Reception Strategies of Borrowed Catholic Terminology in Vietnamese (An Analysis of Prayer Texts from Vietnamese Dioceses Influenced by the Dominican Order)

Abstract

This paper examines the borrowing mechanisms of Catholic terminology in the Vietnamese language, with a focus on its formation and development from the 16th century to approximately the 2010s. Drawing on data from prayer texts of Vietnamese dioceses influenced by the Dominican Order, the study analyzes three primary strategies of lexical adaptation: retention of original forms, phonetic transcription, and semantic calquing. The findings contribute to clarifying the process of language contact between Vietnamese and Western languages in the context of the Catholic community, while also shedding light on the linguistic characteristics of the Catholic lexical stratum in Vietnamese.