An approach to the study of the use of English in the activities of Spanish gyms

Abstract

The study of Anglicisms in Spanish has been significant since the last half of the twentieth century. After an initial period of purist publications, the approach to this sociolinguistic phenomenon became more descriptive and academic in the 1980s. Today’s bibliography is relatively extensive, including works which have widely analysed the impact of the Anglo-American culture on different areas, as well as suggested a variety of definitions and taxonomies of Anglicisms. However, some domains that are greatly influenced by the English language in Spain such as the terminology used in gyms have not been examined so far, since the published literature has focused on specific sports (football, tennis, etc.). The aim of this paper is to compile and analyse the most frequent Anglicisms in the lexicon used in sports activities offered by Spanish gyms, as an introductory approach to prospective research. We have studied a sample of 268 Anglicisms taken from the web sites of 15 gyms. Our analysis is not limited to the description of the linguistic features of these Anglicisms but it also explores the possible reasons for their use.