Реферат на тему Graphical Abbreviations. Acronyms.

Содержание:

Introduction 3
1. Acronyms in English 4
2. Graphical Abbreviations 6
Conclusion 11
References 13

Введение:

Graphical abbreviations and acronyms aren’t new trends in the development of English as a means of communication. There is nothing new in them. They were always in use in order to save time. But one of the features of the modern English language is the constant emergence of new types of acronyms (cuts).
The relevance of the study is due to the fact that graphical abbreviations and acronyms are still studied insufficiently. The field of graphical abbreviations is particularly interesting. Nowadays, which are characterized by the explosive nature of the development of electronic technologies, as well as the growing popularity of the Internet, we face new methods and principles of graphical abbreviation, which are used in communication on the Internet.
The object of this study is graphical abbreviations and acronyms in English.
The subject of the analysis is the peculiarities of graphical abbreviations and acronyms in English today.
The aim of our work is to study the lexical features of the graphical abbreviations and acronyms in English.
To achieve this aim, the following tasks were defined:
— consider the concept of «abbreviation» and «acronym» in modern lexicology;
— characterize the peculiarities of graphical abbreviations in English.
Among the research methods used in the work, we can distinguish general scientific methods, like analysis, synthesis, and comparison.
The structure of the work consists of an introduction, two paragraphs, conclusion and references.

Заключение:

English language tends to be laconic; there are too much (in fact, much more than in Russian) various cuts in it. Currently, a large number of new acronyms and abbreviations are being created in English.
Abbreviations (cuts) are a special way of word formation which became widespread in the twentieth century. The telegraph can be called an immediate cause of the abbreviations, because it allowed the use of abbreviations instead of full words or phrases, and these abbreviations were stimulated by a significant financial benefit.
The acronym and abbreviations are the same. In addition to the acronyms which are recorded in the dictionaries, in English there are also free, non-standard acronyms that arise not as professionals, but as conversational abbreviations (“lab”, “math”, “psycho”) .
Another trend of the modern English language is the creation of acronyms that look and read like ordinary words, they are a separate group. Some of these acronyms coincide with personal names.

Фрагмент текста работы:

1. Acronyms in English
The abbreviation (cuts) in different types of recorded speech is as old as the written language itself. Abbreviation traces its history back to the Sumerians, whose writing is considered the first recorded on Earth (IV century BC).
The term “ellipsis”, meaning “omission”, was created and used in the rhetoric and grammar of Ancient Greece. This term also meant the reduction of the means of linguistic expression, especially in the structure of the sentence, the brevity of which, in comparison with the full or logically correct, was incompleteness or reduction.
Various types of abbreviations are found in Roman script, where the abbreviation became especially widespread with the beginning of the new Millennium: Roman lawyers, for example, so often resorted to the reduction of words that were compiled special sets of abbreviations, which later reached the middle Ages.
In recent years, there is a marked tendency in many languages to be economic with language means. The essence of language savings is to ensure the transfer of the maximum amount of information in the minimum time [4, p. 7].
This process is achieved through the use of abbreviations, abbreviated versions of words and phrases in the language. Sometimes the whole sentence is replaced with an abbreviation.
The abbreviation in modern English reflects to the greatest extent the modern desire to develop all spheres of activity, as English is the language of international communication. This accordingly entails a change in language means, the appearance in the texts of a sufficiently large number of new words.
In general, abbreviations (cuts) as a special way of word formation became widespread in European languages in the 20th century.
Abbreviations in Russian speech began to be used during the First world war 1914-1918 and especially after the revolution. The reason for this phenomenon is the enrichment of social thinking with a variety of new concepts, which is accompanied by a mass demand for the production of new words, which is why new methods of word creation were legalized [1, p. 25].
The immediate cause of the abbreviations can be considered the invention of the telegraph, which allowed the use of abbreviations instead of full words or phrases, while these abbreviations were stimulated by a significant financial benefit. Hence the term «telegraph style», a short message.
Today, there is Twitter. It also supports rather short messages.
The appearance of abbreviations is often directly related to the rapid development of science and technology in the late 19th century, and their avalanche flow in the mid-20th and early 21st century is caused by the accelerated pace of modern life, the emergence of computer technology and the desire to reduce the amount of information while maintaining its content.
Many authors believe that the reason for the appearance of reductions is not only the installation of economy, but also the desire to create new expressive units or the so-called requirement for emotional and stylistic diversity [5, p. 87].
It is worth noting that another trend in the modern development of languages is borrowing from other languages, primarily from English. Abbreviations are widely borrowed by the languages of the world, go through the process of «splitting» reductions into two types (acronyms and initial abbreviations), and it is in this form that they are widely used in other languages of the world, regardless of whether it is a direct borrowing from the English language.
The acronym and abbreviations are about the same. However, scientists still have disputes over the interpretation of this term. In some works, the acronym is often considered to be several types of abbreviated lexical units, namely «telescopic» words, abbreviations made up of truncations, and initial abbreviations of sound type.
Other authors understand this term more narrowly and refer to acronyms only syllabic abbreviations. V.V. Borisov understands acronyms as abbreviated words formed from the initial letters or initial elements of the words of the named phrase and similar or coinciding in form with the usual words. In some cases, acronyms may be used and individual is not the initial letters, as well as elements telescopes manifestly of secondary importance [4, p. 20].
The exact date of the birth of the term «acronym» is known. Scientists argue that he was created in 1943 propulsion in the US one of staff laboratories bell from elements Greek origin «Akros» (extreme, upper) and «onoma» (name of).
Acronyms are initial letter abbreviations that are pronounced as one word. The BBC is not an acronym because it is pronounced as it is spelled: the B — B — C.
However, NATO is an acronym because it is pronounced as one word. ASAP is another acronym, but ATM is not.
Initialisms are similar to acronyms in that they are composed of the first letters of a phrase, but unlike acronyms, they are pronounced as a series of letters. So, most people in the US refer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the FBI.
Other is PTA for Parent Teacher Association, PR for either ‘public relations’ or ‘personal record,’ and NCAA for National College Athletic Association.» [10, p. 99].
CD-ROM is an interesting mix because it brings together an initialism (CD) and an acronym (ROM). The first part is sounded letter by letter, the second part is a whole word [8, p. 27].
There are three types of them in English:
Initialisms with alphabetical reading, such as UK (United Kingdom), BUP (British United Press), CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), PWA (a person with AIDS) etc;
Initialisms which are read as if they are words, e.g. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), OPEC (Organization Of Petroleum Exporting Countries) etc;
Acronyms, e.g. CLASS (Computer-based Laboratory for Automated School System), NOW (National Organization of Women), AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) etc. [9].
There are also compound-shortened words where the first component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical reading and the second one is a complete word, e.g. A-bomb, U-pronunciation, V-day etc. In some cases the first component is a complete word and the second component is an initial abbreviation with the alphabetical pronunciation, e.g. three-D (three dimensions) [9].
Abbreviation does not change the part-of-speech meaning, as we have it in the case of conversion or affixation, it produces words belonging to the same part of speech as the primary word, e.g. prof is a noun and professor is also a noun.
Mostly nouns undergo abbreviation, but we can also meet abbreviation of verbs, such as to rev from to revolve, to tab from to tabulate etc. Adjectives can be abbreviated but they are mostly used in school slang and are combined with suffixation, e.g. comfy.
As in any other language, in English there are also free, non-standard abbreviations that arise not as professionalism, but as abbreviations of writing the whole sentence «for convenience». But such reductions, which are understandable for a particular society, may not be understood by others.
So, there are abbreviations in almost any language. From the point of view of function, acronyms perform the function of saving time.