Using English Borrowings in Modern Ukrainian Advertising

Abstract

Due to globalization, the Ukrainian language is aggressively bombarded with internationalisms and foreign borrowings. Currently, anglicisms are being actively introduced. With a shift to market economy, advertising has turned into an important factor of social developments and recent trends. Thus, the study of English borrowings in Ukrainian marketing is essential. The paper reviews the theoretical concepts of anglicisms, the history of borrowings and the current situation. First, the paper analyzes EFFIE Awards 2020 nominees in order to specify whether advertisements containing anglicisms are generally accepted and nominated for the Grand Prix categories. Next, the research focus is defined as two domains: technology and construction, where ad campaigns, names and advertisements are analyzed. Along the way, the reasons for English borrowings in each case are studied. The research results prove that in the technological domain, anglicisms are used in the original and as transliterations. They mostly denote new concepts with no Ukrainian equivalents and are easy to understand (except technical terms and abbreviations). However, the analysis of anglicisms in construction, particularly the names of apartment complexes in the biggest cities of Ukraine, proves that they have Ukrainian equivalents and introduce no new realia. Moreover, luxurious and expensive apartments tend to use anglicisms more often than economy class apartments. This means that English borrowings are used solely to make offers and products stand out as the concept of foreignness is supposed to attract attention implying prestige, better quality and stature of owners. Here five categories of borrowings are highlighted: 1) in the original graphical form, 2) in the Cyrillic script, 3) hybrids, 4) transliterations, 5) anglicisms with spelling errors. The conclusion is made that anglicisms in technology are used to fill in the lexical gaps of Ukrainian, while in construction, they are mostly excessive, introducing no new concepts.