Lexical Change in the field of Information Technology in the Spanish Language

There are two main processes by which new words are being adopted into Spanish. Firstly, it has utilised the process of ‘borrowing’. This means that it has adopted words from other languages, in this case, primarily from English. Secondly, it has used ‘neologism’. This is where it has taken existing words and roots from its language stock, and altered them to endow them with new meanings. The more common of the two, i

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The Internet itself can be defined in several ways in Spanish. The are now several competing Spanish terms to describe the Internet, such as la malla and la urdimbre. This is also be the case with terms such as un hacker and its derived verbal form haquear.

We have seen that in trying to adapt itself to the linguistic necessities of the information age, the Spanish language mainly uses two forms of creating terminology.

A headline taken from the website of the highly respected Madrid-based daily newspaper, El País: (‘Parlamentos, escuelas y hospitales instalan un software que interfiere la señal de los teléfonos móviles para evitar la polución sonora'. Since the vast majority of technological development in this field takes place in the USA, the majority of technical vocabulary devised is in originally in English. The weekly satirical magazine, El Jueves used to offer a jocular alternative, jómpeich, although this too has given way to El Webes.

When talking about hardware, we also see examples of ‘loan translation’ or ‘calquing’, whereby foreign terms are translated verbatim, giving an authentic Spanish term. In terms of spoken, and increasingly, written Spanish, the loan word e-mail is common. html

Oxford Spanish-English Dictionary; OUP, 1998

Stewart, M; The Spanish Language Today, Routledge, London, 1999

. For example, the terms hablar or charlar por internet have almost been superseded by the term chatear, formed from the English ‘chat’ with the -ear suffix. The modem is also a relatively new device (new, inasmuch as it has only recently become accessible on a large scale). Web is the most common term for a website in Spanish. English terms are also seen as having an air of modernity, which is why terms such as web appear in the press.

Common topics in this essay:
Fernández Calvos, Peninsular Spanish, Internet Internet, , English Secondly, Internet Change, Miranda Stewart, English Netglos, Latin American, País Parlamentos, english terms, information technology, spanish language, english term, quality press, borrowed english, lexical change, lexical change spanish, el país, despite existence, change spanish, oxford spanish-english dictionary, borrowed english terms,

Approximate Word count = 1642
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

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