Introduction

It has become commonplace to associate the dominance of English in the world with the process of globalisation. In this respect, Haarmann argues that the link is fairly superficial but that, nonetheless, it contains so much truth that it is acceptable to regard English as the linguistic motor of globalisation (2002: 153). In contrast to earlier contact situations, English now affects the lives of almost all people, be it at home, in the workplace, in leisure activities, or on holiday. Its presence needs to be acknowledged, whether we like it or not (Haarmann 2002: 152).

Not only do the attitudes towards the socio-economic effects of globalisation on the different national economies differ, but also the attitudes towards the linguistic impact of English on national languages and cultures.

While for a long time, both inside and outside academia, Anglizismus ‘anglicism’ has been the prevalent term to designate lexical borrowings from English in German, more recently pejorative terms such as Denglis(c)h and similar blends reveal a negative attitude towards borrowings from English and even bluntly express dismay against linguistic “hybridisation” in their morphological structure.

In the historical perspective, it is interesting to note that at the end of the 19th century pejorative and chauvinistic terms such as Engländerei ‘anglomania’ and Entwelschung ‘de-alienation’ arose when borrowings from English became fashionable. Eisenberg (2011: 49) regards the growing influence of English on German and other European languages at the end of the 19th century as part of the first wave of globalisation, when not only German but also other languages were vying for the status of the world language.

The paper sketches the discursive traditions out of which these terms have originated, concluding that some of the resentment expressed in terms like Engländerei and Denglis(c)h can be attributed to the dominant position of English as an emergent and as an established global language.

Research questions

Nowadays, English functions as the single most important donor language of anglicisms to other languages, and also as a global lingua franca. More and more languages are coming into contact with English in either way.