Курсовая работа: The neologisms and their word building means in Modern English
1.2 History and the development of neologisms
As a literary concept and term, neologism appeared in the early 18th century, at the time when the neoclassical practices of the French Generation of 1660 began to consolidate, throughout Europe, into a body of normative teaching. The idea that different domains of human experience should be represented in literature by distinct literary styles entailed the notion that each of these styles should operate within distinct vocabulary. Usage, i.e., specific usage of the «best Authors», «the Court», or «the City», determined the limits of this vocabulary, along with other grammatical and stylistic properties. Authors using words and expressions (as well as phrase structures) from outside this universe were said to use neologisms , new expressions. Critics of the time conceived of neologism in literature as analogous to the continuous creation and introduction of new lexical units into language, and they thought of language change in general as a process of decay. Thus neologism was condemned on both aesthetic and linguistic grounds and the term was used pejoratively only. This older meaning of neologism , and the attitude it reflects, is still alive today.
However, as early as the second half of the 18th century, it became obvious that the vocabulary of literary expression should and perhaps could not be fully limited. Thus pejororative neologism was given a meliorative doublet, «neology» which meant the introduction of «approved» or «correct» new words into language. Critical literature has since expended a great deal of effort to define, not very successfully, the limits of «neology», usually concluding that the latter should be above all Horace's licentia sumpta prudenter , restricted to cases of «real need» (i.e., for concepts for which no single word or expression exists in the language) and that new words should be analogous in form to existing words in the language. Since, however, there are an infinite number of concepts an author may wish to represent in his writing, or a speaker, in his speech, and since the lexicon of most natural languages offers a very large number of possible analogies, such puristic recommendations have never succeeded in stemming the influx of new words into language, thence into literature.
The old meaning of neologism is synonymous with «barbarism», «gallicism» (in English), «anglicism» (in French), and even «archaism». It is opposed to «purism».
The modern, neutral meaning of neologism appears early in the 19th century and, still combated by Littré in French, gains acceptance towards the end of the century. The expansion of the literary experience by the Romanticists, the Realists, and the Naturalists, as well as the emergence of linguistics as an «objective» science has contributed to this development – Victor E. Hanzeli (37).
1.3 Cultural acceptance
We can mark that neologisms tend to occur more often in cultures which are rapidly changing, and also in situations where there is easy and fast propagation of information. They are often created by combining existing words (compound noun and adjective) or by giving words new and unique suffixes or prefixes . Those which are portmanteaus are shortened. Neologisms can also be created through 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 neologism may 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 a grammatical error. The so-called slip of the tongue may also be seen as neologisms.
Neologisms often become popular by way of mass media, the Internet, or word of mouth – especially, many linguists suspect, by younger people. 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. Other times, however, they disappear from common usage. Whether or not a neologism continues as part of the language depends on many factors, probably the most important of which is acceptance by the public. Acceptance by linguistic experts and incorporation into dictionaries also plays a part, as does whether the phenomenon described by a neologism remains current, thus continuing to need a descriptor. It is unusual, however, for a word to enter common use if it does not resemble another word or words in an identifiable way. (In some cases however, strange new words succeed because the idea behind them is especially memorable or exciting). When a word or phrase is no longer «new,» it is no longer 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 a neologism; cultural acceptance probably plays a more important role than time in this regard.
If we consider the cultural acceptance, we can reckon, that after being coined, neologisms invariably undergo scrutiny by the public and by linguists to determine their suitability to the language. Many are accepted very quickly; others attract opposition. Language experts sometimes object to a neologism on the grounds that a suitable term for the thing described already exists in the language. Non-experts who dislike the neologism sometimes also use this argument, deriding the neologism as «abuse and ignorance of the language.»
Some neologisms, especially those dealing with sensitive subjects, are often objected to on the grounds that they obscure the issue being discussed, and that such a word's novelty often leads a discussion away from the root issue and onto a sidetrack about the meaning of the neologism itself.
Proponents of a neologism see it as being useful, and also helping the language to grow and change; often they perceive these words as being a fun and creative way to play with a language. Also, the semantic precision of most neologisms, along with what is usually a straightforward syntax, often makes them 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 of influence on whether a neologism eventually becomes an accepted part of the language. Linguists may sometimes delay acceptance, for instance by refusing to include the neologism in dictionaries; this can sometimes cause a neologism to die out over time. Nevertheless if the public continues to use the term, it always eventually sheds its status as a neologism and enters the language even over the objections of language experts.
2. Ways of forming words and the analysis of 50 top neologisms
2.1 Classification of word-building means
As the aim of our work is to investigate the problem of neologisms, and ways of their forming, we will overview the word-building means. At first we will tackle the problem of various classifications of word-formation, linguists used to mention morphological, syntactic and lexico-semantic types of word-formation. At present the classification of the types does not, as a rule, include lexico-semantic word-building. Of interest is the classification of word-formation means based on the number of motivating bases, which many scholars follow. A distinction is made between two large classes of word-building means:
To Class I belong the means of building words having one motivating base. To give an English example, the noun CATCHER is composed of the base CATCH – and the suffix – ER, through the combination of which it is morphologically and semantically motivated.
The basic means in word-derivation are affixation and conversion. Derived words usually consist of a root and an affix, which in their turn fall into prefixes which 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 are extremely popular in the English vocabulary. Successfully competing with this structural type is the so-called root word which has only a root morpheme in its structure. This type widely represented by a great number of words belonging to the 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-building or even affixless derivation. Conversion is a process of creating a new word from some existing one or by changing the category of a part of speech, the morphemic shape of the original word remaining unchanged. The new word has a meaning which differs from that of the original one though it can more or less be easily associated with it. It has also a new paradigm peculiar to its new category as a part of speech (nurse, n. – to nurse, v).
Class II includes the means of building words containing more than one motivating base. Needless to say, they are all based on compounding (country-club, door – hande).
This type of word building, in which new words are produced by combining two or more stems, is one of the most productive types in Modern English, the other two are conversion and affixation. Compounds, though certainly fewer in quantity than derived or root words, still represent one of the most typical and specific features of English word-structure. Compounds are not homogeneous in structure. Traditionally three types are distinguished: neutral, morphological, syntactic. In neutral compounds the process of compounding is relized without any linking elements, by a mere juxtaposition of two stems (shop-window, bedroom, tallboy). Morphological compounds are fewer in number. This type is not productive and it is repersented by words in which two componding stems are combined by a linking vowel or consonant (Anglo – Saxon, statesman, handiwork) (16, p. 105) In syntactic compounds we find a feature of a specifically English word-structure. These words are formed from segments of speech, preserving in their structure numerous traces of syntagmatic relations typical of speech: articles, prepositions, adverbs, prepositions, as in lily-of-the-alley, good-for-nothing . Syntactical relations and grammatical patterns current in present-day English can be traced in the structures of such compound nouns as pick-me -up, know-all, whodunit . In this group of compounds, we find a great number of neologisms, and whoduni t is one of them. The structure of most compounds is transparent, and it is clear that the origin of these words is a simple word combination.
Most linguists in special chapters and manuals devoted to English word-formation consider as the chief processes af English word formation affixation, conversion and compounding. Apart from these a number of minor ways of forming words such as back-fomation, sound interchange, distinctive stress, sound imitation, blending, clipping and acronymy are traditionally referred to Word-formation. (26, p. 108)
Some minor types of word-formation can not belong neither to word derivation nor to compounding, as some words while shortening , for example, 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 consider them as minor word building means.
Shortenings are produced in two different ways. The first is to make a new word form a syllable (rarer two) of the original word. The latter may lose its beginning (as in phone made from telephone ), its ending (as in hols – holydays , ad – advertisement ) or both the beginning and ending (as in flu-influenza ). The second way of shortening 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 colloquialisms and slang. So, g.f. is a shortened word made from the compound girlfriend.
As a type of word-building shortening of spoken words, also called clipping or curtailment , is recorded in the English language as far back as the 15 century. It has grown more and more productive ever since. This growth becomes especially marked in many European languages in the 20th century, and it is a matter of common knowledge that this development is particularly intense in English.
Shortenings of spoken words or curtailment consists in the reduction of a word to one of its parts (whether or not this part has previously been a morpheme), as a result of which the new form acquires some linguistic value of its own.
Newly shortened words appear continuously: this is testified by numerous neologisms, such as demo form demonstratio n: frog or fridge from refrigerator ; trank from tranquilizer . Many authors are inclined to overemphasize the role of «the strain of modern life» as the mainspring of this development. This is, obviously, only one of reasons, and the purely linguistic factors should not be overlooked. Among the major forces are the demands of rhythm, which are more readily satisfied when the words are monosyllabic.
When dealing with words of long duration, one will also note that a high percentage of English shortenings is involved into the process of loan word assimilation. Monosyllabism goes farther in English than in any other European language, and that is why shortened words sound more like native ones than their long prototypes.
The other word building means can be called: blends, blendings, fusions or portmanteau words. The process of formation is called telescoping, because the words seem to slide into one another like sections of a telescope. Blends may be defined as formations that combine two words and include the letters or sounds they have in common as a connecting element.