Word Borrowing: The Language Contact Between English And Minanese

The purpose of this paper is to study the word borrowing between English and Minanese so as to examine the language contact between them.The author first presents a brief survey of the Minanese speech community, recollections of the history of the language contact, and an analysis of the different attitudes towards loan words between Mandarin and Minanese.As an international language, English has enriched its heritage by borrowing words from various languages. In the second chapter, the author traces the sources of some Minanese vocabulary in English, and categorizes them into four groups: proper nouns (e.g. Hokkian, Lingayen Bay, Ang-mo-kio, Tan, Wong, Choi, Ho, Longan, Kumquat, Mume, etc.), food and drink (e.g. Ketchup, Chow, Tea, Pehoe, etc.), addressing and titles (e.g. Towkay, Kowtow, Tycoon, etc.), and shipping and goods (e.g. Sampan, Typhoon, etc.).Meanwhile, in the long process of communication with the other partsof the world, a lot of foreign language words have been introduced into Minanese. In the third chapter, the author presents recollections of the contacts and divides the loans words into four categories: daily expressions ( e.g. i?shoot, H[ shoot, ?j pin, etc.), commodity flow (e.g. @^k mark, JnA spanner, tfil?^ shirt, j]P^^ kapok, H3t soap, etc.), sports and entertainment (e.g. Hi shoot, tlHH outside, ^ show, etc.), and traffic and technology (e.g. Ebus, (ftfcftaxi, #3$ park, Bf^L call, etc.).Finally, by discussing the cost of and benefits from word borrowing, and code-switching and its causes, the author points out the importance of the studies of Minanese from the perspective of culture.Minanese is spoken in many areas of the world, but there have been no serious studies in terms of language contact with the outside world. The language contact between Miananese and English is a special topic in the cross-cultural research. It is of great value and significance in the studies of the history, culture and economy of Fujian Province.