This paper reviews the background of lexical borrowing in Vietnamese context and investigates the scale of borrowability of English tokens that occured in magazine issues. The findings show that the syntactic system of the Vietnamese language has influenced how English word types are borrowed. | ENGLISH BORROWINGS AND SCALE OF BORROWABILITY IN VIETNAMESE MAGAZINES Nguyen Thuy Nga* Hanoi National University of Education, 136 Xuan Thuy, Cau Giay, Hanoi, Vietnam Received 09 March 2017 Revised 09 May 2017; Accepted 12 May 2017 Abstract: When two or more languages are in contact, it is impossible for them to remain completely discrete from each other and the most frequently encountered product of language contact is lexical borrowing. This paper reviews the background of lexical borrowing in Vietnamese context and investigates the scale of borrowability of English tokens that occured in magazine issues. The findings show that the syntactic system of the Vietnamese language has influenced how English word types are borrowed. Keywords: language contact, borrowings, English, scale of borrowability 1. Introduction Since 1986, the use of English has undergone rapid expansion in Vietnam. Not only are young people exposed to English because it is a subject offered at schools, but they may also gravitate towards it as a prominent tool to enable access to Western lifestyle and culture. Despite substantial studies on English borrowings, no research is conducted on written borrowings, written code-switching, and trends in borrowing over time in language for a youthful Vietnamese audience such as that encountered in magazines for teenagers. The current study innovates in all of these ways. First, consideration of written borrowings is useful in that it allows access to much larger data collections, thereby facilitating meaningful quantitative results. Second, the study of youth language helps capture borrowings closer to their time of entry into the language, since young people, especially in the Englishfocused educational context noted above, can be expected to instigate borrowing more often than older people. Moreover, borrowings examined * Tel.: 84- 964757807 Email: over time provide insight into the relation between the influence of English
