1. Contents:
CONTENTS:...................................................................................................................1
1. INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................3
2. LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................5
2.1. Introduction .........................................................................................................................................................5
2.2. The background of loanwords ........................................................................................................................9
2.3. Ways of acquiring loanwords.......................................................................................................................16
2.4. Classification of loanwords ...........................................................................................................................19
2.5. Reasons for using loanwords ........................................................................................................................23
2.6. Consequences of using loanwords...............................................................................................................30
3. RESEARCH DESIGN............................................................................................ 42
3.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................42
3.2. Aims ....................................................................................................................................................................42
3.3. Subjects ..............................................................................................................................................................45
3.3.1. ELLE............................................................................................................................................................46
3.3.2. Twój Styl.....................................................................................................................................................46
3.3.3. Pani...............................................................................................................................................................47
3.4. Research Methods ...........................................................................................................................................48
3.4.1. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods ...................................................................................................48
3.4.2. Procedure.....................................................................................................................................................49
3.5. Summary ...........................................................................................................................................................51
4. FINDINGS OF THE RESEARCH........................................................................ 52
4.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................52
4.2. Report on the Findings of the Sample Analysis ......................................................................................52
4.3. Conclusion .........................................................................................................................................................64
5. DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS...................................................................... 65
5.1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................65
5.2. Sample Analysis...............................................................................................................................................65

2. 2
5.3 Conclusion ..........................................................................................................................................................75
6. CONCLUSION........................................................................................................ 78
APPENDIX A: ENGLISH LOANWORDS IDENTIFIED IN POLISH ELLE....... 80
APPENDIX B: ENGLISH LOANWORDS IDENTIFIED IN TWOJ STYL .......... 86
APPENDIX C: ENGLISH LOANWORDS IDENTIFIED IN PANI........................ 90
BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................ 94

3. 3
1. Introduction
Change is a chronic condition that all languages suffer from (Deutscher,
2006, p.58). The Polish language is no different. In particular during the
last five decades, Polish experienced a huge influx of English loanwords
which increased in number year by year until it reached 5000 items in 2010
(Manczak-Wohfeld, 2010). A phenomenon of such scale could not go
unnoticed. Words like laptop, camera, show-business or golf entered Polish
for good. They are used in everyday speech; they have been assimilated
into the Polish grammatical, phonological, and phonetic system. As a native
speaker of the Polish language living and studying English in the United
Kingdom I felt that the process of borrowing from English into my mother
tongue was the topic I should focus on. The choice of the sample I examine
in my research project is not accidental either. As a woman I tend to spend
my free time reading colourful magazines about fashion, beauty, lifestyle,
etc. It struck me that many English loanwords were present in the articles
themselves. My own leisure pursuits motivated me to explore the
phenomenon of borrowing from English into Polish in a more systematic
way through a research project on this topic. I chose a sample of 15
women’s magazines: 5 issues of 3 different magazines. They focus on a
wide audience and are the most popular and respected ones on the Polish
market.
The aims of my research have been formulated in the form of five questions
outlined in chapter three. By means of answering these questions I aim to
find out what part of speech dominates the English loanwords, what the

4. 4
level of their assimilation is, what categories they can be classified into,
how many loans have retained their original pronunciation, and how many
English loans are able to be replaced by Polish equivalents? Secondly, I aim
to examine the lexical fields into which the loans I have identified can be
classified. I intend to compare my findings to those of previous research on
borrowing and draw my own conclusions as to how Polish is coping with the
significant influx of English loanwords.
The first chapter of my dissertation provides a review of the previous work
describing linguistic theories about borrowing. It focuses on the background
of borrowing, different ways of loaning foreign words, classification, reasons
for borrowing and, finally, the consequences of using English loanwords by
Polish speakers. The third chapter presents research design- the steps I
have taken in order to carry out the research as well as the goals that I
hope to achieve. It focuses on research questions, methods and the
procedure. Chapter four presents the findings of the research in the form of
tables. It shows the findings from three different magazines as well as the
sample as a whole. The following chapter, chapter five, focuses on an
analysis of the findings and compares this with previous findings from
earlier studies on the topic which are reviewed in chapter two. The final
chapter summarises the findings of my research project.

5. 5
2. Literature review
2.1. Introduction
I decided to focus on this topic – English loanwords in Polish women’s
magazines- since I was surprised at how many English words and
grammatical structures are present in the Polish press, especially in
women’s magazines. Whatever magazine I chose to read it seems
impossible not to find several English loans present in each article. Is this
phenomenon caused by globalization, fashion, cultural influence or trade
relations? It may well be a mixture of all of them. The reasons for
borrowing are discussed further in this chapter. The history of Polish-
English political and trade relations taught us that borrowing is a consistent
and inevitable process that began as early as in the 16th
century. In my
work, which focuses on a sample of the most popular and respected
women’s magazines in Poland, I identify, analyse and draw conclusions as
to why the Polish decide to introduce foreign vocabulary, when describing
the technical novelties, talking about sport or lifestyle, instead of using
their own. As far as the sample is concerned, it consists of 15 magazines:
five issues of three different titles of women’s magazines which cover the
period of August-December 2010: Elle, Twoj Styl (Your Style) and Pani
(Lady). The sample is recent and varied as far as the age of target readers
is concerned in order to make my investigation more thorough and
represent the interest of a wide audience. There are two reasons for
choosing these particular titles. First, they are the best selling, most
popular and most respected ones on the Polish market. The number of

6. 6
sales and subscriptions proves that. Secondly, they are the titles that I read
myself on a regular basis. Therefore, my interest in English borrowings
comes about not only because I am a language student, but also because
as a reader of the Polish press I noticed a large amount of foreign words
that coming into the language mainly within the last two decades. The scale
of the phenomenon of borrowing from English has become strikingly visible
and determined my choice of topic for the MA dissertation.
In order to carry my research out I collected the magazines published
between August and December 2010 and started investigating them. Whilst
carefully reading all the texts I marked the English loans that I identified
and created a list of all the different cases and described them: these are
added to my dissertation as appendices. Also, in order to compare my
research with previous work on the topic I developed research questions
and checked the lexical fields that the identified loans belong to.
My research questions focus on the loans I will identify in a chosen sample
of the Polish language which focuses on fashion, lifestyle, beauty, wellbeing
as culture; in other words it focuses on everyday life areas. I intend to
answer five questions:
 What part of speech dominates the English loanwords?
 What is the level of their assimilation?
 What categories can they be classified into?
 How many loans retained their original pronunciation?
 How many English loans can be replaced by Polish equivalents?

7. 7
These questions were established in order to examine how English
loanwords behave in the Polish language environment. I am interested not
only in the number of English borrowings but also how they are assimilated
into Polish as well as how they affect the unconscious choice of words made
by a Polish speaker. Nevertheless, first I review the previous research
conducted by Polish linguists on the subject of borrowing from English.
The growing scale of this phenomenon from 1564 to 2004 is presented by
Szostak (2005) in a small yet significant table below.
This axis of time starts in 1564 and ends in 2004. It covers six centuries
and does not present the most recent rates of development of the
phenomenon of borrowing from English to Polish. As one can read form this
axis, during 450 years Polish was enriched by 2000 English loanwords.
However, the process started really in the early 19th
century and became

8. 8
more dynamic before the middle of the 20th
century. Nevertheless, it was
the 1970s when the number of English loanwords in Polish grew even more
rapidly, from 721 around 1970 to 2000 by 2004- it is more than a 170%
increase withing 34 years. It is the technical development and history of
western and central European countries that have dictated the
circumstances for cultural and trade contact between England and Poland
since the beginning of the process.
By 2010, on the other hand, it is apparent that the number has increased
significantly in just 6 years. The latest dictionary of English loanwords in
the Polish language describes over 5000 items (Manczak-Wohfeld, 2010).
Will the situation go so far that our native language will sound like this in
couple of years: ‘Looknij sobie na ten tekst, jak masz brejka w pracy albo
dzień offa. Ale bądź na stendbaju, bo połapać się w anglopolskim to niezły
czelendż’ (which translates as: Have a look at this text when you have a
break at work or a day off. But be on standby because to know what Anglo-
Polish is about is a great challenge.) (Newsweek, 16/2008, p.90)? To
clarify, in this short Polish sentence one can notice as many as six loans
from English: looknij – look, tekst – text, berjk – break, dzień off – day off,
stendbaj – standby, czelendż – challenge. Moreover, this example also
shows how English words are altered by the grammatical, phonetical and
spelling rules of the Polish language when they enter it. This will be
described in detail further in this chapter.
In the following chapter I focus on my own research which follows the
issues presented in this chapter, like the categories of loanwords. In order
to carry out the research I analyse a sample of Polish language – a group of

9. 9
15 women’s magazines that were chosen according to their reputation and
popularity. I use a quantitative method in order to answer the five research
questions described earlier in this chapter, as well as qualitative methods to
draw conculsions and analyse the lexical fields that are represented by the
identified loans.
2.2. The background of loanwords
First and foremost, borrowings have become more widespread since the
increase of cultural, trade, and political contact between the English and
Polish nations. As far as Polish-English contacts of this nature are
concerned, such relations began in the 16th
century and continue till the
present day with an increased rate of exchange due to the fact that,
primarily both countries now belong to the European Union, and so trade
between them and acess is more dynamic. Inevitably, the meeting of the
two nations led to linguistic interactions, and the net of linguistic
connections is extraordinarily complicated and sophisticated as people are
in constant and more intensive contact. The observable fact of lexical
change in Polish caused by English borrowings was first described by
Koneczna (1937, p.22-28) in her study on loanwords in written Polish. She
focused on identifying the lexical fields into which the 531 loans she
identified in the 1930s could be classified. She stated that these were
mainly the field of sport and the navy. Over half a century later, Fisiak
(1986, p. 8) agreed with her but he added new groups: culture, lifestyle
and business vocabulary. They both built up the field of English borrowings

10. 10
in Polish from the 1930s to the 1980s and predicted that the number of
loans by the end of the 20th
century would reach 2000. Koneczna’s and
Fisiak’s work was only the introduction to more substantial studies
conducted by current linguists like Manczak–Wohlfeld. Also, my dissertation
makes a contribution to these studies; I investigate what lexical fields are
most popular in my sample.
Second, to start discussing loanwords one has to know what they are.
According to the definition presented by Fromkin and Rodman (1993,
p.332), a borrowing is a word or morpheme which comes from another
language but exists in the lexicon of the target language and functions
according to its rules. A similar definition is presented by Yule (1985, p.52)
who claims that borrowing is a process of copying words and phrases from
one language to another. These linguistic approaches and the level of
specification may be different but it does not change the fact that
loanwords can be named, justified, classified and the ways of acquiring
them can be clearly stated.
Alongside borrowings one can also observe the phenomenon of the
existence of international words, that is, words usually from the classical
languages Latin and Greek, like philosophy or geometry, which have been
borrowed by many European vernacular languages (for example the ones
that developed out of the classical languages). However, today it is English
more than any other language that enriches all languages all over the world
and functions as one of the preeminent international languages. The fact
that English words are more frequently used by the Poles than any other
language is the crucial factor motivating me to conduct my research. The

11. 11
reason why I focus on the English language is not only the great number of
loans but also the fact that I am an English speaking student conducting
my research at a British university hence it makes more sense to focus on
English rather than Spanish or French. It could not go unnoticed that Polish
started to be ‘invaded’ by English loanwords like laptop, football or unisex.
The process of acquiring English internationalisms by Polish language users
caused a significant change in the vocabulary that they are using at
present. In some cases the internationalism would be used more frequently
than a native equivalent, as in the case of basketball and pilka koszykowa
in Polish.
Another term, Anglicism, which can be used to describe an English
borrowing in Polish is explained by Manczak – Wohfeld (2010, p.10); she
states that an Anglicism is a word which can be described as possessing an
English phonetics and morphology. This word also migrated from English to
Polish, even though its origins are based in, for example, Latin or Greek. In
other words, only the very last source of linguistic contact is taken into
consideration when a loan is assessed.
Rybicka (1976, p.5-35) claims that it is widely known that the changing
nature of certain languages is the outcome of constant contact between
nations. The result of this perpetual contact, which is an increasing number
of English borrowings in Polish, motivated me to carry out a research on
the number and features of English loanwords I could identify in a sample
of the present form of the Polish language. The histories of different nations
provide us with proof of trade, cultural and geographical circumstances
which caused the contact between languages. According to Rybicka’s study,

12. 12
it is the more developed nation that influences the less developed nation
linguistically. The reason for this is that the more developed nation is easier
to follow as an example since it is more influential culturally as far as
education, history and the level of social life organisation are concerned.
However, this theory might be flawed due to the fact that it focuses on a
one-way influence. Acquiring foreign expressions is not always a conscious
act, but is determined by external conditions such as politics and trade. At
a very early stage of the development of the Polish language a major
influence came not only from Czech, but also from German.
Rybicka (1976, p.5-35) also mentions the beginning of serious borrowing
from English into Polish which took place after 1945. The number of English
borrowings in Polish doubled between the 1930s and 1980s, as stated by
Fisiak (1986, p.10). Rybicka agrees that the 20th
century is the time when,
due to trade, politics and the navy, English loanwords entered the Polish
language in great numbers. At the very beginning of the 1900s those were
mainly words concerned with the language of sports. After World War II we
also borrowed scientific terms, especially the ones used in production
processes. Examples are: radio, radar, laser, flesz (flesh), stres (stress),
frustracja (frustration), relaks (relax), strukturalizm (structuralism), and
also terms connected with culture, e.g. longplay, western. Further more,
English words have eliminated earlier French borrowings, like bojler (boiler)
instead of bulier. As mentioned before, the Polish language uses a
significant number of sporting terms, thanks to English which were
introduced at a time when Poles started practising sports not known before.
Doping (doping), finisz (finish), record (record), start, trening (training),
aut (out), drybling (dribbling), korner (corner), and gol (goal) are only

13. 13
some examples of this phenomenon. Even the very names of sports
themselves come from English: golf, tenis, futbol (football), ping-pong,
badminton. To summarise, understanding the order in which English
loanwords came into Polish and their origin is crucial to my project as I
focus on lexical fields and their relationship with i.e. the process of
retaining the original pronunciation. For example, it is a fact that sports like
cricket, rugby, golf were invented in England so they possess English
names, and it is natural not to alter them.
However, in the late 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st
century some
English words were replaced by Polish equivalents under the pressure of
language purists like Jan Miodek, who clearly expressed their opinion by
means of publications as well as in discussions in the Polish National Radio
and Television. These institutions are obliged to use Polish correctly as they
are controlled by The Polish Language Board. Hence, futbol (football) was
replaced with piłka nożna, ping-pong- tenis stołowy, and badminton with
kometka. As Miodek states (2005, p. 3), in the 17th
century it was
Kochanowski, while today it is he who fights for keeping Polish pure and
free from foreign borrowings. The latter is constantly criticising the Polish
press for using loanwords that could be replaced with Polish equivalents. He
believes that it is crucial to avoid acquiring English words in order to
maintain a stronger national identity (Miodek, 2007, p.29). In my research
I attempt to find out how many English loans found in the sample can be
replaced by Polish equivalents in order to challenge the language purists’
point of view. I assume that most of the English loanwords cannot be
replaced by Polish equivalents. I do not agree that not keeping the
language pure in the era of globalisation and unlimited cultural contact can

14. 14
threaten the national identity of the Polish. The reason for that is the fact
that the circumstances are different – there is no threat of losing the
country’s independence. The borrowing is natural at present – not forced
upon the Poles by an occupier as was the case two centuries ago when
Poland faced partition by Germany, Austria and Russia.
To summarise the historical context in which borrowings are made, it is
interesting to look at Klemensiewicz’s (1969, p. 26) view which is a
convincing yet outdated counterargument to Rybicka’s theory of perpetual
cultural contact. I agree with Klemensiewicz’s statement that the Polish
language came to terms with borrowing words by accepting the fact that it
is inevitable. Borrowings are the result of cultural and civilization
relationships, especially among European nations. Neologisms consisting of
Latin and Greek origin have a strong impact on scientific, technical, and
even industrial terminology, which makes it easier to communicate thanks
to their lack of ambiguity. Nevertheless, he also adds that introducing
Polish equivalents by force makes utterances less valuable, and nobody
who understands the function of language would recommend it
(Klemensiewicz, p. 27). In my opinion, the increasing number of English
loans in Polish is the best proof of the inevitability of the process of
borrowing from English into Polish.
Half a century later Miodek (2005, p.38) argues that the Polish language
speakers are still not comfortable with the increasing number loanwords
that try to make their way into it. The proof, he claims, is in the fact that
the Polish still struggle with applying their grammatical rules to borrowings,
and, for example, are confused when it comes to inflecting them according

15. 15
to the Polish inflectional system. Of course he agrees that the process of
assimilation of English loanwords in Polish has not been completed in 80%
of those cases, yet he encourages the speakers of Polish to use the Polish
equivalents as often as possible. This noteworthy argument is the basis for
one of my research questions in this dissertation: how many loans can be
easily replaced with their native equivalents and still convey the same
meaning. I think that one should treat the process of borrowing as a
natural linguistic one that cannot be avoided for compelling reasons, for
example, globalisation and the fact that borrowing is not always conscious
and, on the other hand, determined by fashion. Also, the increasing
number of loanwords is a proof of the fact that the process is developing
quickly, which is one of the resons why I decided to focus on this
phenomenon in my dissertation.
Grybosiowa (2009, p.17) presents an opposite point of view. As a respected
Polish linguist she claims that the process of borrowing from English should
not be seen as a threat but as an inevitable process of internationalisation.
Also, in relation to the increasing number of English borrowings in Polish,
she is suggesting that one cannot stop the tide of change.
I agree that the process of borrowing from English into Polish cannot be
avoided. As a native speaker of Polish and a language student I have been
observing this phenomenon for the last few years. I agree with Grybosiowa,
however, Miodek’s opinion made my research more searching since it
challenges me as a Polish speaker to actually analyse what words people
like me are using, both consciously and uncounsciously. In my project I

16. 16
also confirm the inevitability of the process of borrowing by showing that
the number of English loans identified in my sample is significantly large.
2.3. Ways of acquiringloanwords
It is indubitable that loan words came into the Polish language by means of
social, cultural, trade and other forms of contact between the two nations,
so that the ways of acquiring new words varied according to the ways of
contact. The main division may be made between auditory-visual, direct-
indirect, and natural-artificial. Let us discuss them one by one according to
Rybicka’s (1976, p.39-55) theory of acquiring foreign words. Rybicka’s
research on the ways of acquiring English loanwords is the basis for any
Polish linguist studying this area as she was the first one to investigate in
detail how borrowing from English to Polish occured.
Rybicka’s work is crucial to my dissertation since I use it in order to answer
one of my research questions- in what cases is the pronunciation retained?
There is a relationship between altering the original pronunciation and the
visual way of acquiring loanwords; ‘visual’ loans (i.e. terms that came into
the Polish language by means of writing by contrast to auditory terms that
were acquired through vebal exchanges) are often pronounced by Polish
speakers in the way they would say them with no knowledge of the rules of
English phonology. For example, laser is pronounced as [’laser] instead of
[’leɪzər].

17. 17
The difference between auditory and visual loans is that the former were
acquired through the auditory channel by direct intercourse, whereas the
latter came into the Polish language by means of writing.
An interesting phenomenon is the group of English plural nouns (ending in
–s) which came into Polish as singular nouns even though they all end in
final –s, which in English suggests the plural form, for example fotos
(photos), drops, keks (cakes), komandos (comandos), komiks (comics),
klips (clips), jankes (Yankees). As Rybicka claims, this is due to the fact
that those words were usually used in their plural forms morphologically in
both Polish and English. For example, if one speaks of drops, meaning little
round sweets, he or she will hardly ever speak of only one drop as opposed
to a bag of drops. Simultaneously, a group of auditory borrowings is also
easily distinguished. Words like big-beat, jazz, jeep, longplay, lunch,
spleen, weekend are pronounced according to the rules of English
phonetics. However, there are also some English borrowings whose
pronunciation is based on spelling, and these led to Polish words like
detergent, laser, nylon, kowboj (cowboy). Even though the spelling of the
first three is the same as English, their pronunciation is different as
presented in the table on the next page.

18. 18
English Polish
detergent [dɪˈtɜːdʒənt] [de’tergent]
laser [’leɪzər] [’laser]
nylon [’naɪlɒn] [’nɪlon]
There are also some confusing situations since some of the words retain
their original British pronunciation, and some are spoken according to the
way they are written, like the capital city of the USA, Waszyngton, is
pronounced according to its spelling in English, whereas western is always
[`westən] and not [‘vestən] as a Polish speaker may assume. In writing
the most commonly used loan words, according to Rybicka, are hobby,
happy-end, science-fiction and weekend - both the English spelling and the
pronunciation are retained. All varieties are the result of the assimilation
process- Polish speakers tend to change the original articulation to make
the verbalisation of the word sound more like Polish, and therefore, easier
for Poles to articulate.
As Przybylska (2003, p.173) claims, pronunciation and spelling of the
loanword can show how the word was borrowed. Visual borrowing is read
according to the rule of the Polish alphabet, like laser or komputer. Those
two words are read [laser] and [komputer], not [leɪzər
] and [kəmpju:tər
].
Auditory borrowing’s pronunciation is quite similar to the original one.
Remake as a Polish word is still pronounced [rɪmeɪk]

19. 19
A language may borrow a word directly or indirectly. When the borrowing is
direct, it means that the borrowed word is a native one in the language
from which it is borrowed. An indirect borrowing comes from a language
which has borrowed it from another one. For example, the English word
feast was borrowed from French which borrowed it from Latin festum. This
may present us the form of the contact between languages- whether it is
simple, as in the case of direct borrowings, or complex, presenting the
directions from where and to where words can ‘migrate’. The second form
is far more common since Europe has undergone various changes in its
history when the boarders of countries like England and France were
moving for example during Napoleon’s succession of victories.
Natural borrowings come into the language more subtly, in a more
uncounscious manner. Also, they usually keep their original shape. One of
the reasons for the existence of such loanwords is fashion, for example,
when English became fashionable amongst the Polish nobility in the 19th
century, they wanted to separate themselves from the middle class that
had started to use French as a sign of snobbery. Consequently, the upper-
class started to use English words at cultural events, and later in their
every-day speech.
2.4. Classification of loanwords
As a result of linguistic research borrowings have been classified, and this
seems logical since the language itself is divided into different fields such as
semantics, syntax or lexicon. However, there is no general system since

20. 20
every school of linguists may have its own theory concerning qualities that
would make it possible to group certain words together and label them. I
would like to present three of the most widespread and influential
conceptions currently present in the Polish linguistic literature.
According to Markowski’s Nowy Słownik Poprawnej Polszczyzny PWN
(2003) loanwords may be divided into five groups:
1. Proper borrowings- when words are acquired together with their
original meaning, e.g. brydż [brɨʤ] - bridge [brɪʤ], dumping
[dɑmpʲiŋk] - dumping [dʌmpɪŋ], wagon [vɑgɔn] – wagon [wægɔn];
2. Lexical calques- when a word is formed as the foreign one, but by
means of native morphemes, e.g. nadwaga - overweight, wiatrówka
- wind-jacket, narty wodne - water-ski;
3. Phraseological calques- transformation of idioms or idiomatic
expressions into the native language, e.g. zero tolerancji - zero
tolerance, nie ma problemu - no problem;
4. Semantic calques- to transmit new meaning (in accordance with
the meaning conveyed by the word in a foreign language) onto the
native word, e.g. promocja meaning propaganda;

21. 21
5. Syntactic calques- adapting native words to the foreign syntax,
e.g. wydawać się być as analogy to to seem to be.
This specific classification suggests that the English borrowings are no
longer only scientific or sport terms. They have ‘invaded’ Polish language
widely and commonly. Teenagers more often use words like make-up, or
hello instead of makijaż and cześć. This might be an example of what other
linguists claim- they present another additional class of loanwords-
substitutes which cause the native words to disappear and get people
used to foreign alternatives. This classification is the standard one accepted
nationwide and published in the most influential dictionary of Polish used by
linguists and students, as well as ordinary people who hesitate how to use
certain words or phrases. It refers to the earlier period, the end of the 20th
century, when there was around 1800 English loanwords in the Polish
language.
On the other hand, Przybylska (2003, p.172-173) presents the following
division of loanwords, consisting of four categories:
1. Proper borrowings- words acquired together with its original
meaning, e.g. replay, ranking, billboard, pager, dealer, etc.
2. Semantic borrowings- adding to the Polish word an additional
meaning which is characteristic of the foreign equivalent, e.g. pirate

22. 22
is now also a person who illegally uses somebody else’s work without
paying him the royalties, for instance by copying CDs with music
3. Calques- words which at first look sound familiar to us, but when
investigating them closer one may say that they project the structure
of a foreign word, like nie ma sprawy comes from English no matter
4. Artificial borrowings- words formed from foreign morphemes;
most commonly they come from Latin and Greek. Their meaning is
international- understood by many people using different languages.
This classification suggests that Przybylska (2003, p.172-173) focuses on
the form of loanwords- on their pronunciation, and morphology as well as
on their semantics- whether it reflects the original meaning or not.
A more recent publication by Mańczak-Wohfeld (2010, p. 15) presents yet
another classification of loanwords:
1. Exact borrowings – words acquired together with it’s original
meaning, e.g. laptop, spray
2. Calques – expressions that look familiar to native speakers but in
fact are copies of foreign ones, translated word by word, e.g. telefon
komorkowy – cell phone

23. 23
3. Semantic loans – adding another meaning to a word in the process
of borrowing, e.g. ekskluzywny comes from exclusive but also means
‘connected to the higher life standard’ apart from ‘the only one,
incompatible’
All three divisions have certain features in common. They all distinguish
proper borrowing, calques and semantic borrowings. The last division goes
into less detail than the first one by Markowki. Hence in my research I will
follow the classification presented by Markowski because it is the most
refined one, and, in comparison to the other two, focuses on defferent
kinds of calques, which proves it to be of the most value.
2.5. Reasonsfor using loanwords
The Polish nation in the overwelminghly difficult circumstances of two world
wars in the 20th
century fought the Germans and the Russians for its
independence and the possibility of using its native language in schools,
churches, and in the streets. Hence, what made Polish speakers in Poland
stop retaining the language in its pure form? It might be the feeling of
security- we are no longer threatened by possibility of a great war or
occupation. It may also be the feeling of internationalism, of the desire to
be citizens of Europe, or even of the whole world. These reasons change
over time with changing relationships with other nations. Let us have a

24. 24
closer look at different approaches towards the motivation for using
loanwords as presented by the Polish linguists like Szczepanowska (2005),
Doroszewski (1977) and Kurkowska (1978). It is important to know the
resons behind the process of borrowing from English into Polish to
understand why certain native words were replaced by anglicisms.
In her essay Kultura języka polskiego wobec zapożyczeń (The Polish
Language behaviour towards borrowings) (2005), Szczepanowska presents
five main reasons for introducing new, borrowed words into the Polish
language. I would like to present them one by one briefly as it makes it
easier to understand why English loanwords occur in Polish magazines so
often even though Polish equivalents could just as well be used.
Nowadays, in a globalised society, news concerning the latest inventions
and ideas are known throughout half the world within a day or two. Nothing
can stop information from being spread. As this process speeds up it is not
possible to create new words for each subject or idea. Probably that is why
English has become the language of innovation in Poland as well as other
countries.
Words like laptop, email, tuner were introduced relatively recently. At the
turn of the century there was no time to introduce a Polish equivalent to
these words. How long would it take to get people used to using list
elektroniczny or komputer przenośny instead of email or laptop? Before
anyone thought about it, English words were already in common use, not
only in speech but also in writing both formal and informal. Consequently,
the first reason given relates to naming electronic innovations. Since these

25. 25
developments were happening outside Poland, in English speaking
countires, there was no time to ‘invent’ Polish equivalents.
The second reason for borrowing from English is the change in the
organization and recognition of the various generational sub groups in
Polish society. An example is the linguistic recognition by the Polish
language of the social group between the ages of twelve and eighteen.
Each representative of this sub group is called nastolatek, a pattern of
using lexical calques, borrowed from English teenager: nasto-teen, latek-
ager. This social group was not identified by a separate Polish word until
the late 1980’s when a need to classify young people as a separate social
body became urgent. Teenagers were given some sort of cultural freedom
and more independence after the 1989 overturn of the Polish government.
Thanks to Lech Walesa, the leader of Solidarity, Poland became a capitalist
country after over 30 years of communist rules. Moreover, since teenagers
are one of the target groups for women’s magazines published in Poland,
like Glamour, it is inevitable that the editors should use the same
loanwords from English that Polish teenagers use in their everyday speech
and that describe them. Examples here are words like hello, bye, nadwaga
(overweight). Due to the popularity of pop culture teenagers more often
use foreign (i.e. borrowed) words to greet each other, that is, proper
borrowings- words acquired by the target language together with their
original meaning (Markowski, 2003). Examples include hiya, see you.
Nadwaga is an example of lexical calques (nad-over, waga-weight) – words
that transmit new meaning (in accordance with that conveyed by the word
in a foreign language) onto the native word (Markowski, 2003), and
became popular, in this case because of the obesity occurring in Poland

26. 26
amongst teenagers that is called by some specialists civilization the illness
of being overweight.
The third reason for borrowing from English is the fact that Poles use the
widespread international technical lexicon. Examples like laser, polyester,
procesor belong to that lexicon. Those words were acquired by many
languages in order to make it easier to communicate between international
audiences. The pronunciation of a large group of those terms in Polish is
influenced in phonology by their lexical origins in the English language.
Next, another reason for using English loans is the fact that some words
are not translated into Polish as they are exotic ones – they do not exist in
the Polish language– and are proper borrowings. An example of this reason
is the word kowboj (cowboy). This refers to a cowboy, especially in the
western United States, whose job is to take care of cattle, and who usually
rides a horse, or a similar character in a film. As this term is reserved for a
particular region of the world, a person doing the same activities in Poland
would not be called kowboj. Consequently, a Polish equivalent of cowboy
has not been introduced.
The last reason for borrowig words from English is that there may not be an
equivalent to an English loanword in the Polish language. The reason for
keeping the original word is that it is pointless to give names to something
that has already been named, and this reintroduces the issue of making
communication easy. However, there is one condition to be fulfilled: that is,
the borrowing must be precise. It must convey exactly the same meaning
in both languages. Otherwise it may cause a lot of misunderstanding

27. 27
amongst the Poles and those who hear the adapted term in the language
that borrows it.
Szczepanowska’s (2005) work is important to my dissertation research as
apart from identifying English borrowings I am also stating whether they
could have been replaced by Polish equivalents to them. It is also
significant to compare Szczepanowska’s work with Doroszewski’s
motivation for using English loanwrods in Polish.
Another arguments about borrowing from English into Polish are presented
by Doroszewski in the introduction to Słownik poprawnej polszczyzny
(Dictionary of correct Polish) (1977, p.VII-XII). His view is much stricter
than Szczepanowska’s and crucial to my dissertation as in one of my
research questions I am asking about how many cases a Polish speaker
could have used a Polish word instead of an English loan. When presenting
the criterion of language correctness Doroszewski mentions the criterion
connected with national values- correct is what is pure in the language.
According to that rule he enumerates four specific occasions on which one
can and cannot use a loanword.
 one should not use a borrowing just to make the style more
ornamental
 a loanword should not be used when the meaning is not fully
understood by the speaker and if there are any doubts that the
audience may not understand it properly

28. 28
 if the necessity of expressing certain thought cannot be fulfilled by a
native word, a loan can be used
 the case of using borrowings should be treated like a case of
practicality- the appropriate means should be used to express one’s
thoughts
As a language purist’s approach, Doroszewski’s opinion is different to
Szczepanowska’s. Instead of analysing the reasons for borrowing, he states
clear rules according to which a Polish speaker should act. It is a strict but
important opinion and Doroszewski is a respected yet conservative linguist
in Poland. The importance of his four rules has changed since the scale of
the phenomenon of borrowing from the English to Polish language has
changed significantly- from about 800 loans in 1965 to 5000 in 2010, as
mentioned before. Hence, yet another approach presented below in order
to stress the importance of innovation in the process of borrowing from
English into Polish.
Kurkowska (1978, p.28-35) in her idea of language correctness presents
the criteria for assessing linguistic innovations. Among these is one
concerning language sufficiency. She focuses mostly on the necessity of
expressing our thoughts. Moreover, she stresses the importance of
innovation in motivation for using loanwords. It is crucial information to my
topic. To know that editors of women’s magazines have to follow novelty
and present it in a modern way is essential to me as a researcher.
Kurkowska’s view was supported by Gawrońska (2008) as she made clear.

29. 29
This is actually a commonly held axiom by modern linguists as was
presented earlier. The theories overlap to a certain degree, which makes
them even more significant and valuable to my dissertation.
According to Kurkowska’s idea, lexical innovations appear together with
new discoveries and introducing innovations, i.e. technical inventions. If the
world changes, the language changes together with it. She enumerates the
following reasons for using loanwords:
 foreign origin of the invention
 the necessity of adjusting to international terminology
 tradition of acquiring words from a certain language
 the phenomenon of associating a new word with another one, which
helps to understand the meaning of the new word only by using
common knowledge or context
All these approaches are described by Szczepanowska, Doroszewski and
Kurkowska focus on the phenomenon of invention, referring to the
international terminology, the necessity of expressing thought which cannot
be fully and clearly expressed by the mother tongue, etc. The general rule
that can be derived from all these approaches is simple: one should use a
loanword when they really need it and on condition that they understand
the meaning of it. Nevertheless, this theory may not always be followed in
practice. Mistakes are easily made due to, for example, the difference in
phonetics between the two languages. A commonly used word weekend,
which kept its spelling and pronunciation and is a proper borrowing in

30. 30
Polish, can be easily misspelled- likend or mispronounced- [wekent] due to
the Polish phonetic rules. Supposedly, such mistakes will be made by the
generation of Poles that was forced to learn Russian as opposed to English
during their primary and secondary education: this means people born
before the mid 1980s. This surely is a problem occurring widely and could
be the subject of further research following my dissertation. A brief
overview of what the consequences of using loanwords among the target
language speakers are is presented in the next section as both reasons and
consequences are important to my research on English borrowings
occurring in Polish women’s magazines which are a sample of current
language conditions.
The reasons why English loanwords were introduced into Polish helps me
understand the lexical fields that loans usually belong to as well as the
general motivation for a language change. Also, as a researcher I am more
aware of the process of borrowing itself, which helps me understand the
phenomenon as well as draw conclusions.
2.6. Consequencesof using loanwords
Every action is preceded with a reason and followed by a consequence. As
far as loanwords are concerned one has to be aware of the fact that using
them may cause problems in language use as well as changes in the
language. Szczepanowska (2005) presents her view on potential mistakes
made by speakers of the language which I summarise below. The focus will
also move to Przybylska’s (2003) theory of adjustment of foreign words,

31. 31
next to the reasons for assimilation of loans presented by Byron (1993),
and the fashion factor, mentioned by Przybylska (2003), Gawrońska and
Miłoszewski (16/2008). I focus not only on the research undertaken by
Polish linguists like Przybylska or Szczepanowska, but also look at Byron,
who focuses on the universal rules applied not only to borrowing form
English into Polish, but other languages as well. All these linguists consider
how loanwords behave in the new language environment and are helpful for
me to answer my research questions where I examine, for example,
whether identified borrowings are assimilated or not.
Szczepanowska (2005) in her essay suggests the following categorisation of
mistakes made when using loanwords:
1. spelling and phonetic
e.g. aeroplan – areoplan, badminton – badmington, kanister –
karnister, sanatorium – sanotorium, sweter – swetr, zakrystia –
zachrystia
2. misuse as a result of not knowing the meaning
e.g. pasjonat is not somebody who gets angry easily, is raptile, but a
person who has a hobby and is very devoted to it.

32. 32
3. mixing similar words
The cause lays in phonetic and spelling similarity between these
words. For example: adoptować (adopt) and adaptować (adapt)
carry completely different meaning, nevertheless is very often
confused. The same situation occurs also when using pryncypalny
(principal) and pryncypialny (principle).
4. overusing foreign forms
Despite the fact that new words enrich the language, the right
balance must be kept. Especially, the press should be taken into
consideration as journalist style is prone to overuse loanwords
thanks to the focus on mass addressee.
5. using loanwords unnecessarily
Szczepanowska in her work quotes Doroszewski, who suggests three
simple principles of using borrowings: first, one should not use it for
‘decorating’ their style, to show off, or to affect the addressee
strongly. Secondly, one should not use loanwords when they are not

33. 33
sure that they know the meaning. Finally, a foreign word can be used
when no native equivalent is able to express the same meaning.
Szczepanowska presents what the risk is of using English loans in Polish,
which as I already suggested, could be a topic for further research following
the findings on the subject of my dissertation. Nevertheless, Przybylska’s
(2003, p.174-175) approach to the process of assimilation of loans is
crucial to my research and I would like to present it. Przybylska divides
loanwords into two categories according to their level of adjustment to the
target language: loans adjusted completely and loans adjusted partially.
The first category of borrowings, loans adjusted completely, are spoken
according to the rules of the Polish pronunciation, they inflect like Polish
words, and in addition are the basis for new words that derive from them,
like adjectives or adverbs. An example might be the word computer
(computer), which is pronounced according to the rules of the Polish
language, which inflects like a Polish noun- komputera, komputerowi and is
the source word from which an adjective komputerowy was derived.
The second group of loans, the ones that were adjusted partially, can be
easily recognised:
 no derivatives are formed, e.g. gadżet, hit
 they do not inflect, e.g. boa, guru, safari
 they keep the original spelling, e.g. weekend, walkman, make-up

34. 34
Another important factor is the frequency of using a loanword in the donor
language. It is obvious that those words which we need in everyday speech
would be used more frequently and become more ‘familiar’ to an average
speaker. Simultaneously those words have a greater chance to enter the
language permanently. Furthermore, such loans enrich the utterances and
make the speech sound more elaborate.
Przybylska’s insight into the level of assimilation of English loans in Polish
states fundamental basics for my research in which I shall also asses on
what level the words that I find are adapted to phonetic, morphologic and
syntactic the rules of Polish.
Byron (1993, p. 224-225) also comments on how loanwords behave in the
environment of the grammatical rules of the target language. First, Byron
focuses on the process of assimilation of, as he calls them, ‘foreign’ forms
that enter the phonological system of the recipient language. Byron claims
that discrepancies between the original (English) pronunciation of a word
and the Polish variety of it will occur. For example, the word show is in
English pronounced [ʃəu]; however, it would be pronounced [šoł] by a
Polish speaker. Since there are no diphthongs in the Polish language, it
seems obvious that with time the original pronunciation in English would
assimilate to the Polish one. Naturally, this process may lead to a lot of
problems and misunderstandings introduced by mispronouncing the word-
as Szczepanowska (2005) enumerated it as one of the mistakes happening
when using loanwords.
Second, as far as morphology is concerned, Byron (1993, p. 227) claims
that the reason for loanwords to be adjusted to the Polish grammatical

35. 35
rules is that they have to be used like any other word in the recipient
language. Thus in Polish nouns borrowed from English will have to inflect
for cases while verbs will have to inflect for tenses and persons, e.g.
weekend – weekendu (possessive case), surfować – sufruje (present tense,
first person singular).
Furthermore, Byron mentions the differences on the syntactic level (1993,
p. 230). As far as borrowing from English to Polish is concerned, the word
classes are close in both languages yet there are some differences that
have an influence on borrowing. An example might be the fact that Polish
nouns are subdivided into three genders whereas English nouns have no
grammatical gender. This is the reason why laptop in Polish will be referred
to as ‘he’, as opposed to ‘it’ in English.
Finally, Byron also states (1993, p. 232) that words belonging to the open
class are more often borrowed than words from the closed class. It is also
pointed out that nouns are the most frequently borrowed class. However,
Byron notices the relationship between borrowing mainly nouns which
belong to the open class and the very size of the classes concerned – this is
the largest class as far as the number of items is concerned. Byron’s point
of view is valuable to my dissertation as I investigate the level of
assimilation as well as classes of loanwords identified in my research
sample.
Przybylska (2003, p.107), on the other hand, does not analyse what
processes the English loans undergo in Polish but stresses the influence of
language fashion on our speech, especially three kinds: youth, official and

36. 36
scientific. She focuses on these discourses as they were the ones most
influenced according to Miodek, Gawrońska and Mańczak-Wohlfeld.
Among Polish teenagers English loans are extremely popular. Words like
cool, lightowy (light) can be heard continuously. An extreme situation may
lead to producing utterances like the one presented by Gawrońska and
Miłoszewski (16/2008, p.90):
‘Daj mi fona jak już będziesz free to wezmę dzień offa i wydamy
trochę keszu’
(translated into: Give me a phone call when you are free and I
will take a day off and we will spend some cash)
In this short sentence four loanwords from English can be identified: Daj mi
fona – give me a phone call, free, dzien off – day off, kesz – cash.
The authors of the article present various reasons for speaking like this and
make the point of how Polish is influenced by English – the main areas of
life. Among them are:
 the presence of simplified version of English- so called ‘globisz’,
which appears to be understandable for 88% of the population of the
world
 Polish emigrants coming back to the mother country bringing a new
set of vocabulary full of loans

37. 37
 attempts to standardize office terminology in order to make it
possible for every newcomer to understand what he or she is
supposed to do
 the IT revolution
 language of mass media, which uses more and more borrowed
structures, like Sopot Festiwal
Loanwords like trend, system, struktura are used by speakers to make their
utterances appear more reliable. Using a scientific style makes people
sound more up to date, as if they were following new trend and discoveries
all over the world. This concerns speaking to the public, university students
as well as colleagues and superiors of all kinds, to name but a few – in one
word- the formal discourse. Speakers in such situations cannot allow
themselves to make mistakes and give the impression that they are not
really confident of the subject matter. This kind of style appears also in
advertisements, i.e. cosmetic ads- they tend to sound complicated thanks
to the sophisticated vocabulary characteristic of specialists (Przybylska,
2003, p.108).
Przybylska (2003, p.108) refers to overusing fashionable borrowings as
being, usually, unnecessary. Instead of sklep we use market or Lukas Bank
and not Bank Lukas. She also provides readers with an example of calques
like ciucholand based on English Legoland or Disneyland.
Manczak – Wohlfeld (2010, p.10) also describes what happens to English
loanwords once they interact with Polish. She also stresses the fact that a
vast majority of these can be classified as nouns hence her references are

38. 38
made mainly to this part of speech. First, it is pointed out that Polish and
English differ on the graphical level. There are 26 letters in the English
alphabet and 32 in the Polish one, excluding q, v, and x that appear only in
borrowings and do not exist in the official Polish alphabet. This argument
brings us to the point that each set of graphic signs have characteristic
letters that do not exist in the other graphical system. There is also a
difference in the way letters are combined together. In English vowels are
often doubled, e.g. jeep, a phenomenon which occurs in Polish very rarely.
According to Manczak – Wohlfeld (2010, p.10) around 30% of English
borrowings retain their original spelling in Polish, e.g. fair, lobby, zoom. In
some cases a variation of two versions of spelling is allowed, e.g.
ketchup/keczup, cocktail/koktail. Another stage of assimilation brings us to
the point where loans are polonised- they become orthographically correct
as far as Polish is concerned, e.g. bobsleigh/bobslej, cake/keks,
sweater/sweter.
Polish English
Vowels 8 12
Diphthongs - 9
Consonants 34 24
Final voiced
consonant
pronunciation
voiceless (equivalent of the
voiced one)
voiced
Long/short
vowels
differentiation
[o, e, i, u, a] -

39. 39
Loanwords adapt to their new languages also as far as phonetics is
concerned. Here certain differences between Polish and English can be
observed. The main ones are listed in the table on the previous page.
These are the main differences that cause problems for Polish speakers to
cope with because of the ‘exotic’ pronunciation of English words. Polish
speakers never drop the sound represented by the letter r, which leads to
pronouncing fair as [fer] instead of [f ɛ:]. There are also words whose
articulation may be varied due to the phonetic facts, e.g. ketchup [ketʃup]
or [ketʃɑp]. According to Manczak Wohlfeld (2010, p11.), around 85% of
English borrowings retain their original pronunciation, which means that
English phonemes are being substituted by the Polish ones.
The difference also concerns morphology as Polish is an inflexional
language. Hence, every word undergoes a morphological analysis which
allows one to classify it according to a certain category, i.e. gender, and
use it properly according to Polish grammatical rules. As far as nouns are
concerned, the majority of the borrowed ones are treated like Polish nouns
and are influenced by declination. Verbs can be completely adapted and
acquire infinitive endings like to park-parkować and have added prefixes to
indicate perfective zaparkować. They can also be partly assimilated, which
means they have no perfective form, i.e. jazzować, and they are not
assimilated into the full tense structure for example, a verb like play which
occurs only in the imperative mood. As far as adjectives are concerned, less
than 50% undergo declination according to Polish grammatical rules.
Examples of those that do decline are relatywny (relative) and importowany
(imported), and the ones that do not decline are blue, happy. All in all, only

40. 40
20% of English loanwords are morphologically active standing for their level
of assimilation, as Manczak – Wohlfeld (2010, p. 12) states.
Another level of adaptation concerns semantics. This term includes
differentiation according to categories as well as changes in meaning.
Currently, English borrowings come in 45 different categories like sport,
music, advertising, narcotics, labour. The meaning changes can be divided
into three sections: transfer, narrowing and extention of the meaning. The
process of transferring the meaning from one language into another
indicates that the original meaning of the word is retained, i.e. eksporter
(exporter). Narrowing means that a loan comes to the recipient language
with fewer meanings than it has in the donor language. For example, drink
in Polish means only an alcoholic beverage, whereas in English it can mean
both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink. It is also the most common
phenomenon observed amongst English borrowings in Polish. The process
that happens rarely is that of extending the meaning, i.e. barman in English
means only the person who bartends; however in Polish it can also mean
the owner of the bar or restaurant (Manczak – Wohlfeld, 2010, p. 13).
Manczak – Wohlfeld’s work in crucial for my research. The analysed
borrowings which appear in a sample of women’s magazines will be
classified and looked at according to this view.
Summarising, and understanding the consequences of using English
loanwords by Polish speakers makes me, as a linguistc researcher, able to
investigate how they behave in a different linguistic environment. In
answer to one of my research questions- what is the level of assimilation of
English loans?- I observe the processes that each borrowing identified in

41. 41
the sample undergoes. The discrepancies between Polish and English are
significant and force English borrowings to assimilate to the Polish
grammatical, phonological, phonetical and syntactical rules.

42. 42
3. Research Design
3.1. Introduction
This chapter explains the very subject of the research, the steps I have
undertaken to prepare it as well as the goals I hope to achieve. It also
outlines the procedures and methods which I intend to use to carry out the
research. It focuses on three kinds of women’s magazines that are the
most popular ones on the Polish market. They are targeted at different age
groups. I predict that publications which aim at younger readers contain
more loanwords from English than those aiming at 40/50-year-olds. The
feature that the magazines have in common is the gender of their readers –
female. The magazine’s specifications as well as the aims of the research
are described further.
3.2. Aims
In this research project I would like to explore how English loanwords
behave in Polish- whether they are assimilated linguistically to Polish or
whether they remain anglicised in pronunciation and spelling. I aim to
examine particular types of borrowings associated with fashion, lifestyle,
beauty, culture and general health issues and the types of word class that
is borrowed. I am selecting women’s magazines as the borrowings can be
easily spotted and described. Also, I intend to investigate whether any of
the identified loanwords can be replaced with their Polish equivalents.

43. 43
Firstly, the research questions which have been formulated prior to the
study shall be listed and described briefly.
1. What part of speech dominates amongst the English
loanwords analysed?
As Mańczak- Wohlfeld (1994, p.155) states, 94% of all loans are nouns.
The crucial reason for that is the fact that they name objects; hence
they are used to introduce new inventions which flood the market. All
the borrowings identified in my sample will be examined according to
their grammatical category, which I anticipate will be nouns, and it will
let me relate previous research on borrowings to my findings. I also
want to focus on the fact that words belonging to the closed classes, like
pronouns or conjunctions, are not a part of the process of borrowing
from English into Polish.
2. What is the level of morphological assimilation of the
identified loanwords?
According to Mańczak- Wohlfeld (2010, p.12), only 20% of English loans
are highly assimilated in order to adapt to the Polish case and gender
system. I would like to assess the loans I have identified according to
whether they produce derivatives (like adjectives originating in
corresponding nouns, past forms, etc) and follow the Polish grammatical

44. 44
rules or not. I anticipate that the level of assimilation will be higher as
the language change is very fast and the actual processes happen
before they are described by linguists.
3. What categories can the borrowings be classified into?
As three different systems of classifying loans have been presented in
the literature review – in chapter 1, I would like to focus on one of them
which seems to be the most valuable and analytical as it differentiates
between different types of calques: lexical, phraseological, semantic and
syntactic ones – the first division, described by Markowski (2003). All
the borrowings found in the sample will be classified according to five
categories: proper borrowings, lexical calques, phraseological claques,
semantic calques and syntactic calques. I anticipate that, following
Markowski’s point of view, the largest group will be proper borrowings.
Moreover, they are mean to constitute the majority of loanwords – 86%.
4. How many loans retained their original pronunciation?
As a native speaker of the Polish language I am able to state whether a
word retaines its original English pronunciation or not. Mańczak-
Wohlfeld (2010, p. 11) states that 85% of loanwords from English into
Polish are pronounced like English words. The inferences and
conclusions of my study will also be reinforced with reference to the

45. 45
dictionary of English borrowings in Polish by the same author, especially
in the area of phonology.
5. How many English loanwords could have been replaced by
native equivalents?
This question is crucial to establish whether language purists, like
Doroszewski(1977) or Miodek (2005), are right – that most of the loans
can be replaced by native equivalents which carry the exact same
meaning. Grybosiowa (2009), who opposes to Klemensiewicz’s point of
view, claims that the process of borrowing from English should not be
seen as a threat but as an inevitable process of internationalisation. In
order to address this issue and to confirm whether Klemensiewicz is
correct I will try to find a corresponding word to each of the loanwords
found in my sample.
3.3. Subjects
The subject of the study is a sample of fifteen magazine publications
consisting of five issues each of three women’s magazines which are
targeted at different types of readers. The main criteria for choosing these
magazines waere their popularity, availability, the level of respect and trust
from the society proven by the number of copies sold and read each month,
as well as their positive reputation. They all concern fashion, beauty, social

46. 46
events, lifestyle, and culture as well as interviews with well-known people.
They also are of a similar length – each of them is approximately 190-200
pages long. I would like to describe them briefly.
3.3.1. ELLE
Elle is an international magazine for women that has been published since
1945. The Polish edition first appeared in 1994, and like the others, is
produced monthly. According to Elle’s official website,
(www.burdamedia.pl/gazeta1. php), the publishers sell over 72,000 issues
every month. Its readers are aged between 18 and 49, but the main group
is 25-35 and 40% of them are single. As the publisher claims, Elle is for
young people who appreciate good style and have the courage to make
their dreams come true. The fact that 73.6% of readers subscribed in order
to have their copy delivered straight to their door each month just proves
the level of popularity as well as trust that the readers share for the Polish
edition of Elle. I anticipate that I will find more loanwords in this publication
than in the other two.
3.3.2. Twój Styl
Twój Styl (Your Style) has been published in Poland since 1990. As the
information found on the official website (http://reklama.bauer.pl/maga-
zine.php/sid,1/mid,18/title,Twoj-Styl) states, it sells over 255,000 copies

47. 47
each month. Twój Styl’s readers are aged between 25 and 79, but it is
targeted at a group of women aged 30-45 which constitutes 78% of all
readers. Twój Styl puts women and their everyday concerns first, even
though the chief editor is a man – Jacek Szmidt.
3.3.3. Pani
Pani (Lady) has been published since 1990 as well. According to the data
presented on the official website (http://reklama.bauer.pl/magazine.php/
sid,1/mid,17/title,Pani), over 150,000 copies of the magazine are sold
monthly. Readers are aged between 28 and 80, however the main group is
between 40 and 55. That also is the target group for the magazine.
Magorzata Domagalik, the chief editor, states that this is a magazine for
mature women whose children have left home and now leaving finally with
time for themselves.
Even though all the magazines together sell around half a million copies
every month, their readership is considerably larger than this. It can be
estimated, according to the National Statistics Bureau, at the number of
4,500,000, which is more than 11% of Polish population and over 20% of
all the women in the country. It means that the English loanwords that are
used by the contributing writers are read by one in five women in Poland.
This certainly is a substantial and significant audience.

48. 48
3.4. Research Methods
This research aims to identify and investigate English loanwords present in
the Polish language. As samples of language itself I have chosen women’s
magazines described earlier in this chapter. The research project focuses on
three different target readers groups as mentioned before. I have chosen
three different age groups that the magazines are aimed at, which enables
me, as a researcher, to reach additional conclusions whilst analysing the
identified loanwords. I aim to find out whether different age groups differ in
terms of the number of English borrowings used.
3.4.1. Qualitative and Quantitative Methods
In conducting the research I have used both qualitative and quantitative
methods. As Thomas (2003, p. 18) describes it, quantitative research is
defined by numbers and statistics. It measures the specific aspects of a
given phenomenon and seeks a general description to check whether a
given hypothesis can be classified as a true one or not. The findings will be
presented in numbers, i.e. the per-centage of nouns present amongst all
identified borrowings, the per cent of borrowings whose original
pronunciation in English has been kept, etc. The quantitative research will
enable me to test the thesis presented by linguists dealing with language
borrowing. I will be able to check what the structure of identified loanwords
is as far as the parts of speech are concerned. Furthermore, it will allow me
to confront the hypothesis that only 20% of English loans are highly

49. 49
assimilated in order to adapt to the Polish case and gender system, as
Mańczak- Wohlfeld claims (2010, p.12). Also, I will classify identified loans
according to the category of borrowing they fall into. Moreover, this
research will also enable me to test the hypothesis supported by Mańczak-
Wohlfeld (2010, p. 11) that as much as 85% of English borrowings in Polish
keep their pronunciation as well as to find Polish equivalents that will
express the meaning that is conveyed in exactly the same manner. Also, I
intend to find out what the most popular lexical fields are that the
borrowings belong to in order to follow the research by Fisiak (1986, p. 8).
On the other hand, the qualitative methods, as Creswell (2003, p. 18)
presents them, are meant to collect open-ended data which can be used to
develop themes. This is why I have chosen selective sampling as my
qualitative research method. The researcher’s task here is to complement
the research by drawing additional conclusions after analysing the data by
numbers and statistics. I am going to look at what fields of words the
loanwords come from as well as identifying the relationship between the
age of target readers and the number of borrowings.
3.4.2. Procedure
First, when choosing the sample I had to make sure that all the magazines
had been published at the same time. It was crucial since language use
changes very quickly and I wanted to make sure that the samples being
looked at thoroughly are at the same stage of the linguistic process. Also, I
reviewed the titles present on the market according to the numbers of their

50. 50
readership as well as the characteristics of the women who read them.
Obviously, I have chosen the magazines that sell best as this shows their
position and importance in Polish society’s cultural life. Moreover, I focused
on three different age groups: 20-35, 30-45, 40-55. The fact that women
at these ages are at different stages in their lives justifies the potential
difference in the number of English borrowings used, which makes the
research more accurate as well as interesting.
Secondly, I am going to read all of the chosen magazines with attention to
detail in order to identify English borrowings. Since I am Polish myself, it
will not be overly difficult but I will use a recent dictionary of English
loanwords in the Polish language to confirm my findings. Next, every word
will be classified according to the part of speech it belongs to. Moreover, I
will judge whether the loan identified underwent the process of
assimilation, meaning whether it produces another part of speech, i.e. the
noun surfing expands into the adjective surfingowy, and whether it behaves
like Polish words in a sentence, i.e. follow the rules of declination. I am also
going to identify which category of borrowing the words belong to,
according to the classification presented by Markowski (2003) and check
whether the pronunciation has been kept or not. Next, I am going to try to
find a Polish equivalent to all the loans identified. In order to do that I will
use a thesaurus as well as my general language awareness gained as a
native speaker of the Polish language. Lastly, I am going to divide the
identified loans into the lexical fields they belong to in order to investigate
Fisiak’s point of view (1986).

51. 51
Once the data collection has been completed and all the English borrowings
are identified and described they will be put into tables and attached as
appendices to this thesis. The findings of the research will be summarised
in the next chapter and compared to the theory reviewed in Chapter 2,
which will be presented in Chapter 5.
3.5. Summary
In this chapter I have presented the outline of my research, including my
aims, presenting my subjects and describing the nature of my research as
well as the procedure. Moreover, I have included a brief description of how
the quantitative and qualitative research methods work and how I am going
to use them to carry the research out. In the next chapter I present the
findings of the research.

52. 52
4. Findings of the Research
4.1. Introduction
In this chapter I present the findings of the research which consisted of
sample analysis. The magazines were divided into three groups according
to their titles as well as the target readers’ age. They were also chosen
carefully to include the variety of receivers – from the age of 20 to 60 and
over. The sample included magazines published during the same period of
time – five of each between August and December 2010. The findings of
the research are presented in detail in this chapter.
4.2. Reporton the Findings of the Sample Analysis
A group of fifteen magazines was examined to form a sample of the Polish
language. All of the magazines are targeted at active women who live their
working lives and are interested in fashion, culture, lifestyle, well-being and
beauty issues. In this part I present the findings of my research after
gathering and describing the data. All the loanwords identified in the
sample are listed in appendices at the end of this thesis. After getting all
the data together I answered my research questions. The results are
presented below. Under each question I present the findings in the form of
tables separately in relation to each of the three titles as well as the sample
as a whole.

53. 53
1. What part of speech dominates amongst the English
loanwords analysed?
The table below presents the findings of the research according to the three
groups of magazines analysed. The analysis covers all the contents of the
magazines, excluding adverts.
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
Nouns 221 158 129
Adjectives 21 11 4
Adverbs 1 2 1
Verbs 1 0 0
Total 244 171 134
As one can read from the table above, the number of identified loans is
different for every title. Nevertheless, a clear tendency can be observed:
the vast majority of English borrowings in the sample are nouns, adjectives
are the second largest group, and adverbs as well as verbs are a definite
minority, if present at all.

54. 54
In Elle in total I have identified 244 English borrowings, out of which 221
are nouns. Also, there are 21 adjectives, 1 adverb and 1 verb. Elle is the
magazine where I have identified the largest group of English borrowings.
The situation is different in Twoj Styl. There are 158 nouns, 11 adjectives
and 2 adverbs present in the sample of it. Moreover, the number of items
in total, 171, is smaller by nearly a third in comparison to Elle.
In Pani I have identified even a smaller number of English loanwords: 134.
It is 45% less than in Elle and 22% less than in Twoj Styl. In Pani there are
129 nouns, 4 adjectives and an adverb that belong to the group of English
borrowings in Polish.
On the other hand, the table below presents aggregated results for the
sample as a whole. Since some of the items were the same for all three
titles, the list has been corrected.
Part of
speech
Quantity
Nouns 327
Adjectives 25
Adverbs 3
Verbs 1
Total 356

55. 55
To summarise, in total there were 356 different English borrowings
identified in the sample of Polish that I chose – all the contents of 15
magazines. As many as 327 of them were nouns, which can be classified as
a vast majority. There are also 25 adjectives, 3 adverbs and only one verb.
Next, I present the answer to the second research question.
2. What is the level of morphological assimilation of the
identified loanwords?
The table below presents the research findings as far as the second
research question is concerned.
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
assimilated 156 115 105
not assimilated 88 56 29
Total 244 171 134
Generally speaking, the majority of identified English loanwords is
assimilated. This means that they form derivative forms as well as following
the grammatical rules of Polish syntax. In Elle it is 157, in Twoj Styl 115
and 105 in Pani.

56. 56
Moreover, I present the results as far as the sample as a whole is
concerned:
Quantity
assimilated 231
not assimilated 125
Total 356
As one can understand from the table above, that as many as 231 English
loanwords are assimilated. Consequently, I present the findings as far as
the third research question is concerned.
3. What categories can the borrowings be classified into?
The table on the next page presents the findings concerning the
classification of identified English borrowings. As one can read from it, the
majority of identified loanwords in the sample are proper borrowings. In
Elle it is 215, in Twoj Styl 163 and in Pani 130. The second largest group is
lexical calques: between 4 in Pani and 27 in Elle, and there is also one

57. 57
Elle Twój Styl Pani
Proper borrowings 215 163 130
Lexical calques 27 8 4
Phraseological calques 1 0 0
Syntactic calques 1 0 0
Total 244 171 134
phraseological calque and one syntactic calque found in Elle only. There
were no representatives of semantic calques. The results were also
aggregated in order to provide an answer to the question as far as the
sample as a whole is concerned.
Quantity
Proper borrowings 324
Lexical calques 30
Phraseological calques 1
Syntactic calques 1
Total 356

58. 58
As many as 324 of English loanwords identified in the sample can be
classified as proper borrowings. There also are 30 lexical calques and one
phraseological calque as well as one syntactic one. Further findings on the
next research question are presented below.
4. How many loans retained their original pronunciation?
The table on the next page presents how many identified English loans kept
their original pronunciation and how many did not.
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
Retained
pronunciation
173 131 114
Did not retain
pronunciation
71 40 20
Total 244 171 134
As can be read from the chart on the previous page, most of the English
borrowings identified in this research retain their original pronunciation. In
Elle this is 173, in Twoj Styl 131 and in Pani 114. The difference in the

59. 59
structure of loans according to the different magazines is rather interesting
and will be discussed in the next chapter.
Below, I present the further findings in answer to this research question,
but this time the sample as a whole was taken into consideration.
Quantity
Retained
pronunciation
263
Did not retain
pronunciation
93
Total 356
The results for the sample as a whole also illustrate the fact that the
majority of loanwords keep their pronunciation. In this case it is 263
English loans. The last part of this chapter, however, shows the number of
English borrowings that can be replaced by native equivalents.
5. How many English loanwords could have been replaced by
native equivalents?

60. 60
The table below presents the findings of the research as far as the last
question is concerned:
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
Have Polish
equivalents
118 84 42
Do not have
Polish
equivalents
126 87 92
Total 244 171 134
As one can read from the data presented by the table above, the findings
as far as Elle and Twoj Styl are concerned are quite similar; nearly half of
the identified English loanwords can be replaced by Polish equivalents and
still convey the same meaning. Nevertheless, this proportion is not accurate
for the loans in Pani; only 42 out of 134 borrowings in Pani have their
corresponding Polish versions. Again, this issue shall be discussed in the
next chapter. I present the findings for the sample as a whole on the next
page.

61. 61
Quantity
Have Polish
equivalents
155
Do not have
Polish
equivalents
201
Total 356
A slight majority of the items identified in the sample of 15 magazines do
not have Polish equivalents to replace them and still carry the same
meaning – this is 201 out of 356. It is similar to the situation when three
separate titles were taken into consideration.
I present the findings of my research on the lexical fields that the words
identified as English loans belong to on the next page.
The table on the following page illustrates how the loanwords can be
divided according to the lexical fields they belong to. I have identified the
main lexical fields that the research findings could be classified into:
fashion, lifestyle, beauty, sport, business, culture, technology and other
that are minor and do not belong to any of the listed groups.

62. 62
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
Fashion 55 28 18
Lifestyle 53 34 17
Beauty 15 8 7
Sport 9 14 18
Business 13 25 8
Culture 45 29 28
Technology 30 20 19
Other 24 13 19
Total 244 171 134
As one can read from the table above, in Elle I have identified 55 words
that belong to fashion, only 2 words fewer that can be described as
lifestyle, 45 belonging to culture, 30 to technology, 15 to beauty, 13 to
business, and only 9 to sport. As far as Twoj Styl is concerned, 34 loans
belong to lifestyle, 29 to culture, only one less to fashion, 25 to business,
14 to sport, and 8 to beauty. In Pani, on the other hand, the largest group
of 28 belong to the lexical field called culture, 19 to technology, 18 to each
sport and fashion, only one less to lifestyle, 8 to business, and finally 7 to
beauty.

63. 63
Moreover, the findings for the sample as a whole are as follows:
Quantity
Fashion 54
Lifestyle 80
Beauty 17
Sport 29
Business 31
Culture 60
Technology 53
Other 32
Total 356
As one can read from the table above, the largest group for the sample is
lifestyle – 80 representatives, next are fashion with 54 and technology with
only one less, later on business with 31, sport with 29 and beauty – only
17.

64. 64
4.3. Conclusion
This chapter presents the results of the research undertaken for this study
using the method identified: sample analysis. At this stage the method
enabled me to identify the English borrowings present in the sample of the
Polish language chosen for this research – 15 women’s magazines. All the
data has been put together into tables in order to be presented in a clear
way. They have been thoroughly analysed and described in order to answer
my research questions. The discussion of the findings will be presented in
the next chapter.

65. 65
5. Discussion of the Findings
5.1. Introduction
This chapter analyses the results of the research carried out by analysing
the sample of 15 women’s monthly magazines published between August
and December 2010. The results are presented in the previous chapter. In
this chapter I attempt to confront the findings with the previous research
undertaken on the subject, which is reviewed in Chapter 2.
5.2. Sample Analysis
As my research method I have chosen sample analysis. I have analysed the
selected sample in order to be able to answer my research questions. All
the magazines have been read thoroughly so that all the English borrowings
can be identified. Once the samples were gathered together, I divided them
according to the part of speech they represent into four groups: nouns,
adjectives, adverbs and verbs. First, I analyse the findings for different kind
of magazines which I identify according to the target readers. The chart on
the next page represents the structure of the findings.

66. 66
As anticipated in Chapter 3, the majority of English loans amongst the
sample of Polish are nouns. As Mańczak- Wohlfeld (1994, p.155) states,
94% of all loans are nouns. As far as the findings of my research are
concerned, the percentage of nouns varies between 91% and 96%. Yet for
the sample as a whole it is 92%. As Mańczak- Wohlfeld suggests, the
crucial reason for the greater borrowing in the case of nouns is the fact that
they name objects; hence they are used to introduce, for example, new
inventions which flood the market. This statement happens to be supported
by the results of my research as well. However, she also suggests that
verbs are 3% of borrowings from English, whereas adjectives and adverbs
are around 1% each. As it can be read from the chart above, only one verb
was found in the sample, which is less than 1%. Also, it was found only in
one group of magazines – Elle. On the other hand, adjectives vary between
3% and 8% of the borrowings in different magazines. What can be
observed here is the fact that the younger the target reader, the more
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
Verbs
Adverbs
Adjectives
Nouns

67. 67
adjectives are present. According to Mańczak- Wohlfeld (1994, p. 157)
adjectives are not popular as far as the process of borrowing is concerned.
Szczepanowska (2005, p.17), however, argues that they become
increasingly popular since young people would follow the language trends
not only as far as naming objects is concerned, but also as far as describing
them. She also adds that the process of assimilation makes the speakers
derive adjectives from borrowed nouns. This theory is proved here by the
increasing number of adjectives acquired by the Polish language from
English. Moreover, for the sample as a whole adjectives form 7% of all
identified English loanwords; this is still high in comparison to adverbs
which are less than 1%.
Next, I have getermined whether the loans are morphologically assimilated
into the Polish language or not. An assimilated word, according to Manczak
– Wohlfeld (2010, p. 12), would follow the rules of the Polish grammar, i.e.
be influenced by declination, as well as produce derivatives, i.e. an
adjective jazzowy from the noun jazz. The chart on the next page
represents the results of the research.
As it can be read from the chart on the next page, generally speaking, most
of the borrowings identified in the sample are assimilated. In the case of
Elle it is 65%, in case of Twoj Styl it is 67%, and as far as Pani is
concerned, as much as 78%. Manczak – Wohlfeld (2010, p. 12) states that
only 20% of loans are fully assimilated, yet my research shows that the
percentage is much higher than that. The reason for that might be the fact
that the process of language change is inevitable and very fast so this level

68. 68
might have increased over the last year. Also, the loanwords identified are
only a sample of 356 different items out of 5000 described by the same
author in her latest dictionary of English borrowings in Polish (2010); hence
it could have been pure coincidence that the ones used in the sample were
more active morphologically. Moreover, as I anticipated in Chapter 3, the
per centage of assimilated loans may be higher than 20% due to the fact
that there is a delay between the process itself and the discussion of it in
linguistic studies. Also, even though the loans are present in the magazines
published in 2010, their level of assimilation is being judged by this
research in 2011, which makes the data presented more recent.
Subsequently, the next research question concerns the categories that the
identified loans can be classified into. The chart below presents the findings
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
not assimilated
assimilated

69. 69
of the research in a way that identifies the similarities and differences more
easily.
As the chart above states, the vast majority of borrowings can be classified
as proper borrowings. This means that words are acquired together with
their original meaning (Markowski, 2003). This group is also the easiest one
to identify in a language sample. 88% of all borrowings in Elle, 95% in Twoj
Styl and 96% in Pani prove Markowski’s theory that they are the most
popular types of borrowing. For the sample as a whole they stand for 91%,
which also supports Markowski’s theory. The second largest group in the
sample are lexical calques; this means that a word is formed as the foreign
one, but by means of native morphemes. Moreover, it is as if a foreign
phrase or word consisting of more than one morpheme was literally
translated by using native ones. I have identified 27 lexical calques in Elle,
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
phraseological calques
syntactic calques
lexical calques
proper borrowings

70. 70
8 in Twoj Styl and 4 in Pani. This means that they form 3% to 11% of the
loanwords identified in magazines as well as 8% for the sample as a whole.
Also, there was one phraseological calque and one syntactic calque
identified in Elle only. The first one is an idiomatic expression ‘count on
somebody’ into Polish ‘liczyc na kogos’; the latter is ‘najwyzszy czas’ which
comes from English ‘high time’.
The last but one research question concerns how many English borrowings
retain their original pronunciation in the foreign environment of the Polish
phonological rules. The chart below presents the findings of the research:
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
did not keep the
pronunciation
kept the pronunciation

71. 71
As the chart on the previous page represents these findings, most of the
English loanwords found in the sample retain their pronunciation. In Elle
this is 71%, in Twoj Styl this is 77%, and in Pani this is as high as 85%. As
far as Manczak – Wohlfeld’s (2010, p. 12) research is concerned, 85% of
English borrowings that retain the original pronunciation; hence, the
findings of my research only support the research carried out on the
language as a whole by Manczak – Wohlfeld. However, there is an
interesting 14% difference between the magazines which, I assume, might
be caused by the fact that there is a difference in lexical fields structure of
the findings as well. There are many more words belonging to sport in Pani
than in the other magazines but they are words that unconditionally keep
their original pronunciation according to Fisiak (1986, p. 11). Furthermore,
for the sample as a whole 74% of English loans retain the original
pronunciation.
The last research question I intend to answer is how many English
loanwords in Polish can be replaced by their native equivalents. The
polemic points of view are presented in Chapter 2. Doroszewski (1977)
claims that most of the loans can be replaced by native equivalents and
Grybosiowa states that the process of borrowing is inevitable and should
not be seen as a threat which is to be avoided. In order to answer the
research question, I have used my own knowledge as a native speaker of
Polish, as well as a thesaurus of Polish. As far as the findings of my
research are concerned, I present the results in the table on the next page.

72. 72
As one can read from the table above, generally speaking most of the
identified English loans do not have a Polish equivalent that would carry the
exact same meaning. In case of Elle and Twoj Styl 52% and 51% resecively
cannot be replaced by a native word. However, the number is much higher
for Pani – it is 69%. For the sample as a whole, moreover, it is 57%. The
numbers show that language purists are not entirely right here.
Klemensiewicz in the late 60’s and Miodek half a century later were both
claiming that a Pole is able to avoid borrowing and use native equivalents.
The results of my research, however, prove that borrowing is an inevitable
process that the Polish have to face together with the technical
development and cultural interaction, as Grybosiowa (2009) claims, due to
increased globilasation and unrestricted cultural contact between Poland
and England. The difference here is also caused by the different lexical
fields structure of the loanwords, i.e. borrowings that belong to sport were
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
do not have Polish equivalents
have Polish equivalents

73. 73
acquired early and the nature of the borrowing make it impossible for them
to be replaced by an equivalent since the words came into the language as
soon as a new sport discipline itself appeared in Poland, introduced form an
English speaking country. Also, sports like cricket, rugby or polo were
invented by the English, hence the English names of them (Fisiak, 1986).
I also enquired about what lexical fields the identified English loanwords
belong to. The chart below presents the results:
The lexical fields I have identified amongst the borrowings found in the
sample are: fashion, lifestyle, beauty, sport, culture, business and
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
90.00%
100.00%
Elle Twoj Styl Pani
other
technology
culture
business
sport
beauty
lifestyle
fashion

74. 74
technology. There are also loans classified as ‘other’ since there was only
one or two that represented a separate lexical field. Even though the fields
are the same for the sample, the balance of items belonging to them is
slightly different.
As far as Elle is concerned, the most numerous lexical field is fashion – over
22%. Next, it is lifestyle – over 21%, culture – over 18%, technology –
12%, beauty – 6%, business – 5% and sport 4%.
On the other hand, in Twoj Styl the first place is taken by lifestyle – 19%.
Next, fashion and culture – 16% each, business – over 14%, technology –
nearly 12%, sport – 8%, and beauty – nearly 5%.
As far as Pani is concerned, the largest lexical group is culture – nearly
21%. Next, technology – over 14%, fashion and sport – over 13% each,
lifestyle – 12%, beauty and business – over 5% each.
For the sample as a whole the largest group is lifestyle – 22%, next it is
culture – 17%, and fashion and technology with 15% each; later, business
– 9% and beauty – 8%.
As early as in 1937 Koneczna claimed that one of the main lexical fields is
sport. According to Koneczna, since these loans appeared in the language
together with the very disciplines that entered the country’s sports culture,
they kept their pronunciation and original meaning. Only very few of them
have come to be replaced with native equivalents, and one has to bear in
mind that these equivalents were created after the process of borrowing
took place.

75. 75
Furthermore, other lexical fields like lifestyle and culture were described by
Fisiak (1986) as alternative main ones. As one can assume from the
findings of my research, they still are forming a rather large group of
English loanwords in Polish- altogether from 40% in Elle to 33% in Pani.
Aslo, since the fashion industry in developing more rapidly than ever before
thanks to the ease of access to it (the Internet) and bloggers who promote
fashion all over the globe, it constitutes a medium to large group of English
loans in Polish.
5.3 Conclusion
In this chapter I have discussed the findings of my research which
consisted of the analysis of the sample of 15 Polish women’s magazines
targeted at different ages to make it more thorough and accurate. I have
presented the findings described in Chapter 4 in the form of charts in order
to make the structure of my findings clearer for the reader. Finally,
presenting my research findings in relation to previous study undertaken on
the topic of language borrowing by respected linguists allows me to draw
certain conclusions. I present these below:
 There are 356 different loanwords identified in the sample
 The younger the target reader, the more English borrowings are
present

76. 76
 Most of the English borrowings in the Polish language are nouns –
around 92%, which supports Manczak- Wohfeld’s theory (1994)
 The second largest group, as far as the process of borrowing is
concerned, are adjectives – 7%, which opposes Manczak- Wohfeld’s
theory (1994)
 The increasing number of adjectives present amongst English
borrowings in Polish is due to the extending process of morphological
assimilation
 Adverbs and verbs are borrowed from English into Polish sporadically
 64% of English loanwords in the sample of the Polish language are
assimilated, which opposes Manczak- Wohfeld’s theory (2010)
 The vast majority of identified loans are proper borrowings – 91%,
which supports Markowski’s point of view (2003)
 The second largest group of borrowings are lexical calques – 8%
 Syntactic and phraseological calques are rarely borrowed from
English into Polish
 Semantic calques are not present amongst the findings of the
research
 74% of English loanwords in Polish retain their original pronunciation
in spite of the phonological differences between the two languages,
which speaks in favour of Manczak- Wohfeld’s (2010)
 The majority of English borrowings in Polish cannot be replaced by
native equivalents – 57%, which opposes Doroszewski’s view (1977)
 The major lexical fields identified amongst the borrowings are:
lifestyle, fashion, culture, beauty, sport, technology and business,
which agrees with Fisiak’s claim (1986)