gdal - How to stop writeOGR from abbreviating Field Names when using "ESRI Shapefile" driver

I'm currently using the following script to add some attribute data from a table to lots of individual shapefiles:

library(rgdal)
specieslist <- read.csv("SpeciesList1.txt", header=F)
attdata <- read.table("TestAtt.csv", sep = ",", header=T)
for (n in 1:dim(specieslist)[1]) 
{
speciesname <- specieslist[n,1]
shp <- readOGR("Mesoamerica_modified_polygons", speciesname)
shp$ENGL_NAME<-attdata[n,2]
writeOGR(shp, "PolygonsV2", speciesname, driver="ESRI Shapefile")

}

I get the following warning(s) at the end:

1: In writeOGR(shp, "PolygonsV2", speciesname, driver = "ESRI Shapefile") :
Field names abbreviated for ESRI Shapefile driver

When viewing the attribute table of the shapefiles after this process, the Field name has been shortened to 'ENGL_', but I want it to stay as 'ENGL_NAME'. Is there a way to turn this abbreviating off?

Any help much appreciated.

Answer

You can't, it's a shapefile issue. See http://gdal.org/drv_shapefile.html under 'Creation Options'