FROM <i>POWERFRAUEN</i> TO <i>JUNK-FOOD-ESSER</i>: ANGLICISMS IN THE LANGUAGE OF GERMAN WOMEN’S MAGAZINES

Apstrakt

This paper examines anglicisms in the language of German women’s magazines. Althougha very common phenomenon in the German language, the term ‘anglicism’ is still not sufficientlydetermined, as the paper shows. The empirical analysis has shown that the English influenceis significant, especially in borrowing nouns, less in borrowing adjectives and verbs. A semanticanalysis of the anglicisms proves most words to belong to thematic fields such as fashion andbeauty. Hybrid compounds, the so-called Mischkomposita, were examined more thoroughly. The346 examples have shown that the orthographic, grammatical features and those regarding wordformation follow the rules of the German language. Hyphenated compounds are the most commonin our corpus, which could mean that most of them still are occasional formations, on their way tointegration. As to the possible reasons for the abundant use of anglicisms in women’s magazines,we suggest stylistic and space saving motives. We also observed that recently, possibly due to theEnglish influence, German compounds seem to be tending to hyphenation.