Loan translation vs. structural change in Estonian blogs and vlogs


Thematic Section: The connections between loan translation and contact-induced change: mapping a grey area

language contacts, contact-induced language change, loan translations, structural change, lexical change

Helin Kask, Tallinn University
 
The presentation focuses on the ratio of loan translations and structural changes in Estonian fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogs and vlogs. Mostly, loan translations are prevalent in my data. These are idioms and fixed expressions with figurative meaning that are used to seek innovative and colorful language use. These are word-for-word renditions from English like minu vabandused ‘my apologies’ (instead of ma vabandan ‘I apology’) and semantic extensions like ma armastan kohvi ‘I love coffee’ (instead of mulle meeldib kohv ‘I like coffee’).
In my data, examples of structural change appear rather in blogs than in vlogs. However, these changes are not specific to blogs and vlogs, but they are conventionalized in Estonian. These changes include copying the passive construction something is done by someone (teh-tud minu poolt (do-PST.PTCP me:GEN) instead of minu tehtud ‘done by me’ (me:GEN do-PST.PTCP)) and have-construction (ma oma-n salli ‘I have a scarf’ (I have-1SG scarf:PART) instead of mu-l on sall (me-ADE be:3SG scarf)). There are also examples of using Estonian progressive mas-construction as an equivalent to English present progressive tense (olen lugemas ‘I am reading’ instead of loen ‘I read’).
As combinational properties and grammatical meanings are abstract and require more cognitive effort and time for conventionalization, it is not surprising that in my data loan translations prevail.
The data comes from Estonian fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogs and vlogs. All together 750 blog posts (275,263 words) from 45 bloggers and 36 videos in total of 6 hours 54 minutes 51 seconds of footage (approximately 48,000 words) from 6 vloggers were analyzed.

Verschik, Anna and Kask, Helin 2019. English-Estonian code-copying: Comparing blogs and vlogs. In Antje Quick and Anna Verschik (eds.). Applied Linguistics Review. 1−29. De Gruyter Mouton.