Engelskan i svensk dagspress

This study is concerned with the extent and nature of English influence on Swedish.

The main aim of the study is to investigate how loans are introduced and which factors affect their integration into Swedish. English words and phrases recorded in a number of Swedish daily newspapers are studied with regard to how factors such as linguistic adaptation to Swedish patterns, frequency, range, reference and function promote or hinder the process of integration.

A total of 6880 instances of 1014 different loans have been recorded in a corpus compromising approximately 2.7 million words. These loans have been classified as established, interim or unintegrated according to the degree of their linguistic and social integration. While established and interim loans are used mainly with referential function, unintegrated loans more often have poetic, emotive or conative function. Most loans have been recorded in articles and advertisments concerning entertainment of various kinds, in advertisments for vehicles and technical equipment and in sports columns. There are, however, differences between these categories with regard to the number of loans used, their integration, reference and function. Furthermore national and regional newspapers differ in their use of English loans.