Digging for -ings: A Survey of Selected (Pseudo)-Anglicisms in Dictionaries of Modern Greek

Abstract

Anglicisms, a type of lexical borrowing, occur when a language incorporates English lexical items into its vocabulary, either verbatim or transliterated. Pseudo-Anglicisms are also notable; these appear English due to their form but are not genuinely English. This paper examines the inclusion and treatment of Anglicisms and pseudo-Anglicisms in Modern Greek dictionaries, focusing on nouns that end in -ing, a suffix typical of English morphology. The methodology involves a macrostructural comparison of five Greek dictionaries to assess their inclusiveness in addressing this phenomenon. The microstructural analysis investigates the presence of Greek equivalents within the dictionaries. Findings are cross-checked against a corpus to determine which alternatives Greek native speakers are more familiar with. Additionally, the research explores elements such as the domains, and styles of the identified lexical items to reveal trends in their coinage and usage. Keywords: neology, neologisms, Anglicisms, pseudo-Anglicisms, lexical borrowing, Greek lexicography, Greek dictionaries, critical lexicography