Synopsis
neologismword diachronic
Thesubject of the investigation in this study is neologisms and their word buildingmeans in Modern English. Its aims are to present various ways of word building,analyze top 50 neologisms and to determine the most frequently used wordforming types.
Thework consists of two main parts. Chapter I gives a description of neologisms:definition, diachronic analysis, cultural acceptance factor. Chapter II dealswith manor and major word building types, presents latest top 50 neologisms,analyzed and arranged in table according to their word building type, source andtime of appearance, sphere of usage, ability to create new forms, new notionappearance. Both qualitative (semantic, structural, contextual) andquantitative methods of analysis are employed.
Thematerial for the studies was collected in February, 2004, on www.wordspy.com.
Theresults of the analysis are supplied with various schemes and tables.
Introduction
Thereis no doubt that the English language today is the most widely used languagefor international communication. Words and expressions are born, live for ashort time and then die or find their place in our vocabulary according to thetemporary or permanent nature of the fenomena they describe.
Indeed,if no new words were to appear, it would be a sign that the language wasmoribund; the progress of arts and sciences gives birth to a large majority ofnew words: each new word that does appear should be severely scrutinized beforeit becomes generally accepted. So this work does a research into all word – formingmeans to determine the most productive ways of forming new words that appeared inthe eighties, nineties and in the beginning of the XXI century. They areregistered on www.wordspy.com as 50 top neologisms.
Wehave determined some aims in our investigation:
– tooverview neologism diachronically (to present the historical development of thefenomenon);
– toinvestigate the problem of cultural acceptance, as that is the crucial point inthe neologism existance, as stability and suitability, which are determined by thepublic;
– togive the complete classification of word-building means, both minor and major;
– topresent the reasons for high or low productivity of each word-building type given;
– togive the overview of all possible sources, where the information on neologismscan be taken;
– to studythe top 50 neologisms (Wordspy.com) and analyse them using quantative andqualitative analysis, according to their word building type, source and time ofappearance, sphere of usage, ability to create new forms, new notionappearance.
Thenovelty of the investigation lies in analizing the new words that are unstable sofar as a group and still making their way in the language.
Thepaper consists of the introductory part stating the objectives and aims of theinvestigation. Chapter I considers the notion of neologisms and the developmentof the fenomenon, also it deals with cultural acceptance factors. The second chapterpresents the word building types and the sources of new words and then there isgiven a many sided description of 50 top neologisms.
Inthe supplement, we find it necessary to present the exersises (where derivationin neology is the main principle), where students could develop their skills tocreate new words, which would also widen pupils’ outlook and develop theircreational language abilities.
1.Neologism, its definition, development and cultural acceptance
1.1Introductory information, links with other sciences
No new science is possible without neologisms, new words or newinterpretations of old words to describe and explain reality in new ways. Howcould Aristotle have developed the logic of syllogisms or Newton the theory ofdynamics without new vocabularies and definitions? They were neologists, andeverybody wanting to contribute new knowledge must be. «To reject neologisms,often despicably, is to reject scientific development. No sign of scientificconservatism is so telling as the rejection of all but the established conceptsof a school of thought. Neologisms are, however, relative to the terminologicalparadigm actually dominating a field of knowledge. It may be a radical renewalto introduce terms from a tradition believed to be outmoded.» (Ingar Roggen,1996)
Thereexist various definitions of such a linguistical event, as neologism, andevery of them expresses the gist of this notion taking into the considerationone of the numerous aspects of neologism. The most general are:
/>«Neologism: Neologisms are «wordsthat have appeared in a language in connection with new phenomena, new concepts,…but which have not yet entered into the active vocabularies of a significantportion of the native speakers of the language». (Woodhouse dictionary, 1972,p. 225)
«A neologism is the term used to describe aword that has been made-up or invented by a speaker, which appears in atranscript of spontaneous speech dialogue. It can also be described as a wordwhich does not appear in the dictionary of the primary spoken language, butwhich is also not a foreign word.» (Internet en.wiktionary.org)Or:
Thecommon thing in these both definitions is that neologism is not yetregistered in dictionaries and in most cases it is a colloquial for the timebeing.
Forinstance, the word «nigilist» (nihilist) [(Shanskii 1971, p. 128); and waspopularized in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons (1962), through hisdepiction of the radical doctor of the 1860's, Bazarov.» The reason forintroducing the word into the language was that there were many young people ofthat time believing that nothing had meaning or value. As soon as the word wascoined it was accepted by the society and has existed in a number of languagessince then.
If wetake some sciences in particular, we may see, all of them reflect theessence of the notion, as there is «always something new». For instance, in linguistics,a neologism is a recently-coined word, or the act of inventinga word or phrase. Additionally it can imply the use of old words in a new sensei.e., giving new meanings to existing words or phrases. As it was mentionedabove neologisms are especially useful in identifying new inventions, newphenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context. The word «neologism»was coined around 1800 and was, at that time, a neologism itself.
In psychology, a neologism is a word invented bya person suffering from psychotic disorders; psychiatrists sometimes use theseneologisms, which often have meaning only to the subject, as clues to determinethe nature of the subject's disorder. In theology, a neologismis a relatively new doctrine (for example, rationalism). In this sense, aneologist is an innovator in the area of a doctrine or belief system, and isoften considered heretical or subversive by the mainstream church.
The main point in all these defenitions is that the word ormeaning is new and the implication is that the word might be adopted by thesociety and take roots or ignored and shortly forgotten.
1.2History and the development of neologisms
Asa literary concept and term, neologism appeared in the early 18thcentury, at the time when the neoclassical practices of the French Generationof 1660 began to consolidate, throughout Europe, into a body of normativeteaching. The idea that different domains of human experience should be representedin literature by distinct literary styles entailed the notion that each ofthese styles should operate within distinct vocabulary. Usage, i.e., specificusage of the «best Authors», «the Court», or «the City», determined the limitsof this vocabulary, along with other grammatical and stylistic properties.Authors using words and expressions (as well as phrase structures) from outsidethis universe were said to use neologisms, new expressions. Critics ofthe time conceived of neologism in literature as analogous to thecontinuous creation and introduction of new lexical units into language, andthey thought of language change in general as a process of decay. Thus neologismwas condemned on both aesthetic and linguistic grounds and the term was used pejorativelyonly. This older meaning of neologism, and the attitude it reflects, isstill alive today.
However, as early as the second half of the 18th century, itbecame obvious that the vocabulary of literary expression should and perhapscould not be fully limited. Thus pejororative neologism was given ameliorative doublet, «neology» which meant the introduction of «approved» or«correct» new words into language. Critical literature has since expended agreat deal of effort to define, not very successfully, the limits of «neology»,usually concluding that the latter should be above all Horace's licentiasumpta prudenter, restricted to cases of «real need» (i.e., for conceptsfor which no single word or expression exists in the language) and that newwords should be analogous in form to existing words in the language. Since,however, there are an infinite number of concepts an author may wish torepresent in his writing, or a speaker, in his speech, and since the lexicon ofmost natural languages offers a very large number of possible analogies, suchpuristic recommendations have never succeeded in stemming the influx of newwords into language, thence into literature.
The old meaning of neologism is synonymous with «barbarism»,«gallicism» (in English), «anglicism» (in French), and even «archaism». It isopposed to «purism».
The modern, neutral meaning of neologism appears early inthe 19th century and, still combated by Littré in French, gainsacceptance towards the end of the century. The expansion of the literaryexperience by the Romanticists, the Realists, and the Naturalists, as well asthe emergence of linguistics as an «objective» science has contributed to thisdevelopment – Victor E. Hanzeli (37).
1.3 Cultural acceptance
Wecan mark that neologisms tend to occur more often in cultures which are rapidlychanging, and also in situations where there is easy and fast propagation ofinformation. They are often created by combining existing words (compound nounand adjective) or by giving words new and unique suffixes or prefixes.Those which are portmanteaus are shortened. Neologisms can also be createdthrough abbreviation or acronym, by intentionally rhyming with existing words,or simply through playing with sounds.
As for the description of neologisms, we can say that, a neologismmay be a slang word that has yet to find its way into mainstream conversation,or it may be the creation of a non-native speaker who has made for example agrammatical error. The so-called slip of the tongue may also be seen asneologisms.
Neologisms often become popular by way of mass media, theInternet, or word of mouth – especially, many linguists suspect, by youngerpeople. Virtually every word in a language was, at some time, a neologism,though most of these ceased to be such through time and acceptance.
Neologisms often become accepted parts of the language. Othertimes, however, they disappear from common usage. Whether or not a neologismcontinues as part of the language depends on many factors, probably the mostimportant of which is acceptance by the public. Acceptance by linguisticexperts and incorporation into dictionaries also plays a part, as does whetherthe phenomenon described by a neologism remains current, thus continuing toneed a descriptor. It is unusual, however, for a word to enter common use if itdoes not resemble another word or words in an identifiable way. (In some caseshowever, strange new words succeed because the idea behind them is especiallymemorable or exciting). When a word or phrase is no longer «new,» it is nolonger a neologism. Neologisms may take decades to become «old», though.Opinions differ on exactly how old a word must be to no longer be considered aneologism; cultural acceptance probably plays a more important role than timein this regard.
If we consider the cultural acceptance, we can reckon, that afterbeing coined, neologisms invariably undergo scrutiny by the public and bylinguists to determine their suitability to the language. Many are acceptedvery quickly; others attract opposition. Language experts sometimes object to aneologism on the grounds that a suitable term for the thing described alreadyexists in the language. Non-experts who dislike the neologism sometimes alsouse this argument, deriding the neologism as «abuse and ignorance of thelanguage.»
Some neologisms, especially those dealing with sensitive subjects,are often objected to on the grounds that they obscure the issue beingdiscussed, and that such a word's novelty often leads a discussion away fromthe root issue and onto a sidetrack about the meaning of the neologism itself.
Proponents of a neologism see it as being useful, and also helpingthe language to grow and change; often they perceive these words as being a funand creative way to play with a language. Also, the semantic precision of mostneologisms, along with what is usually a straightforward syntax, often makesthem easier to grasp by people who are not native speakers of the language.
The outcome of these debates, when they occur, has a great deal ofinfluence on whether a neologism eventually becomes an accepted part of thelanguage. Linguists may sometimes delay acceptance, for instance by refusing toinclude the neologism in dictionaries; this can sometimes cause a neologism to dieout over time. Nevertheless if the public continues to use the term, it alwayseventually sheds its status as a neologism and enters the language even overthe objections of language experts.
2. Ways of forming words and the analysis of 50top neologisms
2.1 Classification of word-building means
As the aim of our work is to investigate the problem ofneologisms, and ways of their forming, we will overview the word-buildingmeans. At first we will tackle the problem of various classifications of word-formation,linguists used to mention morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types ofword-formation. At present the classification of the types does not, as a rule,include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification ofword-formation means based on the number of motivating bases, which manyscholars follow. A distinction is made between two large classes ofword-building means:
To Class I belong the means of building words having onemotivating base. To give an English example, the noun CATCHER is composed ofthe base CATCH – and the suffix – ER, through the combination of which it is morphologicallyand semantically motivated.
The basic means in word-derivation are affixation and conversion. Derived wordsusually consist of a root and an affix, which in their turn fall into prefixeswhich proceed the root in the structure of the word (re-write, mis-pronounce)and suffixes which follow the root (teach-er, dict-ate). Derived words areextremely popular in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with thisstructural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in itsstructure. This type widely represented by a great number of words belonging tothe original English word stock or to earlier borrowings (house, book, work),and in Modern English, has been greatly enlarged by the type of word building,called conversion (pale, adj. – to pale, v; to find, v- a find, n.)Conversion sometimes is referred to as an affixless way of word-buildingor even affixless derivation. Conversion is a process of creating a new wordfrom some existing one or by changing the category of a part of speech, themorphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. The new word has ameaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or lessbe easily associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its newcategory as a part of speech (nurse, n. – to nurse, v).
Class II includes the means of building words containingmore than one motivating base. Needless to say, they are all based oncompounding (country-club, door – hande).
This type of word building, in which new words are produced bycombining two or more stems, is one of the most productive types in ModernEnglish, the other two are conversion and affixation. Compounds, thoughcertainly fewer in quantity than derived or root words, still represent one ofthe most typical and specific features of English word-structure. Compoundsare not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished:neutral, morphological, syntactic. In neutral compounds the process ofcompounding is relized without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition oftwo stems (shop-window, bedroom, tallboy). Morphological compounds are fewer innumber. This type is not productive and it is repersented by words in which twocomponding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant (Anglo – Saxon,statesman, handiwork) (16, p. 105) In syntactic compounds we find afeature of a specifically English word-structure. These words are formed fromsegments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces ofsyntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs,prepositions, as in lily-of-the-alley, good-for-nothing. Syntactical relationsand grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be traced in thestructures of such compound nouns as pick-me-up, know-all, whodunit.In this group of compounds, we find a great number of neologisms, and whodunitis one of them. The structure of most compounds is transparent, and it is clearthat the origin of these words is a simple word combination.
Most linguists in special chapters and manuals devoted to Englishword-formation consider as the chief processes af English word formationaffixation, conversion and compounding. Apart from these a number of minor waysof forming words such as back-fomation, sound interchange, distinctive stress,sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally referred toWord-formation. (26, p. 108)
Some minor types of word-formation can not belong neither to wordderivation nor to compounding, as some words while shortening, forexample, can have two bases, e.g. V-day, some can have one, e.g. lab.The same reason can be applied to other minor types. We will not be strict and considerthem as minor word building means.
Shortenings are produced in two different ways. The first isto make a new word form a syllable (rarer two) of the original word. The lattermay lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone), itsending (as in hols – holydays, ad – advertisement) or boththe beginning and ending (as in flu-influenza). The second way ofshortening is to make a new word form the initial letters (similar to acronimy)of a word group: U.N.O. from the United Nations Organization.This type is called initial shortenings and found not only among colloquialismsand slang. So, g.f. is a shortened word made from the compound girlfriend.
Asa type of word-building shortening of spoken words, also called clippingor curtailment, is recorded in the English language as far back asthe 15 century. It has grown more and more productive ever since. This growthbecomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20thcentury, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development isparticularly intense in English.
Shorteningsof spoken words or curtailment consists in the reduction of a word to one ofits parts (whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as aresult of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own.
Newlyshortened words appear continuously: this is testified by numerous neologisms,such as demo form demonstration: frog or fridgefrom refrigerator; trank from tranquilizer. Many authorsare inclined to overemphasize the role of «the strain of modern life» as themainspring of this development. This is, obviously, only one of reasons, andthe purely linguistic factors should not be overlooked. Among the major forcesare the demands of rhythm, which are more readily satisfied when the words aremonosyllabic.
Whendealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentageof English shortenings is involved into the process of loan word assimilation.Monosyllabism goes farther in English than in any other European language, andthat is why shortened words sound more like native ones than their longprototypes.
Theother word building means can be called: blends, blendings, fusions orportmanteau words. The process of formation is calledtelescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like sections ofa telescope. Blends may be defined as formations that combine two words andinclude the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element.
Theanalysis into immediate constituents is helpful so far as it permits thedefinition of a blend as a word with the first constituent represented by astem whose final part may be missing, and the second constituent by a stem ofwhich the initial part is missing. The second constituent, when used in aseries of similar blends may turn into a suffix. A new suffix – on is,for instance, well under way in such terms as nylon, rayon, silon,formed from the final element of cotton.
Dependingupon prototype phrases with which they can be correlate two types of blends canbe distinguished. One may be termed additive, the second, restrictive. (17, p. 76)The respective type is transformable into an attributive phrase where the firstelement serves as modifier of the second: cine (matographic pano) rama – cinerama.Other examples are: medicare – medical care, telecast – televisionbroadcast.
Bothtypes involve the sliding together not only of sound but of meaning as well.Yet the semantic relations, which are at work are different. The additive typeis transformable into a phrase consisting of the respective complete stemscombined with the conjunction and, e.g. smog – smoke and fog ‘amixture of smoke and fog’. The elements may be synonymous, belong to the samesemantic field or at least be members of the same lexico-grammatical class ofwords: French + English=Frenglish.
Blends,although not very numerous altogether, seem to be on the rise, especially interminology and also in trade advertisements.
Anotherway of forming new words is acronymization, as for this process,we can say, that, because of ever closer connection between the oral and thewritten forms of the language it is sometimes difficult to differentiate clippingsformed in oral speech from graphical abbreviations. They are becoming more employedin oral speech and widely used in conversation.
DuringWorld War I and after it the custom became very popular not only inEnglish-speaking countries, but in other parts of the world as well, to callcountries, governmental, social, military, industrial and trade organizationsand officials not only by their full titles but by initial abbreviationsderived from writing. Later the trend became even more pronounced; e.g. theUSSR, the U.N.O., MP. The tendency was to omit fullstops between the letters:GPO (General Post Organization). Some abbreviations nevertheless appear in bothforms: EPA and E.P.A. (Environmental Protection Agency). Such words formed fromthe initial letter of each of the successive parts of a phrasal term have twopossible types of orthoepic correlation between written and spoken forms.
Ifthe abbreviated written form lends itself to be read as though it were anordinary English word and sounds like an English word, it will be read likeone. The words thus formed are calledacronyms (fromGREEKacros – ‘end’ +onym ‘name’). This way of forming new words isbecoming more and more popular in almost all fields of human activity, andespecially in political and technical vocabulary: U.N.O., also UNO (ju:nou) –United Nations Organization, NATO – the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization, SALT – Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. The lastexample shows that acronyms are often homonymous to ordinary words: sometimesintentionally chosen so as to create certain associations. Thus, for example,the National organization for Women is called NOW. Typical of acronymiccoinages in technical terminology are JATO, laser, radar.
Acronymspresent a special interest because they exemplify the working of the lexicaladaptive system. (17, p. 143)
As for semantic word – building, we can say, that itis any change in word – meaning, for instance the word bench – ‘a longseat of wood or stone’; ‘a carpenter table’. The majority of the linguists,however, understand this process only as a change in the meaning of a word thatmay result in the appearance of homonyms, as is the case with flower – «ablossom» and flour–: the fine meal», «powder made form wheat and used formaking bread», etc. The application of the term word-formation to the appearanceof homonyms due to the development of polysemy seems to be debatable for thefollowing reasons:
As semantic change does not, as a rule, lead to the inroduction ofa new word into the vocabulary, it can scarcely be regarded as a word-buildingmeans (neither can we consider the process a word-building means even when anactual enlargment), the vocabulary does come about through the appearance of apair of homonyms. Actually, the appearance of homonyms is not a means ofcreating new words, but it is the final result of a long and laborious process ofsense-development. Furthermore, there are no patterns after which homonyms canbe made in the language. Finally, diverging sense-development results in asemantic isolation of two or more meanings of a word, whereas the process ofword-formation proper is characterized by a certain semantic connection betweenthe new word and the source lexical unit. For these reasons diverging sense-developmentleading to the appearance of two or more homonyms should be regarded as aspecific channel through which the vocabulary of a language is replenished withnew words and should not be treated on a par with the processes ofword-formation, such as affixation, conversion and composition.
2.2 Productivity of Word-building means
Some of the ways of forming new words in present – day English canbe resorted to for the creation of new words whenever the occasion demands – theseare called productive ways of forming words. Other ways of forming words cannotproduce new words as readily and these are commonly termed non-productive orunproductive. For instance, affixation has been a productive way of forming newwords ever since the Old English period, whereas, sound-interchange must havebeen at one time a productive word-building means but in Modern English itsfunction is actually only to distinguish between different classes and forms ofwords.
The high productivity of conversion finds its reflection inspeech where numerous occasional cases of conversion can be found, which arenot registered in dictionaries and which occur momentarily, through theimmediate need of situation. (16, p. 90) Conversion is universallyaccepted as one of the major ways of enriching English vocabulary with newwords.
It follows that productivity of word-building ways, individual derivationalpatterns and derivational affixes is understood as their ability of making newwords which all who speak English find no difficulty in understanding, inparticular their ability to create what is called occasional words ornonce-words (more unstable, serve theimmediate purpose as comparedto neologisms, but the border is very slight). The term means that thespeaker coins such words when he needs them, if on another occasion the sameword is needed again, he coins it afresh. Needless to say dictionaries do not asa rule record occasonal words. The following words may serve as illustration: collarless(appearance), a Dickensish (office), to unlearn (the rules), etc.
Recent investigations seem to prove however that productivity ofderivational means is relative in many respects. Moreover there are noabsolutely productive means, derivational patterns and derivational affixeshave different degrees of productivity. Each part of speech is characterized bya set of productive derivational patterns, peculiar to it. Three degrees ofproductivity are distinguished for derivational patterns and individualderivational affixes: 1) highly-productive, 2) productive or semi – productiveand 3) non-productive. (26, p. 112)By productive affixes we meanthe ones, which take part in deriveng new words at this particular period oflanguage development. The best way to indentify productive affixes is to lookfor them among nonce words. They are usually formed on the level ofliving speech and reflect the most productive and progressive patterns in wordbuilding. One should not mix the productivity of affixes with their frequencyof occurrence. There are quite a number of high-frequency affixes which,nevertheless, are no longer used in word derivation (the adjective-fomingnative suffixes – ful, – ly; the adjective-forming suffixes of Latinorigin – ant, – al which are quite frequent).
As for compounding, we can say that the structural type ofcompound words and the word-building type of composition have certainadvantages for communication purposes. Composition is not quite so flexible(productive) a way of coining new as conversion but flexible enough to createnumerous nonce words. These words are comparatively laconic, absorbing into oneword an idea that otherwise would have required a whole phrase (cf. Thehotel was full of week-enders and The hotel was full of people spendingthe week-end there). (16, p. 20)
Weshould also mention the reason why such word building ways as shortening,acronyms and blendings are so productive. It can be explained by their brevityand it is due to the ever-increasing tempo of modern life. In meeting theneeds of communication and fulfilling the laws of information theory requiringa maximum signal in the minimum time the lexical system undergoes modificationin its basic structure: namely it forms new elements not by their combiningexisting morphemes and proceeding from sound forms to their graphicrepresentation but the other way round – coining new words form the initialletters of phrasal terms originating in texts. (17, p. 144)
2.3The overview of the sources of neologisms
Inour work, we are determined to define the word-building means of the new wordand the sphere of its use, we have presented the major types of word formingway and have mentioned some spheres where they can be used and their culturalacceptance. The top 50 neologisms were taken from the WORDSPY site.
Wethink it necessary to present the overview of the sources, where theinformation on neologisms can be taken. As it was said by – Andrew LloydJames, (Welsh linguist, The Broadcast Word, 1935): «A language is never in astate of fixation, but is always changing; we are not looking at alantern-slide but at a moving picture.» As English is a growing language newwords and phrases emerge everyday at a pace that the Oxford EnglishDictionary and the Webster's cannot keep up with. While thesedictionaries wait for years before they consider words 'fit to publish', theWeb is working faster to bring these new terms to light.
Wordspy.com is one of thelargest sites keeping track of emerging vocabulary of the English language. Itis maintained by Paul McFedries, author of many computer andEnglish language books. New terms are added to the site regularly.
Backin 1996, Wordspy began as a mailing list where each day McFedries would sendout an interesting word to a few friends and readers. «After I'd accumulated afew dozen words, I created the site to give people a record of what had beenposted and make it possible for other people to join the list,» says McFedries.
Manynew words may become household terms in a few years. Some of them are here onlyfor a short while. McFedries describes language as volcanic mountain constantlyspewing out new words and phrases. «Some of them are blown away by the windsand others are linguistic lava that slides down the volcano and eventuallyhardens as a permanent part of the language. Both types of ejecta areinherently creative, so I'm interested in them equally,» he explains.
Hefinds most of these words through his own reading. For the citations, he uses Lexis-Nexis,Dow Jones News Retrieval and Electric Library. He also uses Googleand his local library.
Accordingto him, new words are a reflection of what's going on in the culture. «Forexample, if the culture is generating new terms such as 'work-life balance', 'joy-to-stuffratio', and 'affluenza', to me it's an indication that asignificant number of people are looking to slow down and live simpler, lessmaterialistic lives.»
Wordspyhas given emerging words a new life. It even provides an updated list of wordsand expressions that's not yet in the Oxford English Dictionary.
'Dellionaire' isa nounand means 'a rich person whose wealth is based on the stocks heowns at Dell Computer Corporation'. An 'Internot' (noun) is aperson who refuses to use the Internet.
McFedriescalls Wordspy 'lexpionage' (a word he coined himself), the sleuthing ofnew words and of old words used in new ways. His favorite word is obviously 'logophilia',the love of words.
Thereare nearly 2000 words and expressions in this collection. Every term has a pagededicated to it. This page has all the information of the word or expression:the figure of speech, what the word means, its usage, citations and abackgrounder. Earliest known usage of some words is also included. In somecases, history about the entry is also provided.
2.4The top 50 neolosisms and their analysis
Wepresent the top 50 neologisms in the following table, the data is collected onthe 5th of February, 2004 on Wordspy site.
Nowwe present the table, where words are arranged according the popularity firstof all, the earliest citation, the short definition, the word-building type,the sphere of usage are presented.
Wehad 50 most frequently used neologisms to investigate at our disposal, it isclear that it is only a small portion of new coined words we could use, but forthe convenience and the accuracy of the analysis only these words were taken.Nevertheless, even these words can prompt us about the contemporary processesin the language, and we can distinguish the most productive ways of new wordsto appear and the main spheres where they are needed. We can determine themajor trends in the neology as well.
Culture– General-11, Food and Drink -2, Television-2, Health and Fitness-3.
Sociology– General-22, Gay and Lesbian-3, Pregnancy and Parenting -5, Men and Women-9,
Computers– General-5, Internet – 6, Hacking and Hackers-3, Wareless-3, E-mail-3
Technology– General-3, Cell Phones-4
TheWorld – Crime-3, General -1, Politics -3,
Science– General-4, Biology-2, Psychology-4
Business– General-2, Money -1
Language– General-4
Wordbuilding means is the first thing we will do research into analyzing the chartof the most popular neologisms. According to it we can mark that the wordcomposition and sense development are the most productive ways of coining newwords.According to structural types of words, two motivating bases areemployed while forming words by word composition. For instance, the word neurotheologyhas two clear bases, they are neuro – and – theology. Judgingby the result it’s the most common way as is ‘the easiest’, as soon as you usethe already existing words and put them together.
Sensedevelopment is employed when a new meaning is acquired by the already existingword, that is what we call semantic word building type. In the age of globalization,developed social links and hi-tech events, mankind needs names for them andthere is a big number of such cases, as in the word quiet party alongwith the word composition, this type is used, words (composites of the word)are commonly known, but while analyzing we can clearly see that sensedevelopment is engaged to coin this neologism.
Blendingis less popular, cases, like hathos, the blend of hate and pathosis marked.
Suchtypes as affixation, acronimization (kippers – from «kids in parents'pockets eroding retirement savings») turned out to be not very productive. Itcan be explained by various reasons – 1) elaboration in forming, 2) difficultyin predicting (decoding) the information.
Itis clear that more than 40% of the neologisms appeared in the nineties, it canbe explained by the sudden jump in computer technologies and the more evidentresults of the sexual revolution. In the eighties, 24% of the new words werecoined, that was more or less a stable period of the contemporary society. Asfor the 2000–2004, for this period more than 36% of the neologisms were built.That is the richest period, as the progress became faster, as well as, the timeitself.
It’sthe first time new words were fixed in newspapers. Such tabloids, as The INDEPENDENT(London), Chicago TRIBUNE, THE WASHINGTON POST, The AUSTRALIAN, CANADIAN Issuesare the productive sources. The Internet sites give birth to the numerous wordswhich deal with technologies, for instance, the esato.com gave life to the wordBLUEJACKING. Not only English speaking countries tabloids are among thesources, THE JERUSALEM POST «bore» the floortime, etc. Some other localnewspapers like THE DENVER POST, FLORIDA TIMES, THE TORONTO STAR, THE NATION,etc. can also be called the sources. Issues, discussed at conferences (DigitalRights Management Conference) can be the reasons for the new words appearance (darknet)as well.
Withthe development of the society and the sexual revolution, which is still goingon, new forms of relations between sexes and within family, new types of sexsocial status appeared. This sphere has got more new notions than ever before,since now people can easily change their sex and sexual orientation (gay andlesbian topic). Gaydar (an interesting composition Gay+ Dar,denoting a special sense while identifying gay from a straight person) or straightsupermacist (a person who assumes that all heterosexuals are innatelysuperior than homosexuals and they don’t have the right to be equally treatedunder the law) Moreover, there are new types of family forms and relations whichexplains the appearance of words, such as manny – male nanny, isa clear case in point.
Menand women links are also of interest, ¼ of all new notions (according toour investigation) make up in this sphere. Irritable Male Syndrome (-angerand irritableness in men caused by a sudden drop in testosterone levels,particularly when brought on by stress or the word) men breasts (excessfatty tissue that causes a man's chest to resemble a woman's breasts) show ushow men begin to resemble a woman more and more, physically andpsychologically. Or take for example, a metrosexual individual, whospends much money on his appearance and lifestyle.
Thesecond richest branch is Computer. New computer technologies give riseto new words. Most of them are connected with the Internet and E – mail, as theInternet offers us more and more opportunities, as well as, all computertechnologies. Software in many people’s lifetime has been mostly a wonderfulway to live, because we're just learning how to do it and anybody with sometime and talent and initiative can try out any crazy idea. We have so muchprocessing power and so much memory and such great tools and we still fail,most times, to produce things that are fun to use. Neologisms like, GOOGLE, «spIM»became an indispensable part of Internet users’ speech. One can googleand find any information he or she needs and the other gets spIM everytime he or she uses Instant Messenger.
Culturesphere is developing along with the society, that is why it is the thirdrichest. Television and food and drink branches have more fresh words,than ever now, and again, it is connected with the technological and socialdevelopment. Individuals suffer from passive over-eating, that is theexcessive eating of foods that are high in fat because the human body is slowto recognize the caloric content of rich foods; eating whatever is put in frontof you, even to the point of discomfort. The ground for it all is the change ofthe life rhythm – shortage of time.
Scienceis the forth richest, new sciences and discoveries are made in this sphere – thatis neurotheology, for example.
Technologyand The world have the equal number, in the Technology branch,more than a half of all new words are connected with cell phones. The majorityof civilized people have «cellys» to save time and money. Some have problemswith BLUEJACKING while standing in a line in the supermarket (temporallyhijacking another person’s cell phone by sending anonymousmessagesusing the Bluetooth system). Or one can make 911 butt call, that is definitelyis not worth responding to.
Businessand language are less influenced, these spheres are more or less stable, business– is because it is the matter of money. Market succeeds in creating immensequantities of (unevenly distributed) wealth, lifting people out of ruralpoverty and urban slums, in arranging that most people have jobs, that mostthings that are built that are needed, and the most things that are needed arebuilt. These are not small accomplishments. Also, it can be marked thatbusiness is often a filthy practice. It encourages both vile venial andmonstrous mortal sin, all as an organic consequence of the competitivemarketplace. That explains our statistics, we have three new words, connectedwith this topic, and one of them deals with crime – 419 scam (fraud, makingpeople pay money, which hope to get more later, the numbers «419» is the numberof the law, prosecuting this type of a crime). The other word deals with thestock market – dead cat bounce (a temporary recovery from a major drop in astock's price).
Language,is the sphere which is really flexible and prone to changes, butstill people need more or less stable language system to communicate. New wordsin this sphere are kippers (an acronym) and himbo (an insult) orhathos (feelings of pleasure derived from hating someone or something),they are a rare case in point.
Aswe can see 18 out of 50 words have new forms, some of the new-coined words havedeveloped a paradigm of even three parts of speech, some only one. In most caseswords have a noun as another part of speech, like in words neurotheology,the new form is neurotheologian or metrosexual – metrosexuality,also straight supremacist – straight supremacy. As for creating theadjectives, we have such examples, as hathos – hathotic, or spim – antispimand lipstick lesbian – lipstick with a suffix – ichighly employed. Verbs are also common: bluejacking – to bluejack,manscaping – to manscape, flash mob-to flash mob. Neologisms like, spim,flash mob are the brightest representatives to show how productivethe words can be, they have a noun, a verb, an adjective and even they have aplural form – flash mobs, for example. Few words have a plural form.These facts show that while speaking sometimes people have to converse wordsinto a different part of speech. The bigger paradigm of morphological forms theword develops the more probability it will have to survive for a while and evenstay in the language. The reason for this event is that these new notions as wellas words are gradually becoming the essential part of the civilized world.
Accordingto our statistics, most words acquire a new meaning rather than a new wordappears with a new notion. This can be explained by the fact, that there is notenough, we would say proper, words to express all the variety of newly createdand used notions in the rapidly changing world.
Newmeaning were acquired when two (as it may seem) incompatible words are composedand a new word appears. For instance, words like, quiet party or global dimming,time porn were not of primary importance, moreover, there were not used andwere not actual, if we take for example, the seventies or eighties of the 20thcentury. These things simply did not exist, or were not popular to the sameextent as they are now. Or the word does not change at all, just the newmeaning is implied – kidnap.
Asfor the simultaneous new notions and words creation, we can note, that theywere created whether by acronimization (kipper) or blending (pomosexual,hathos), those are the most productive and the simplest ways to imply twoor more meanings, expressing some fresh ideas, in one word.
Conclusion
Inour work, we tried to give a full presentation if all aspects of such alinguistic event as neology in connection with word building means. Weperformed a complete analysis of 50 most popular neologisms according to theword building type, sphere of usage, to the source and time of appearance,ability to create new forms, new notion appearance.
Asa literary concept and term, neologism appeared in the 18th centuryand its old meaning was synonymous to «barbarism». In the modern meaning ofneologism appeared early in the 19th century and, gained theacceptance towards the end of the century. Nowadays around 4000 words enterEnglish vocabulary every year which reflects the fast development of thelanguage and makes the phenomena interesting to analyze.
Wealso tackled a problem of the cultural acceptance. There is no criterion forjudging how long the neologism takes to be accepted by the public. If it does,it is not the point though, because the reason why it becomes recognized is ofmore importance.
Theclassification of word building means also presented in our investigation, basedon the structural principle (one or two motivating bases) in the first place. Thewords which have one motivating base are usually formed by derivationwith the help of affixes and zero-derivation (conversion), which is theprocess of turning a word in a different part of speech and with a differentdistribution characteristic but without adding any derivational element (n. silence– v. to silence). The second type of word building means employs twomotivating bases (compounding), which is a convenient and laconic way toexpress some ideas, comprised in one word. Minor types of word building includeshortening, acronymy, blending.
Shorteningthat consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts, as a result thenew form acquires some linguistic value of its own, blends that combine twowords and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connectingelement. Acronymy is the process of creating new words when only initialletters are taken. These above mentioned means are frequently used in thesphere of technology and politics as well as everyday language (girlfriend –g.f.), the reason is ever-growing life rhythm, when maximum informationshould be transferred in a minimum time, the described types are the mostsuitable in this case, which also explains their high productivity. Thesemantic word building, which is any semantic change in the word meaning, itdeals with sense development, and can be also treated as one of the sources ofneologisms.
Recentinvestigations seem to prove that productivity of derivational means isrelative in many prospects, and as a conclusion we can say that there are noabsolutely productive means. Conversion is popular due to its simplicity andconvenience; one doesn’t have to add any affixes to create a new word.
Inour work we also dealt with problems concerning the sources of new words asneologisms emerge every day and so fast that dictionaries can not keep up with.While the dictionaries wait for years for the words to be fit to be published,the World Wide Web is acting more efficiently to bring these words to life.Wordspy (creator Paul McFedries) is one of the largest sites keeping track ofemerging vocabulary of the English language. We used the data from this site toanalyze (50 most popular (frequently used) neologisms), collected in February2004.
Wetook these words to determine the major trends in the growing vocabulary; thewords were analyzed according to
- the source and time of appearance,
- to the word building type,
- to the sphere of usage,
- to the ability to create new words,
- to the new notion appearance.
Theperiod, which is rich in neologisms, is the nineties, due to rapid change insocial relations and hi-tech developments. But as the processes became faster,more new words were coined, the «richest» (36%) time (at the beginning of theXXI century. The major source is Media, tabloids as well as locals, inparticular (The Independent, The Washington Post). The Internet also plays adeterminative role in forming new words.
Mostneologisms in our work were formed whether by word composition or sense development(more than 80%), which are the ‘easiest’, as one doesn’t have to invent anythingnew, just combining two words together or implying a new meaning to an oldword. Minor word building types (blending, acronimization) are less employed. Thathappens due to the flash-like rhythm of modern life.
Whileanalyzing spheres of usage, we came to such a conclusion, that the most, as wecan say, renewable branch is that of sociology (45 referencesoutof 113), as it is the most developing sphere of the human life at this point. Agreat number of the new words deal with men and women relationships, as wellas, with homosexual affairs, as a result of the sexual revolution.
Themore active usage of the computer and computer technologies (20 references outof 113) give rise to more new words connected with this topic, the same can beapplied to the mobile/cell phones, they are more employed and thus have morefunctions, which results in the appearance of new words.
Wecan also reckon that the bigger number of neologism has paradigms (36%), thatshows – the words are more employed and are being accepted by the language.
Morewords just acquire new meaning; as a result, a new word is born (46%). The‘old’ words were not used in a present meaning, due to its previous non – necessity.
Asa total issue, we can mark, that the enlargement of the English languagevocabulary, as well as any other language, is closely connected with thehumans’ social life. Every new event in our life finds its reflection in thelanguage, and the faster the life is the simpler the ways, thanks to which ourlanguage is enlarged.
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