THE INVASION OF ENGLISH IN SPORTS TERMINOLOGY

Abstract

This article is an attempt in the field of comparative lexicology. Observations have been made on basic basketball terms in Bulgarian and Romanian. The analysis of these terms in both languages has revealed clearly expressed trends of internationalization and increase in the use of their English equivalents. The author formulates a hypothesis about the reasons that may have led to these results.
Attention has been paid to the stylistic differentiation in the Bulgarian and Romanian languages, namely the domination of English language terms in informal situations in contrast to the greater persistence of native tongue expressions in the sport administrative style. Thus, the speech of basketball players and coaches, who are Bulgarian and Romanian native speakers, becomes markedly diglossic, if we adopt the terms of sociolinguistics. The final paragraphs of the article draw certain conclusions about the growing prevalence of English language terms and the possible consequences of this process.