Hyperforeign

Quick meaning: Hyperforeign is an adjective meaning (linguistics) Resulting from the misapplication of foreign reading rules, such as dropping the ‘t’ in claret.

Meaning

(linguistics) Resulting from the misapplication of foreign reading rules, such as dropping the ‘t’ in claret.

Example Sentences

Half-literate persons, who try, without proper knowledge, to pronounce a foreign language, are apt to coin hyper-foreign forms, a special kind of hyper-correction.

This playfulness and hyperforeign linguistic behavior is notably absent with [ŋ] in English, a sound that is systematically ruled out in initial position. Thus, speakers do not turn a name like Noam [noʷm] into *Ngoam [ŋoʷm] for any playful purpose or to underscore its seeming alien quality.

This relation is further complicated by the literate persons who know something of the foreign pronunciation and orthography. A speaker who knows the spelling jabot and the English form [ˈžɛbow] (for French [žabo]), may revise tête-à-tête [ˈtejteˌtejt] (from French [tɛ:t a tɛːt]) to a hyper-foreign ['tejtetej], without the final [t].

Had the norms of Eng. phonotactics been violated by the stimulus words, there would probably have occurred all sorts of further distortions in the responses, cf. the well-known examples of what an impression of ‘foreignness’ can do on a stage of imperfect learning supplied by the English school tradition of trilled r in French, or the Danish hyperforeign pronunciation of German as a voiced [dᶻ].

Word Forms

• hyper-foreign

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include hypercorrect, unfaithful, heterographic, ungrammatical, contrafactive, miscultured.

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