Anglicisms in the German Business Press- a Corpus-based Study

The debate about the use of Anglicisms in German during the past decade has focused primarily on general language use, whereas languages for specific purposes (with the exception of advertising) have not come under similar scrutiny. The study presented in this book focuses exclusively on the English lexical influence on German business language over time and across different text types. Randomly selected articles (cover stories, editorials, and letters to the editor) of one of Germany's major business magazines, Wirtschaftswoche, serve as the corpus of this study. The author describes and analyzes the use of Anglicisms in this business weekly over a period of 30 years and answers questions such as the following: 4 Is there empirical evidence for an increasing use of Anglicisms in German business language appearing in print media? 5 Are there significant differences in the use of Anglicisms in the selected genres, and do professional journalists and readers differ in their use of these loanwords? 6 Do opinion-centered articles differ from fact-centered articles in the use of English loanwords? 7 Which Anglicisms are used most often? This book should be of interest not only to scholars in the fields of linguistics and language teaching, but also to the general reader interested in Anglo- American influences on German language (and culture), and English loanwords in particular.