Sociolinguistic Aspects of Word Borrowing.

This paper attempts a sociolinguistic analysis of word-borrowing as one evidence of interaction between cultures, with particular reference to English-Japanese interaction. The paper discusses circumstances under which word-borrowing takes place; agents, reasons, and methods relating to word-borrowing; what words are borrowed; and the extent to which borrowed words can be used. The underlying notion is that word-borrowing is not simply a linguistic phenomenon but a cultural behavior which reflects psychological and social aspects of the interacting cultures. (AM)