The terminological lexicon of sports: The influence of English on the Albanian language
The terminological lexicon of sports: The influence of English on the Albanian language

Summary/Abstract: The influence of English on Albanian sports terminology is notably significant, especially in internationally popular team sports like football, basketball, volleyball, and tennis. This impact manifests in both the form and conceptual content of the terms, known as Anglicisms, in the classification nomenclature relevant to these sports disciplines, which have penetrated in the same way as in the source language. Likewise, many lexical elements associated with these sports have also integrated into the structure of the respective sports. These Anglicisms, along with their original lexical equivalents, have often formed synonymous pairs during their adaptation process in Albanian, adhering to its unique laws and word-formation phenomena. This occurs particularly through the creation of single-word or multi-word phrases, mainly two-part phrases derived from the everyday Albanian lexicon stock or other areas of knowledge. Questions emerging from this study are: What place do Anglicisms occupy in the sports terminology in the Albanian language? To what extent has de-anglicisation occurred in sports terminology in Albanian (i.e., regarding the official status of popular terms or colloquial expressions and the replacement of Anglicisms with everyday usage)? The coining of synonymous terms serves as an indicator of the lexical-conceptual and conceptual-structural wealth of languages, including Albanian, and is relevant to linguistic policy-making, particularly regarding typologies of term formation. This is linked to the typological classifications of most popular sports disciplines in Albania, which will be presented in this study in the form of lexical corpora. For instance, we will analyse direct borrowings from the source language to their equivalents in Albanian, such as words ending in -boll (–“ball”), such as futboll, basketboll, volejboll, and bejsboll, which represent full lexical-conceptual borrowings. Other examples include boks (“box”), kros (“cross”) and motokros (“motocross”), tenis (“tennis”), hokei (“hockey”), derbi (“derby”) etc. The typology of one-word and multiword phrases is one central focus in this study (e.g., mesfushor – “midfielder”; mbrojtës – “defender”; ndeshja e kthimit – “return match”; zona e penalltisë – “penalty area”; koha shtesë - “added time”; koha extra –“extra time” etc.). Besides, the process of de-anglicisation through lexical equivalents from folk or everyday discourse in the receiving language is examined, with examples such as portier – Eng. “goalkeeper,” anësor – “winger,” etc. In this study, we will also look into the development of sports terminology through terminological corpora, including approximately 100 to 200 lexical units from several sports disciplines, team sports, ball and other games. We will focus on the transfer of lexical-conceptual form-content of terms (Anglicisms) to their Albanian equivalents, such as complete borrowings and de-anglicisms with equivalents in the receiving language, as well as hybrid formations related to lexical composites or syntagms.

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