OK! OK? OK...

Contents

1. Introduction. р.2-3

2.Types of anglicisms. р.3-4

3. Seven assumptions about the origin of the word «OK». р.4-5

4. Spelling variations. р.5-7

5. How do people use ‘OK’ in conversation? р.8-9

6. Gesture. р.9-10

7. OK and computer. р.10

8. Conclusion. p.11

9. Application. p.12-13

10. References. р.14

Слова "не наши" интересней.
Без них родной язык убог.
Не так вкусна сосиска в тесте,
Как обожаемый хот-дог!

1. Introduction

Russian language has always been open to borrowings. Since the era of Peter I, it was guided by the western culture that has caused the penetration of numerous borrowings from Western European languages. From time to time some people have attempted to "cleanse" the Russian language from the influence of borrowings. However, these attempts have not given any significant results. Therefore, the Russian language is a language in which borrowings are present in large quantities. Especially this process was accelerated in the new century: it is promoted by globalization and technological progress, in particular, the development of IT-technologies add to our great and powerful language new words and phrases.

The relevance of our theme determined by the importance of the English language in the life of Russian society.

The aim of my work is to find as much information about the word "OK" which occurred in Russian language as I can and try to understand the popularity of the word.

The objectives of my research work are :

- to find out about the origins of ‘OK’.
- to analyze particular importance and use of the word in various communication situations

- to determine the basic meaning of the word

- to recognise when and how often non-native speakers use "OK" in speech.
Methods of work on the project:

1. The method of selection of the theoretical information.

2. The method of organizing, classifying and summarizing.

3. Empirical method (questionnaire).

I have been learning English for many years and the question “What is the history of appearing English loanwords in Russian?’ motivated me to spend my time on answering it.

The research tasks are: to present historical review of the origin of "OK", find different types of anglicisms and suggest the appropriate reasons for borrowings. And one of the main task is to hold an experiment and answer some important questions.

2.Types of anglicisms.

During my study I found out that "OK" is a type of anglicism.

To begin with we give the definition of the word "Anglicism" which is given in the dictionary of S.I.Ozhegov:" Anglicism - a word or turn of phrase in any language, borrowed from the English language, or modeled on the English word or expression."

As you can suppose there are a lots of kinds of anglicisms. I think, only linguists have to know all of them. But it’s not very important for us – the ordinary people. I’m going to tell you about the most important types. They are the most popular:

1. The first type is called « phonetic borrowing» . These are words that are the same in pronunciation. For example, these are words like “browser”, “teenager”, “telephone”, “jeans”, “soup” and many others. Theirs equivalents are “браузер”, “тинэйджер (подросток)”, “телефон”, “джинсы”, “суп”.

2. The second type is “Hybrids”(гибриды). These are English words with Russian suffixes, prefixes and endings . As examples these are “creative”, “primitive”, “objective”, “positive” which stand for “креативный”, “примитивный”, “объективный”, “позитивный”.

3. Direct loans. The words appeared in the Russian language in approximately the same form and the same meaning as in the original language. It is words like weekend - выходные; black - негр, money - деньги.

4. Exotic words. Words that describe specific national customs of other nations, and are used to describe the non-Russian reality. A distinctive feature of these words is that they do not have Russian synonyms. Eg: crisps (chips), hot dog (hot-dog), cheeseburger (cheeseburger).

5. Emotional expressions. These words usually have lexical equivalents, but stylistically different from them and are fixed in a specific field of communication which gives a special speech expression. For example: о'кей (OK) вау (Wow!).

6. Compounds. These are the words consist of two English words, such as second- hand shop , a video- lounge ( a room for watching movies.)

I'll talk about the word that is easy to read, easy to pronounce, easy to remember and, therefore, easy to learn. Due to the cultural, industrial and economic development, grouth of tourism and emergence of the Internet, anglicisms have become and are still becoming increasingly popular in Russian language within the last two decades.

3.Seven assumptions about the origin of the word «OK».

1. The most common assumption is that OK was the birthplace of U.S. President Martin Van Buren - Kinderhook, New York. Van Buren chose a nickname Old Kinderhook, leading to the hype «Old Kinderhook is OK" to his campaign in 1840, distributed by the Democratic Party, whose members were young and active Americans.

2. The second assumption is that the expression OK appeared to indicate an abbreviated term «oll korrect», which appeared as a joke (incorrect spelling of English «all correct», which means "all right") in the Boston newspaper in 1839. Another similar hypothesis is that U.S. President Andrew Jackson used this expression when making administrative decisions. He wrote, «all correct» German style «oll korrekt», or in short, «OK».

3. Also extended version of German origin. Proofreaders, who send articles ahead of print in the newspapers, in the absence of revisions set to be a mark «OK», «ohne Korrektur», that is, "with no proof."

4.There are also less common, so-called "folk" version of the origin of OK

For example, the French believed that the phrase emerged during the war, when the daily report of casualties wrote "0 killed» («zero dead"), which, for brevity, have to say «OK». And later this expression has become a commonly used British pilots during the Second World War, when they reported to the base, they have no losses, and there are no problems with the aircraft.

5. Another version is that «OK" comes from the modern Greek «OLA KALA», an expression used by Greek sailors and handlers of rails in the United States, who noted these two letters on the track labeled "all right, everything is going well," and so on .

6. Oklahoma residents claim that «OK» is an abbreviation of writing their home state, received during a campaign.

7. There is also a version that appearance is associated with the emergence of container shipping. The duties of a longshoreman included labeling of containers "all in safety» (All Keep), incorrectly abbreviated to OK.

4.Spelling variations

Whether this word is printed as OK, okay, or O.K. is a matter normally resolved in the style manual for the publication involved. Dictionaries and style guides such as the Chicago Manual of Style and The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage provide no consensus.

5. How do people use ‘OK’ in conversation?

OK can mean "all right" or "satisfactory." For example, "I hope the children are OK" means "I hope the children are all right"; "I think I did OK in the exam" means "I think I did well, but not perfect, on the exam"; and "he is okay" means "he is good," or "he is well," depending on context.

OK meaning "all right" can be used as the stand-alone question OK? asking if there are any problems or confusion. This question can also be used as an informal greeting, as in "OK, Jack?" equivalent to "How are you, Jack?"

Depending on context and inflection, OK can also imply mediocrity. For example: "The concert was just OK."

OK can be used as an adjective or adverb: "He ran an OK race," "He did OK."

OK can be used as an affirmative answer to a question or to express agreement with a statement, similar in both cases to "Yes."

Saying OK in a sarcastic or questioning tone or elongating the word can indicate that the person one is talking to is considered crazy and/or exasperatingly stubborn in their view. "I really saw a UFO last night!" "OK..."

OK! can also be used as an exclamation in place of words like "enough!" or "stop!"

OK can be a noun or verb meaning approval. "Did you get the supervisor's OK?" "The boss OKed the proposal."

OK has multiple uses in public speaking. As an interjection at the opening of a speech, lecture, or reading, OK is used to call for the audience's attention and to signal that the speaker is about to begin. Similarly, it can be used as a section break in the middle of speech to mark a shift in topic. Finally, OK can be used at the end of a speech, lecture, or explanation to request listener feedback, similar to "Are you with me?" or "Do you understand?" Based on context and convention, this usage can be seen as asking for various responses ranging from simple, silent headshaking or nodding to full, detailed questions or rebuttals.

When used in phone texting or short message system (SMS), "OK" is occasionally truncated to a single "k."

6. Gesture

In addition to writing and sound OK, there is also a visual gesture In the United States and much of Europe a related gesture is made by touching the index finger with the thumb (forming a rough circle) and raising of the remaining fingers.

 It is not known whether the gesture is derived from the expression, or if the gesture appeared first.

This gesture is often used by politicians, athletes, people of show business, which more and more often have to prove that they are doing in order - that is OK.                                    

The gesture was popularized in America in 1836 as a symbol to support the Presidential candidate Martin Van Buren.

 Similar gestures have different meanings in other cultures, some offensive.

 "OK" is well known in all English-speaking countries, as well as in Europe and Asia, in some countries, however, this gesture has an entirely different origin and meaning. For example, in France it means "zero" or "nothing", in Japan it means "money" and in some countries of the Mediterranean basin this gesture is used to refer to homosexual men.

Gesture "OK", familiar to us from American movies, not everywhere is perceived as positive.

Interesting trial took place a couple of years ago in Berlin. A driver allegedly insulted the police, showing him from the car a simple gesture: the thumb and index fingers, clasped a ring (say, all right, Herr Polizei). But the German officer offended and sued ( this gesture has called him "full zero"). The judge, after rummaging in the relevant literature and ask psychologists came to the conclusion that in Germany adopted the two values of the signal, and how to understand it - your private affair. The driver was acquitted.

Experts in the field of semiotics (the study of the meaning of signs) could tell that this gesture is at least 2,500 years. In Greece, he also had a double meaning, but both were positive. Firstly, it was a symbol of love. Secondly - praise spokesman for the exact statement or thin aphorism (two fingers clasped tips like taking some small and elusive thing). Abusive interpretation appeared much later.

7. OK and computer.

In the dialog boxes of many programs there are OK and Cancel buttons (Cancel), pressing the first of which, the user expresses his agreement with the fact that at this point displays a dialog box, and thus closes it, activating the changes made in it, and the second - closes the window without applying. There are variants with a single button OK - in informing the windows, do not imply any changes, and click OK, Apply (Apply) and Close (Close), in windows, the results of changes in which the user, according to the author of the program can evaluate without closing the window, and in the case of an unsatisfactory result, continue to change.

By the way, why are computers used the informal "OK"? It turns out that "OK" appeared in computers in 1982. At this time, "Apple" has developed one of the first graphical user interface .So, initially dialog windows had two buttons - familiar to us «Cancel» and correct «Do it». When it was time to test the novelty of computers they put people who were supposed to edit the text, open-close windows.

One of the testers with an injured face came to the developers and ask. " Why does it call names all the time?" It turns out that this fellow took an inscription on the button with no space, and instead of «DO IT» read «Dolt», which in English means "fool." Can you imagine? You are testing the most modern computer and whatever you do, this machine say that you are "Stupid!". This button was replaced by an informal "OK".

8.Conclusion

According to the Association of Global Language Monitor, observed and recorded the spread words of English around the world, «OK» is the most common and generally accepted word on the planet. The word "okay" (OK) marks 175 anniversary on March 23, 2014. However, we must take into account the peculiarities of the use of gesture and sign in different countries and situations.

«OK» is heard everywhere: youth slang, songs and movies, telephone conversations. And if you raise online archives of correspondences throughout the world, the word "OK" will delay than a gigabyte of traffic. All this does beg the question what did we use before 1839 when the word first appeared? The answer is we used words like “yes”, “satisfactory”, “fine”, “excellent”, “all right”, and “good”. What OK offers that the others do not is neutrality, a way to affirm or to express agreement without having to offer an opinion.

To finish my speech I want to suggest you to do an exercise or you can do it with your students at the lesson.

I want you to practice using your voices to express different

emotions. You are going to do this by using one of the most popular

words in the English language, ‘OK’.

You may demonstrate yourself by saying ‘OK’ in different ways and asking students to guess which emotion you are expressing or point to the different emotions and ask students to say ‘OK’ in the manner of that emotion.

HAPPY, FRUSTRATED, CONFUSED, CONFIDENT, TIRED, SCARED

Language is always quickly and flexibly respond to the needs of society. Borrowings are the result of contacts, relations between the peoples and states. Stressing the urgency of the chosen theme, it should be noticed that at present English acquired the status of lingua franca-language for international communication for the people for whom it is not native. Nomination of the English language for this role due to historically: the expansion of trade and economic relations, the development of international tourism, etc. The development of new information and computer technologies, the emergence of the global Internet is also influenced by the popularity of the English language.

Application

Questionnaire:

1.Do you meet borrowings in everyday life?

a) often

b) seldom

c) never

2. Do you use borrowings in your oral or written speech?

a) often

b) seldom

c) from time to time

d) never

3. What is your attitude to the using of borrowings in your native language?

a) positive

b) negative

c) indifferently

4. Why do you use anglicisms?

a) faster and easier to explain what I want to say

b) it is modern among teenagers

c) these words are more expressive and emotional

5. Do you use "OK" in your everyday life?

a) yes

b) no

6. Do your parents use "OK"?

a) yes

b) no

Results of this survey:

1. Most of the students indicated a high degree of frequency of using English loanwords in everyday life.

2.Almost all the participants in the survey often use English borrowings in their speech and writing.

3. The relationship to use English borrowings in the Russian language is more positive, less - indifferent and even less - negative. This suggests that the interviewees used to using English words in the Russian language.

4. The most of the interviewees use anglicisms because they are modern.

5. As for using "OK" all students say that they use it and their parents too.

References :

1.М.А.Брейтер Англицизмы в русском языке: история и перспективы:

Пособие для иностранных студентов-русистов.

Владивосток: изд-во «Диалог»,1995

2.Л.П.Крысин Иноязычные слова в современной жизни// Русский язык

конца ХХ столетия.-М., 1996

3. Современный словарь иностранных слов.-

«Русский язык», 1992

4. Линн Виссон "Русские проблемы в английской речи" .-М., 2007

4. http://art.ioso.ru/seminar/2008/projects1/angl/angl.htm

5. http://azenglish.ru/anglicizmy-v-russkom-yazyke/

6. http://festival.1september.ru/articles/410377/

7. http://www.ldoceonline.com/

8.http://www.shcool61.ru/Science/krivoruchkok_angl.htm