Anglomania’s influence on the communication professional jargon in Spain

Abstract

During the formative university years in Communication Studies in Spain, specially in the case of Strategic Communication, there is a preference for the use of English jargon by both academics and professionals, even though most words have their own translation into Spanish. We are referring to terms such as “target” instead of “público objetivo”, “timing” instead of “cronograma”, “packaging” instead of “embalaje”, etc. The phenomenon in which the English language is preferred over Spanish in communication jargon in Spain is called “Anglomania in the world of communication”. Professionals, academics and users of this jargon replace the use of Spanish terms with English ones, whether they are necessary or not. Through this research, a comparison of the use of Anglicisms is carried out between the Valencian professional communication sector and between the academic sector. The objective is to analyze the use and frequency and, furthermore, to check whether there is an adequate use correlation between both sectors in favor of effective university training that responds to the labor market. The conclusions show that the use of technical terms in English in communication jargon is a reality, but neither the number of technical terms used by professionals with respect to academics nor the selection of Anglicisms used in each field coincide.