Fifty Shades series, the male protagonists mobilize gender-based stereotypes and use them to covertly abuse the woman. It represents their continuous attempts to undermine the woman’s ability to act as an independent subject. Discounting, which is to deny or dismiss that the victim of abuse has any right to his or her thoughts or feelings, is also detected in both novels. In First Love, Edwyn repeatedly criticizes the way Neve presents herself. When she tries to be intimate with him, “holding on to his shoulder in the morning, wiggling about,” he tells her, “that’s what you think is sexy, is it? That’s what passes for sexy in your world, does it? Why would you think that was attractive? What is it about that that you think anyone would find appealing?” (riley 2017, 129). as Matthew 206 fatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction adams notes, “[Edwyn] routinely subjects Neve to remorseless attacks on her character” (2017). Similarly, in Fifty Shades of Grey, ana is constantly criticized for her behaviours. Christian, for example, expresses his dislike of her rolling her eyes and her eating habits: “Eat what’s on your plate. If you’d eaten properly yesterday, you wouldn’t be here” (James 2011, 75). Being on the offensive side is most comfortable for Edwyn and Christian, as that is the position of power and control. further, in this way they can place the blame for any abuse on the victims. Examining the verbal, physical, and emotional interactions between the couples in First Love and the Fifty Shades series, one can also note that the male protagonists accuse their female partners and project their own issues and insecurities onto them. In First Love, Edwyn projects his feelings of hate and anger onto Neve when he says things like: “I can see it. I can see the resentment, and the rage boiling over” (riley 2017, 132). he also accuses her of acting childishly, while he is “lying like a baby in a cot and throwing humdingers of tantrums” (Butter 2017). When they argue, he tells Neve “Listen to yourself […]. You sound like a twelve-year- old. a twelve-year-old trying to win an argument. This isn’t an argument. You don’t get that, do you?” (riley 2017, 134). Like Edwyn, Christian projects his lack of communication onto ana. When ana tells him she would be more relaxed around him if he did not intimidate her, he informs her that the problem is not his intimidation, but her lack of communication, making himself the victim. Throughout the story, however, ana communicates her feelings to Christian very clearly, telling him that she cannot be someone she is not and that she does not want to be his submissive. he, on the other hand, does not listen. he replies with things like: “as long as you follow the rules […] Then perhaps we can find a way forward” (James 2011, 436), or “do the vanilla thing and then maybe, once you trust me more and I trust you to be honest and communicate more, we could move on and do some of the things I like to do” (James 2012a, 35). Christian not only turns a deaf ear to what ana is trying to tell him, but also refuses to communicate his feelings to her: “you cannot begin to understand the depths of my depravity, anastasia. and it is not something I want to share with you” (James 2012a, 180). The problem then is not ana’s refusal to communicate, but Christian’s inability to listen or communicate. Projection and accusations are defence tactics covertly used by abusers to distort reality and preserve their egos. further, they give abusers a green light to control their partners and treat them badly. When confronted, the covert abuser in these novels negates or denies his actions and blames the woman, making her feel responsible and guilty. In First Love, when Neve confronts Edwyn for belittling her, he negates it and blames her for misinterpreting his speech: “When did I call you a child? You hear what you want to hear, don’t you?” (riley 2017, 133). for Edwyn, Neve is responsible for his own violent reactions too: “Why bring it up, then, hm? You’re very fond of “just saying”, aren’t you? and then you expect me not to react” (riley 2017, 106). Negating and denying his actions, the covert abuser portrays himself as the victim. Edwyn tries to convince Neve that her past, not himself, is the reason behind their disagreement: “I don’t know if you’re confusing me with your father, but I’m not joining in with that, OK?” (riley 2017, 133). he thus makes her look in the wrong direction for the source of her problems, to her relationship with her father. as Lundy Bancroft notes, “in one important way, an abusive man works like a magician: his tricks largely rely on getting you to look off in the wrong direction, distracting your attention so that you won’t notice where the real action is” 207VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction (2002, Part I). Edwyn insists: “Your father. You hated him, he was cruel to you, that’s the only relationship you understand. a man being horrible to you and you being vicious back. So that’s what you’re recreating here. I am not your father. You don’t have to go on being vicious” (riley 2017, 160). Wade (2017) notes: undermining any sense that she is free to determine the course of her own existence, Edwyn plays on Neve’s fear of inheriting her mother’s misery. he accuses her, audaciously, of somehow forcing him into the role of abuser, replaying the scripts that are hard-wired from her childhood. Edwyn tries to discredit Neve’s perspective and manipulates her into thinking that, because she is the child of an abusive man, she is turning her partner into an abuser. according to Edwyn, Neve is deluded and exaggerating: “I’m making perfectly ordinary, perfectly reasonable, perfectly ordinary human requests, why do you take it as such a threat to you, an attack on your “self-respect”?” (riley 2017, 160). What Edwyn is displaying here is what Bancroft describes as the main trait of the abuser, which is to “twists things into their opposites” (2002, Part I). he is “perfectly” in the right, and Neve is just deluded because of her past. as Bancroft notes, “the lens of entitlement the abuser holds over his eyes stands everything on its head, like a reflection in a spoon” (2002, Part I). This reasoning manifests itself in Edwyn’s interpretation of violence in other relationships, too. When Neve tells him about her father’s violence against her mother, Edwyn blames her mother and, as adams notes, “regards the series of assaults that Neve’s tyrannical father inflicted on her mother as merely “incidents”. Christian also negates his covert mechanisms of abuse by blaming ana. When she refuses the painful aspects of BdSM, he makes her feel guilty by telling her that he is unworthy of love. feeling guilty, ana immediately reassures him that she loves him and would never leave him whatever he does (James 2012a, 181). But he insists: “I know you’ll leave,” he says sadly […] “You left me once – I don’t want to go there again” (James 2012a, 181). While Edwyn blames his disagreements with Neve on her past, Christian blames his with ana on her overthinking everything and blindly following the moral codes of society. for example, when he brings her an expensive gift, she refuses it because she understands that these gifts are his way of making her submit to him. however, as James (2011, 252) then writes: You’re overthinking it, anastasia. don’t place some vague moral judgment on yourself based on what others might think. don’t waste your energy. It’s only because you have reservations about our arrangements, that’s perfectly natural. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Christian advises ana to ignore her reasoning and accept his expensive gifts because her point of view reflects society’s moral judgments and not hers. ana’s agency does not exist for Christian – she submits either to his judgment or that of society. Discounting, negation, projection/accusation, denial, negative labelling, and subtle threats of physical or emotional violence all have their roots in gender-based stereotypes in society, and as discussed above, they are mobilized and covertly used by the male abuser to maintain his position of power in the relationship. “Whenever power imbalance exists, such as between 208 fatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction men and women, or adults and children, or between rich and poor”, Bancroft notes, “some people will take advantage of these circumstances for their own purposes” (2002, Part II). The male protagonists in the texts analysed here exploit the power imbalance between men and women in society and commit a range of covert emotional abuse against their female partners. Covert mechanisms of emotional abuse not only protect the male protagonist’s dominant status in the relationship, but also result in damaging the victims’ sense of autonomy and identity. The female protagonists in First Love and the Fifty Shades series feel intimidated, but they cannot quite identify why. as mentioned above, while covert emotional abuse could easily go unnoticed, its effects are undeniable. despite its subtlety, it is as harmful as overt abuse. It could even be more damaging because it is harder to detect and react to. What is happening to Neve and ana is what Loring describes as follows: “over time these covert mechanisms of labeling, discounting, and negation lead to a diminution and destruction of the self” (1994, 5). despite her awareness of her father’s overt violence against her mother, Neve is unable to identify Edwyn’s behaviours as violent. further, she is not even aware of the damage his actions are causing, such that she finds it difficult to leave this destructive relationship. as Loring notes, “even when victims acknowledge the undermining insults and name-calling that occur in their intimate relationships, the depth of the inner bruises, emotional pain, and eroded sense of self often remain hidden from conscious awareness” (1994, 1). Neve describes Edwyn as “tall, over six feet, and these rooms do sometimes look too small for him” (riley 2017, 5). This description reveals her feeling that Edwyn’s presence in the relationship is bigger than hers. as Evers notes, Edwyn’s “putrid rage and self-pity dominate the page, just as his ego dominates their living spaces” (2017). Neve reveals her feelings when she says that she feels like “a machine that was running down, while he seemed only to gain energy” (riley 2017, 111). In the Fifty Shades books, too, ana is blinded by the consent agreement which gives her an illusion of control over the relationship, while it is Christian who is in fact controlling her with his covert emotional abuse. She experiences an altered identity and describes herself as a “pale, haunted ghost” (James 2011, 511). Because she cannot clearly see the covert mechanisms of emotional abuse Christian is using against her, ana’s only solution is to manage the relationship by withholding information to avoid his anger and hope for things to improve. 4 Conclusion In their portrayal of intimate partner violence, First Love and the Fifty Shades series engage with the contemporary complex and contradictory attitude of “post-awareness”. In both works, the female protagonist is trapped in a relationship where she feels intimated and powerless, yet she does not identify it as a violent relationship. The female protagonists’ inability to describe their relationships as violent is because their male partners are using covert mechanisms of emotional abuse that are hard to detect and react to. tracing these mechanisms as depicted in first-person narratives by women, this article finds the same patterns of covert emotional abuse depicted in both works. This similarity emphasizes the social aspect of these mechanisms, and how using them cannot be treated as individual cases. It reveals how the male protagonists are mobilizing and utilizing a larger pattern of gender- based power and control to abuse their partners. This finding is crucial, because it undermines the idea of “post-awareness” and emphasizes the importance of bringing men back into the picture when discussing intimate partner violence. doing so helps in understanding intimate 209VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction partner violence in its broader canvas and the complexity of the position of women who find themselves in a covertly abusive relationship. 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Wright, Susan. 2012. “fifty Shades of Sexual freedom.” In Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey, edited by Lori Perkins, 237–41. texas: BenBella Books. 211VarIafatmah al Thobaiti Portraying the Male Abuser in Contemporary Women’s Fiction 2022, Vol. 19 (2), 211-221(228) journals.uni-lj.si/elope https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2.211-221 UdC: 821.111(73).09-31Erdrich L.:141.72 Anja Mrak University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks aBStraCt The article examines the liminal nature of the two central female characters in Louise Erdrich’s novel Tracks. despite appearing as opposites, fleur and Pauline, members of the Chippewa tribe, are both portrayed as socially abject and victims of the inexorable social transformation brought about by american imperialism to establish patriarchy and capitalism. Enhanced through magical realism, their animality and monstrosity call attention to a liminal femininity trapped in a social order that seeks to subjugate it. The novel also considers female sexual agency and different modes of exerting and losing control in encounters defined by sexual objectification and the male gaze. fleur’s and Pauline’s stories demonstrate how the female body becomes a site of colonial enterprise, which devalues, exploits, and nearly eradicates the Native american community, their culture, and philosophies. Keywords: Tracks, Louise Erdrich, animality, feminism, magical realism Liminalna ženskost: magični realizem in abjektno v romanu Louise Erdrich Sledi PoVZEtEK V članku raziskujem liminalni položaj dveh osrednjih ženskih likov v romanu Sledi Louise Erdrich. Čeprav se ob površinskem branju zdi, da sta si fleur in Pauline diametralno nasprotni, ju natančnejša analiza postavi v položaj družbeno abjektnega in kot žrtvi neustavljivih družbenih sprememb, ki jih prinaša ameriški imperializem z namenom vzpostavitve patriarhata in kapitalizma. animaličnost in pošastnost, obarvani z magičnim realizmom, opozarjata na liminalno ženskost, ujeto v družbeni red, ki si jo skuša podrediti. roman obravnava različne primere uveljavljanja in izgube nadzora v odnosih, zaznamovanih s spolno objektifikacijo in moškim zrenjem. Zgodbi fleur in Pauline prikazujeta, kako žensko telo postane mesto kolonialne nadvlade, ki razvrednoti, izkorišča in malodane izbriše staroselsko skupnost, njihovo kulturo in miselnost. Ključne besede: Sledi, Louise Erdrich, animaličnost, feminizem, magični realizem 212 anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 1 Introduction: Magical Realism and Native American Literature In her works the Native american novelist Louise Erdrich draws on her own social position to address the intersections between the Native american community and the inexorable forces of american imperialism. The central subject of her novels is the social reality of women as experienced by liminal and abject characters engulfed by social change. Tracks takes place in the fictional town of argus and the nearby reservation in North dakota between 1912 and 1924. It examines the effects of the dawes act, land appropriation, community disintegration, and the conversion of Native americans to Christianity. Erdrich gives a complex perspective by employing multiple narrators and magical realism.1 There is a recurring idea in literary studies concerning the inherent postcolonial potential of magical realism, a subversive quality whereby the periphery strikes back at the dominant centre and critiques its social policies and historical practices (see Slemon 1995; aldama 2009; faris 2004). homi Bhabha’s sentiment that magical realism “becomes the literary language of the emergent post-colonial world” (1990, 7) has won widespread currency, associating this literary mode with marginalized and excluded social groups. It comes as no surprise then that Native american texts were soon included in the canon of magical realism, as they use this mode to challenge the hegemony of official historiography and give voice to individuals and groups who were violently purged from the official record (reeds 2013, 173). american history, which from the imperialist point of view starts with the arrival of the Europeans in 1492, is made suspect by disrupting the usual temporality. By alternating between the realistic and fantastic, incorporating myths and traditional (including oral) narrative devices, Native american magical realist texts offer a revision of history and hold up a mirror to the dominant society. Wendy B. faris and Stephen Slemon were among the first to point out the potential of magical realism to present complementary views on history. The latter writes in the seminal essay “Magical realism and Postcolonial discourse” that magical realism offers a new lens on history (Slemon 1995, 414), while the former argues that it “registers a discourse of plurality” (faris 2004, 144) and adds that “magical realist texts frequently assume antibureaucratic positions, using their magic against the established social order” (2004, 139). By injecting neofantastic elements into a realist narrative structure, the arbitrariness of hegemonic norms and ideologically convenient fictions of order are laid bare. The concepts of “reality” and “truth” become subject to other determinations and give rise to alternative forms of social experience. Many postcolonial and ethnic texts are haunted by an oppressive sense of historical time and engage with the monstrous trauma of history. This recalls “the relation between historical consciousness and traumatic memory, the problem of how to represent what is experienced 1 Louise Erdrich’s use of magical realism is examined in, for example, Begoña Simal’s Uncertain Mirrors: Magical Realisms in US Ethnic Literatures (2009), Wendy B. faris’s Ordinary Enchantments: Magical Realism and the Remystification of Nature (2004), and Lois Parkinson Zamora’s The Usable Past: The Imagination of History in Recent Fictions of the Americas (1997). 213VarIaanja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks as ‘unspeakable’” (Brogan 1998, 63). Magical realism is related to trauma narrative because it “carries the potential to respond sensitively yet productively to the issue of traumatic experience, enabling such experience to take its place within representation” (adams 2011, 174). fragmented temporality, repetition, literalization,2 the neofantastic, and shifts in focalization all accommodate an articulation of trauma, which defies direct translation into narrative, but is instead bound to remain, partly at least, outside of it, ineffable and unrepresentable. The narrative devices of trauma narrative thus coincide with those of magical realism, which can “shake the ossified categories of truth, reality and history” and “create a space beyond authoritative discourse where the unrepresentable can be expressed” (Bowers 2004, 77). to understand Tracks one needs to understand the historical and political context of the dawes general allotment act of 1887, which dramatically disrupted the Native social structures and forced a transition into a capitalist and patriarchal social system (Chang 2010, 78). The act called for tribal land to be divided into individual plots with the goal of encouraging small farmsteads. Plot size depended on age, marital status, etc. The Native americans who accepted this division became US citizens (Britannica 2019). Land that was not divided among the Native population was available for purchase to non-Native settlers. a significant share of tribal land was thus broken up and lost. The resulting degradation (nomadic communities had the most problems conforming) was further exacerbated by illness, poverty, and poor living conditions in general (Britannica 2019). The political proponents of land allotment justified the act on the basis of idealized notions of freedom and individual ownership, where in fact they took advantage of “their colonial authority to enforce a rigid racial and gender inequality” (Chang 2010, 78). In addition to expropriation driven by greed, the dawes allotment act served to politically undermine tribal authority. By granting citizenship, it sought to incorporate the Native population formally and legally into the socio-political system of the United States (2010, 79). The change in legislation facilitated a forced legal assimilation of the Native population, land appropriation, and a grievous repudiation of the tribal social order. Plot allotment and the regulation of farmsteads reinforced class and gender norms of the white-centric patriarchal society (Chang 2010, 124). Private ownership reduced communal family structures to the nuclear family. as Paula gunn allen explains, Christianization, Christian Native american boarding schools, forced displacement, the prohibition of ceremonies, and the systematic elimination of Native languages attended and magnified the processes underpinned by land laws (1992, 195). The colonial enterprise, she writes, engendered “a progressive shift from gynocentric, egalitarian, ritual-based social systems to secularized structures closely imitative of the European patriarchal system” (1992, 195). gender balance was eroded by enforcing capitalist patriarchal institutions and values. Even 2 Literalization is a magical realist device whereby the metaphorical is made physically manifest. hegerfeldt describes it as “a movement from the abstract to the concrete, from the figurative to the literal, from the word to the thing” (2002, 68) and focuses on the literalization of the metaphor, the transmutation of abstract nouns into physical presences, materialization of memories, and psychological states in the form of ghosts and other spectres. In other words, the intangible and the phenomenal become the tangible and the material. Magical realism thus endows metaphorical and empirical descriptions of reality with a strange equality (2002, 56). 214 if we consider that precolonial indigenous communities were less culturally homogenous than we tended to allow and that the position of women in these communities is somewhat idealized and in line with the myth of the noble savage who lives in tune with nature, the fact cannot be overlooked that some tribes were organized in ways that were in stark contrast to the hierarchical binarism of Western patriarchy. 2 Monstrous and Animalistic Women faris points out that Erdrich brings together Native and Christian narrative traditions, signalling attention to the nexuses between different worlds and the spiritual powers drawn from mythology and religion (2004, 208). It is precisely myth and the fusion of profane and sacred time that Jasna Vombek sees as underpinning the magical realism in Erdrich’s novels (2004, 50). The temporal structure of the novel echoes its thematic concerns, as it stages a collision of two cultural principles. This can also be seen in the chapter titles, which comprise the year, denoting chronological time, and season in the Chippewa language and in English, denoting circular time. The centre of Tracks is fleur, even though she does not have a narrative voice of her own. her story is related through two points of view – Nanapush, a tribal elder, and Pauline, a zealous Christian of Native and white origins, who take turns in narrating the chapters. Much like its temporality, the novel is a combination of oral narration, related to traditional storytelling, and writing, related to official records. Interspersed between the two is a second-person narration, as Nanapush directly addresses fleur’s daughter Lulu (and in turn the reader), reinforcing the oral tradition in the novel. The innovative interchange of temporality and narrative voices contributes to a complex narrative structure in which the position of an entire community and cultural tradition is articulated. In addition to the double temporality, the novel plays on the juxtaposition of different discourses, and “by blending mythologies, and by blending myth with realism” (rosenthal 2003, 23) rejects any kind of reductionism. Into this complex interplay of historical, social, mythical, and colonial forces Erdrich places two monstrous and animalistic female figures – fleur and Pauline – who, each in their own way, face the social changes enforced by capitalist patriarchy. Erdrich addresses the question of liminality through fleur and Pauline, both of whom she casts as socially abject. fleur holds a special place in the story since she is the only member of the Pillager family besides her cousin to have survived a sinister epidemic that nearly exterminated the native population. She is saved from the clutches of sickness and brought back to life by Nanapush, which creates a familial bond between them. The Pillager name is also associated with Misshepeshu, a lake spirit that dwells in the waters of Lake Matchimanito on the sacred lands of the Pillager family, as well as with ancient knowledge and powers: “[t]hey knew the secret ways to cure or kill” (Erdrich 2004, 2). Many have read fleur as an embodiment of the (literary) trickster, an ambivalent figure that contains within itself a number of contradictions and eludes rigid definition (see rosenthal 2003; Smith 1997; Vombek 2004). It enables the intertwining of two worlds and perspectives, and as such also indirectly recalls the inherent characteristics of magical realism. The trickster is attended by duality, elusiveness, and ambivalence. Its use endows the text with a freedom and openness, which has proven to be a particularly useful tool in the hands of feminist authors. as Smith recognizes, women writers employ female tricksters to expose and transform the sexism of anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 215VarIa their male counterparts, which gained currency especially after the concomitant enforcement of the dawes act and the ideology of the nuclear family. In doing so, these authors present a different historical and social perspective (Smith 1997, 22). The trickster is an effective literary strategy for feminist writers because it allows them to problematize both patriarchal domination and the loss of communal or national identity. By using a female trickster, “Erdrich resists stereotypical representation of Native women by making her trickster figures cross back and forth between the discourses of different cultures, thereby pointing out that gender is never an a-historic or essential quality, but is dependent on cultural [or rather social] contexts” (rosenthal 2003, 17). fleur exemplifies the ambivalence of the literary trickster and combines it with elements from Native american mythology and card skills. Moreover, she represents a most dramatic version of the trickster because it not only revives the traditional myth, but also offers a never-before-seen representation enriched with new symbolism. The connection between myth and animality plants her firmly in the realm of the abject, making her at once an object of fascination and fear in the eyes of the community. after the death of her family, fleur chooses to live alone on the remote shores of Lake Matchimanito, an act of independence which, in the framework of standard gender norms, disturbs and disrupts the social order. She leads a wholly unconventional life: “She messed with evil, laughed at the old women’s advice and dressed like a man. She got herself into some half-forgotten medicine, studied ways we shouldn’t talk about” (Erdrich 2004, 12). Nanapush also recognizes her ambivalent position when he says that on the one hand fleur keeps the water spirit in check, but on the other unsettles the area around the lake (2004, 35). fleur enters the space of myth through the lake and the spirit dwelling there. People believe that she is bespoken to Misshepeshu: “Even though she was good-looking, nobody dared to court her because it was clear that Misshepeshu, the water man, the monster, wanted her for himself” (2004, 11). Erdrich leaves fleur’s representation incomplete and mysterious. at times her association with the lake spirit gives way to the idea that fleur is herself the liminal monster of lake Machimanito, hinted at by her composite body: her hips are described as “fishlike, slippery, narrow”, her teeth “strong and sharp and very white”, “her fifth toes were missing” (2004, 18), and her skin is likened to “lakeweed” (2004, 22). The myth of Misshepeshu is informed by the animal symbolism from different Chippewa stories – such as that of the bear and wolf – and so we read about fleur’s bear-like sounds and coughs (Erdrich 2004, 12) and the famous Pillager wolf grin (2004, 19, 23, 88). her animality is also emphasized with the neofantastic when fleur shapeshifts into an animal mid- hunt: “[She] went out hunting, not even in her own body. We know for sure because the next morning, in the snow or dust, we followed the tracks of her bare feet and saw where they changed, where the claws sprang out” (2004, 12). fleur’s animality is put in a mythical context and harkens back to the Native american oral tradition. She uses her powers to fight the unjust appropriation of land and sustain the traditional way of life, yet ultimately her struggles lead only to a Pyrrhic sort of victory. as we shall see later, fleur is at once a benevolent mother and the destructive monster of Lake Matchimanito, an object of sexuality and vengeful fury. By transforming traditional stories, Erdrich associates the symbolism of the bear, the wolf, and Misshespeshu with female strength and endurance. at the same time, the contradictions of fleur’s actions and the shifts in her powers preclude an excessive mythologization of her anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 216 character (rosenthal 2003, 141–42). granted, the transformation of symbols from traditional myths and stories is a viable position from which to examine female empowerment, but also one that can quickly turn into its opposite. Most authors see fleur as a preeminent figure of female power, in large part also due to her monstrousness and animality, but a closer reading reveals the deep-rooted workings of colonization that position Native american subjects within the space of the colonial gaze and the appropriation of the female body. fleur can also be read as a stereotypical colonial representation of the wild Native woman who struggles against the capitalist machine to preserve the sacred lands of her tribal family in tune with nature and traditional forces. While she ultimately emerges as the moral victor, she is hounded off her land, since the social order has changed so drastically as to deny the continued existence of a dangerous revolutionary tied to the past. fleur’s actions can thus be read wholly in terms of a predetermined scenario that follows the figure of the “vanishing Indian” known from colonial writing. The opening of the novel seems to confirm this with a wistful and romanticized image presented by Nanapush that is fuelled by a dangerous trope – “the last Indian syndrome”: We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall. It was surprising there were so many of us left to die. […] By then, we thought disaster must surely have spent its force […]. [a] new sickness swept down. The consumption […]. This disease was different from the pox and fever, for it came on slow. The outcome, however, was just as certain. […] I guided the last buffalo hunt. I saw the last bear shot. I trapped the last beaver with a pelt of more than two years’ growth. […] I axed the last birch that was older than I, and I saved the last Pillager. (Erdrich 2004, 1–2) Tracks does not accommodate a black-and-white reading, though, as Erdrich uses stereotypes in order to confront them and to have the reader question their own definitions. female empowerment in her novels needs to be considered on a number of levels and through different female characters. to fully apprehend the social reality that Erdrich portrays, it is necessary to look at fleur’s doppelganger Pauline. at first it seems that the novel pitches the two characters in direct opposition to each other. as we have noted earlier, fleur is commonly held up as an exemplar of the strength and resistance of Native women. Pauline, by contrast, is a sinister renegade who renounces her heritage and embraces Christianity with open arms, making it her life’s mission to convert her tribe. Their ostensible opposition is quickly dismantled, however, since there is a significant intersection between the two characters. Erdrich uses their different but essentially similar stories to articulate the business of constructing a social order under the auspices of the capitalist patriarchy as it is enacted on their bodies. fleur and Pauline demonstrate how the female body becomes a site of colonial domination and thus bears witness to the systemic social transition that sought to eradicate social structures that were at odds with capitalist patriarchy. Pauline is placed in a distinctly marginal position in the dialogical narrative with Nanapush. The many contradictions in her account qualify her as an unreliable narrator. Several authors argue that her efforts to strip herself of her Native american identity by becoming a zealous Christian make Pauline the negative counterpart to Nanapush and the primary antagonist of the novel (rosenthal 2003, 129). Such interpretations might be too simplistic, however, as anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 217VarIa they downplay the social and colonial underpinnings of her marginalized position. Pauline’s abject social status is obvious. Nanapush calls her “the crow of the reservation” (Erdrich 2004, 54), that is, a carrion eater fond of filth. She can find no place for herself on the reservation, and she is mostly ignored or avoided altogether. Morace argues that Pauline is a powerful abject heroine and points out her obsession with her unattractiveness, which she believes makes her invisible to others, and so resigns herself to a life of voyeurism and alienation, and embraces her role as a “midwife” of death (1999, 51). on the reservation she takes care of the dying and prepares the dead for their eternal rest. The corpse, according to Kristeva, is an extreme case of abjection when the subject is expunged entirely and transformed into an object which threatens to engulf everything, “[i]t is death infecting life” (1982, 3–4). Pauline becomes closely associated with death, which instils in her a sense of peace, intimacy, and superiority: “[I] entered each house where death was about to come, and then made death welcome […] I handled the dead until the cold feel of their skin was a comfort, until I no longer bothered to bathe once I left that cabin but touched others with the same hands, passed death on” (Erdrich 2004, 69). She becomes the abject, transgressing boundaries with every touch and seeping into society. When people see her, they immediately wonder who has died, and Pauline says of herself: “I was a midwife that they hailed down with both interest and dread, I was their own fate” (2004, 75). In one of the novel’s instances of literalization, Pauline severs the thread that binds the sick woman she is watching over to the world of the living: “I put my fingers in the air between us, and I cut where the rope was frayed down to string. […] I stood when she was gone” (2004, 68). Pauline undergoes a rebirth after this encounter with death. In a neofantastic manner she figuratively and literally rises above the others and is found the following morning high up in a tree (2004, 68). Entering the space of the abject changes how she understands her own social position and endows her with a notion of superiority. Pauline and fleur are both figured as the socially abject. however, as we shall see later, Pauline at times seems to muster more agency than fleur, who is in danger of being reduced to the stereotype of the wild Native woman. 3 The Female Body as a Site of Colonial Domination readings that characterize fleur exclusively as a strong and independent woman ultimately prove to be too simplistic. one such reading, for example, exalts the sexual power that fleur wields and concludes that she is “always the hunter and never the prey” (Van dyke 1999, 133), exercising absolute control over her relationships with men. on a closer reading, fleur’s sexual agency is increasingly at odds with a social order in which women are merely objects for male exchange, despite their ostensible empowerment. This is one of several pernicious changes brought about by a systemic transition from communal to individual ownership and the rise of the nuclear family as the normative ideal, endorsed and encouraged by the dawes act, Christianization, school indoctrination, and the introduction of capitalism. to win fleur’s affection, her suitor Eli turns to her surrogate father Nanapush for guidance. Though he initially advises Eli to “find [himself ] a tame woman”, Nanapush ultimately concedes that fleur needs a man: “[S]he has to be harnessed. […] Eli was the young man to do it” (Erdrich 2004, 45). fleur is seen as a woman in need of taming, which is to say in need of a man to subdue and subjugate her. The father figure symbolically delivers the female object into the hands of another man. Immediately after this exchange we learn that Eli has been successful. anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 218 fleur is completely omitted from this process, reduced to a pliable object that can and must be brought under control. her sexuality is not part of her empowerment, as Van dyke claims. rather, fleur is excluded from it. female sexuality exists solely for men’s pleasure, as Eli’s mother reveals to Nanapush: “Who learned my Eli to make love standing up! Who learned him to have a woman against a tree in clear daylight” (2004, 48). fleur’s eroticism is in stark contrast to Pauline’s invisibility: “I was fifteen, alone, and so poor-looking I was invisible […] to the men […]. I blended into the stained brown walls” (Erdrich 2004, 15–16). In the defining male gaze Pauline is framed as an absence, a negation, and it is within this sexual politics that she becomes the gazing subject. as Cornell puts it, Pauline “takes up a position that in a male authored order belongs solely to men: she demands the equality of continuing gaze, the privilege of being a constitutive subject” (1992, 52). Compared to fleur, Pauline has a narrative voice in the story, making her a subject with agency over her own narration and observations about the world. If fleur is an object of male lust, Pauline claims the right to gaze for herself and under her conditions by confronting the objectifying male gaze: “With her clothes gone, I saw all the bones pushing at my flesh. I tried to shut my eyes, but couldn’t keep them closed, feeling that if I did not hold his gaze he could look at me any way he wanted” (Erdrich 2004, 73). In her sexual liaison with Napoleon, a man from the reservation, she meets his gaze and, as Cornell recognizes, refuses to be turned into an abstraction. This turns Napoleon’s lust into scorn and the sexual act is thus disrupted (1992, 55). as Pauline does not submit and wilfully asserts her right to gaze, she challenges the male position of power and drives the relationship to an abrupt end: “So we pressed together with our eyes open, staring like adversaries, but we did not go through with it after all. he stopped for some reason, nothing we said or did but like a dog sensing the presence of a tasteless poison in its food” (Erdrich 2004, 73). In the following episode Pauline again takes charge of the situation. Because she is jealous of the relationship between fleur and Eli and because Eli rejects her advances, Pauline devises a fiendish plan to have his body indirectly. She chooses Sophie as her victim, a young girl whom Pauline lives with on the reservation and has some measure of influence over. The whole affair culminates in a moment of ultimate instrumentalization, as Pauline makes Eli and Sophie her puppets: “They were mechanical things, toys, dolls wound past their limits” (Erdrich 2004, 84). Pauline uses a love potion, psychological manipulation, and clever planning to excite lust in Sophie and Eli and indulge her own voyeuristic proclivities. She orchestrates the sexual act, at first only observing it entranced but later inhabiting Sophie’s body: “[Pauline] entered [Sophie] and made her do what she could never have dreamed of herself” (2004, 83). Eli and Sophie’s instrumentalization is underscored by the phrase “cut from puppet strings” (2004, 84), when Pauline finally allows them to stop. Pauline therefore maintains the control over her sexuality here as well, albeit in an insidious and perverse manner. She consciously withdraws from the masculine world of female erotization, where she has no place due to the constitutive male gaze, and affirms her own agency – Pauline is a subject with desires rather than an object of desire. Pauline’s deception breaks off the relationship between fleur and Eli. fleur consistently rejects Eli’s apologies, which Van dyke sees as an expression of her sexual power, arguing that by anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 219VarIa ignoring his pleas she is disciplining and keeping him in check (1999, 133). however, any agency she might appear to muster is grievously undermined, even trivialized, in the same manner as at the beginning of the novel. Eli receives advice from Nanapush on how to work himself back into fleur’s good graces, which is what finally happens. fleur is reduced to an object once more, all that is needed for her submission are knowledge and cunning. Though both fleur and Pauline are presented as the abject, their position in the realm of sexual objectification is different. The seemingly empowered fleur is firmly planted in the framework of male domination and sexual gaze, while Pauline takes up a position beyond it. Yet Pauline’s empowerment is only temporary, since in her desire to fit in during a time of inexorable social transformation she willingly and wholeheartedly submits to the patriarchal gaze of religion. her body becomes a key site of colonial dominion, which seeks in various ways and through various means to subjugate, assimilate, and even wipe out the Native community. If fleur mounts an open assault on the forces of colonialism and patriarchy, Pauline acts otherwise. In the desire to empower herself, in part due to her marginalized position in the tribal community, she clings to the colonists’ religion – Christianity. Ironically, Christian monasticism turns away Native women despite the doctrine of love and equality at its core (Erdrich 2004, 138), thereby facilitating white domination and racial segregation. The institutional infantilization of Natives, justified by the Christian notion that they are in need of help and enlightenment, caused the traditional tribal systems to disintegrate and thus played a part in the colonial enterprise. Pauline understands well that Christian equality is underpinned by whiteness and takes her fanaticism to a radical level of self-loathing, having convinced herself that god revealed to her that she has not a drop of Native blood, despite her looks (Erdrich 2004, 137). That self-denial and transformation are at the core of the Christian calling is also reflected in the practice of assuming a new name upon taking one’s vows. Pauline thus becomes Sister Leopolda. Both names hint at her warped character, Morace points out, “her names suggest her perverted nature, the one a reminder of a misogynist saint (his loathing for women transformed into her self-loathing), the other (from Love Medicine) an echo of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and index of her masochistic (and later sadistic) personality” (1999, 51). Pauline willingly subjects her body to a masochistic version of Christianity in an effort to prove her unshakable faith and at the same time efface all bodily signifiers linking her to the Native people. her attempts to purge her body of unwhiteness through drastic means such as inflicting pain on herself and depriving herself of food instil in her a sense of superiority and she makes it her mission to save the tribal community from the devil that she sees embodied in the lake monster Misshepeshu and indirectly also in fleur. In one of the novel’s neofantastic episodes, Pauline decides to deal with the lake monster once and for all and then enter a convent. She confronts Misshepeshu on the lake shore, using a rosary to strangle the devil, but it turns out to be her ex-lover Napoleon. She feels no remorse, since she is convinced that she destroyed Misshepeshu and with it the Native community on the reservation (which Erdrich’s subsequent novels disprove). Pauline is no doubt a controversial character, at once characterized as “death’s bony whore” (Erdrich 2004, 86) and a saint (2004, 164). her body and actions recall the violence of Christianization, which brings about destruction and death under the pretence of love and egalitarianism. Pauline’s abused and tortured body becomes a living reminder of the institutional indoctrination, which was one of the primary mechanisms of colonization and the deliberate near eradication of Native americans. anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 220 4 Conclusion In Tracks Louise Erdrich portrays with sensitive precision the inexorable disintegration of the Native community driven by the imperialist forces of capitalism and patriarchy. The complexity of social change that violently inscribes itself upon the female body and circumscribes her agency in the community is articulated through fleur and Pauline, who are less opposites of each other than strugglers against the same forces that push them into a marginalized and silenced position. They both dwell in a liminal social space, the margins, the abject. as the “midwife of death” Pauline keeps crossing into the realm of the dead, while fleur enters a mythical space through the lake monster Misshepeshu. Enhanced through the use of magical realism, their animality and monstrosity function as a clever trope that makes us recognize a liminal femininity trapped in a social order that sought to violently subjugate it. Unfortunately, the struggle against social inequality and white domination in some instances turns into a reaffirmation of hegemonic masculinity, patriarchy, and colonization. The collective enforcing of gender inequality in some parts of the text takes its toll, and the subversive potential occasionally turns out to be a non-transcended binarism. References adams, Jenni. 2011. Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. allen, Paula gunn. 1992. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press. Bhabha, homi K. 1990. “Introduction: Narrating the Nation.” In Nation and Narration, edited by homi K. Bhabha, 1–7. London: routledge. Bowers, Maggie ann. 2004. Magic(al) Realism. London: routledge. Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. 2019. “dawes general allotment act.” Encyclopedia Britannica, december 4, 2019. https://www.britannica.com/topic/dawes-general-allotment-act. Brogan, Kathleen. 1998. Cultural Haunting: Ghosts and Ethnicity in Recent American Literature. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia. Chang, david a. 2010. The Color of the Land: Race, Nation, and the Politics of Landownership in Oklahoma, 1832–1929. Chapel hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Cornell, daniel. 1992. “Woman Looking: revis(ion)ing Pauline’s Subject Position in Louise Erdrich’s Tracks.” Studies in American Indian Literatures 4 (1): 49–64. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20736583. Erdrich, Louise. 2004. Tracks. 1988. New York: harper Perennial. faris, Wendy B. 2004. Ordinary Enchantments. Magical Realism and the Remystification of Narrative. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. hegerfeldt, anne C. 2002. “Contentious Contributions: Magic realism goes British.” Janus Head 5 (2): 62–86. —. 2005. Lies that Tell the Truth. Magic Realism Seen through Contemporary Fiction from Britain. amsterdam: rodopi B.V. Kristeva, Julia. 1982. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. translated by Leon S. roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. Morace, robert a. 1999. “from Sacred hoops to Bingo Palaces: Louise Erdrich’s Carnivalesque fiction.” In The Chippewa Landscape of Louise Erdrich, edited by allan Chavkin, 36–66. tuscaloosa: The University of alabama Press. reeds, Kenneth S. 2013. What is Magical Realism? An Explanation of a Literary Style. Lewiston: The Edwin Mellen Press. rosenthal, Caroline. 2003. Narrative Deconstructions of Gender in Works by Audrey Thomas, Daphne Merlatt, and Louise Erdrich. rochester: Camden house. anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks 221VarIa Slemon, Stephen. 1995. “Magic realism as Postcolonial discourse.” In Magical Realism, edited by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. faris, 407–26. durham: duke University Press. Smith, Jeanne rosier. 1997. Writing Tricksters: Mythic Gambols in American Ethic Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Van dyke, annette. 1999. “of Vision Quests and Spirit guardians: female Power in the Novels of Louise Erdrich.” In The Chippewa Landscape of Louise Erdrich, edited by allan Chavkin, 130–43. tuscaloosa: The University of alabama Press. Vombek, Jasna. 2004. “Lucidni labirinti iskanja indijanske identitete. Louise Erdrich v luči magičnega realizma.” Dialogi 40 (7): 42–72. anja Mrak Liminal Femininity: Magical Realism and the Abject in Louise Erdrich’s tracks List of Contributors 225 Fatmah Al Thobaiti taif University, Saudi arabia althebaiti.f.a@hotmail.com Adela Böhmerová University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius in trnava, Slovakia department of British and american Studies, faculty of arts adela.bohmerova@ucm.sk Gabriela Brůhová Charles University, Czech republic gabriela.bruhova@ff.cuni.cz Jiřina Dunková University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech republic jirinadunkova@gmail.com Tomáš Gráf Charles University, Czech republic tomas.graf@ff.cuni.cz Monika Kavalir University of Ljubljana, Slovenia monika.kavalir@ff.uni-lj.si Mark Richard Lauersdorf University of Kentucky, USa lauersdorf@uky.edu Eva Maria Luef Charles University, Czech republic evamaria.luef@ff.cuni.cz Markéta Malá Charles University, Czech republic marketa.mala@pedf.cuni.cz Anja Mrak University of Ljubljana, Slovenia anja.mrak@ff.uni-lj.si Martin Ološtiak University of Prešov, Slovakia martin.olostiak@unipo.sk Ina Poteko University of Ljubljana, Slovenia ina.poteko@ff.uni-lj.si Veronika Quinn Novotná University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech republic quinnnov@kaj.zcu.cz Pia Resnik University College of teacher Education Vienna/Krems, austria pia.resnik@kphvie.ac.at Soňa Rešovská University of Prešov, Slovakia sona.resovska@unipo.sk Magdalena Smoleń-Wawrzusiszyn The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland lumina@kul.pl Nada Šabec University of Maribor, Slovenia nada.sabec@um.si Kateřina Vašků Charles University, Czech republic katerina.vasku@ff.cuni.cz LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS ELOPE English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries ELoPE publishes original research articles, studies and essays that address matters pertaining to the English language, literature, teaching and translation. 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ELOPE Vol. 19, No. 2 (2022) Journal Editors Smiljana Komar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Mojca Krevel, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Guest Editors Mark richard Lauersdorf (University of Kentucky, USa) Monika Kavalir (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) Editorial Board Lisa Botshon, University of Maine at augusta, United States of america; Biljana Čubrović, University of Belgrade, Serbia; Michael devine, acadia University, Canada; dušan gabrovšek, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; Michelle gadpaille, University of Maribor, Slovenia; Meta grosman, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; allan James, University of Klagenfurt, austria; Victor Kennedy, University of Maribor, Slovenia; Bernhard Kettemann, University of graz, austria; alberto Lázaro, University of alcalá de henares, Spain; J. Lachlan Mackenzie, VU University amsterdam, Netherlands; tomaž onič, University of Maribor, Slovenia; roger d. Sell, Åbo akademi University, finland; andrej Stopar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; rick Van Noy, radford University, United States of america; terri-ann White, University of Western australia, australia Editorial Secretary gašper Ilc, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Technical Editor andrej Stopar, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia Proofreading Paul Steed Editorial Policy ELOPE: English Language Overseas Perspectives and Enquiries is a double-blind, peer- reviewed academic journal that publishes original research articles, studies and essays that address matters pertaining to the English language, literature, teaching and translation. The journal promotes the discussion of linguistic and literary issues from theoretical and applied perspectives regardless of school of thought or methodology. Covering a wide range of issues and concerns, ELoPE aims to investigate and highlight the themes explored by contemporary scholars in the diverse fields of English studies. 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Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) Kristina Pegan Vičič Journal Design gašper Mrak Cover Marjan Pogačnik: Zimsko cvetje, 1994 7.6 x 10.0 cm; colour etching, deep relief owner: National gallery, Ljubljana, Photo: Bojan Salaj, National gallery, Ljubljana Printed by Birografika Bori Number of Copies 110 https://doi.org/10.4312/elope.19.2 online ISSN: 2386-0316 Print ISSN: 1581-8918 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.