The relation between formal and informal style with respect to language change
Camiel Hamans
Dutch Delegation in the PES-Group of the European Parliament
When languages borrow items from each other, then usually one does not expect forms belonging to an informal style to be taken over.
'Foreign' words normally have a prestigious character and therefore belong to registers of a certain formality.
In the language of youngsters it is different. Young people in Europe consider the informal American English of rap, pop and soap as having a certain status, which means that forms from these very informal registers tend to be taken over by the young students.
Not only words have been borrowed, even morphological rules might be taken over. Most of these rules become productive in the 'new' languages.
In this paper it will be shown how this process of informal borrowing may lead to language change and how this process differs from classical, formal borrowing.