Gossiping in an Internet Forum: A Corpus-Based Study of the Use of Anglicisms

Abstract

The presence of Anglicisms in multiple domains of Spanish speakers’ daily life is unquestionable. This paper intends to demonstrate the use of English lexical items in an Internet forum, namely www.cotilleando.com, which is devoted to sharing opinions, views and gossip about influencers, including YouTubers, Instagrammers and TikTokers. A corpus of 121,102 words has been collected and examined by using the analysis tool AntConc (https://www.laurenceanthony.net/software/antconc/). A subsequent manual analysis has allowed us to excerpt a sample of thirty-two English lexical items. This collection of Anglicisms has been examined from a quantitative and qualitative points of view. The quantitative study has provided data on the frequency of use of the sample collected within the extensive corpus, whereas the qualitative analysis offers examples of the use of these English terms in the real posts excerpted from the forum. Additionally, a discussion on the categories of these Anglicisms and the pragmatic functions they fulfil is provided. The findings reveal a tendency to use English lexical items in this internet forum. Non-adapted or pure Anglicisms are the most frequently used, followed by adapted English loanwords; only one case of a false Anglicism was identified. Conclusions highlight the tendency to use English borrowings in the field of social media, more precisely those addressed to followers who discuss about influencers, may they be YouTubers, Instagrammers or TikTokers, in the context of an internet forum.