22. A theory of semantic field. Thematic groups.

A thematic group is a subsystem of the vocabulary for which the basis of grouping is not only linguistic but also extralinguistic: the words are associated because the things they name occur together and are closely connected in reality, e.g.:

terms of kinship: father, cousin, mother-in-law, uncle;

names for parts of the human body: head, neck, arm, foot, thumb;

colour terms: blue, green, yellow, red / scarlet, crimson, coral;

military terms: lieutenant, captain, major, colonel, general.

An ideographic group unites thematically related words of different parts of speech; here words and expressions are classed not according to their lexico-grammatical meaning but strictly according to their signification, i.e. to the system of logical notions, e.g.:

‘Trade’: to buy, to sell, to pay, to cost, a price, money, cash, a receipt, expensive etc.

As a rule, ideographic groups deal with contexts on the level of the sentence. Words in ideographic groups are joined together by common contextual associations within the framework of the sentence and reflect the interlinking of things or events, e.g.:

‘Going by train’: railway, a journey, a train, a train station, timetable, a platform, a passenger, a single ticket, a return ticket, luggage, a smoking carriage, a non-smoking carriage, a dining-car, to enquire, to catch the train, to miss the train etc.

In modern linguistics there are about 70 kinds of ‘fields’ and over a hundred approaches to defining what a field is.

A semantic field is the extensive organisation of related words and expressions into a system which shows their relations to one another.

The significance of each unit is determined by its neighbours, with the units’ semantic areas reciprocally limiting each other.

The members of the semantic fields are joined together by some common semantic component known as the common denominator of meaning.

‘Human Mind’: mind, reason, cognition, idea, concept, judgment, analysis, conclusion; to think, to conclude, to consider, to reflect, to mediate, to reminisce, to contemplate; intelligent, wise, smart, knowledgeable, witless, dim-witted etc.

A lexico-semantic group is singled out on purely linguistic principles: words are united if they have one or more semantic components in common, but differ in some other semantic components constituting their semantic structures. The

This type of groupings is mostly applied to verbs, e.g.

verbs of sense perception: to see, to hear, to feel, to taste;

verbs denoting speech acts: to speak, to talk, to chat, to natter, to mumble, to ramble, to stammer, to converse;

verbs of motion: to walk, to run, to tiptoe, to stroll, to stagger, to stomp, to swagger, to wander

23.Neologisms. Their sources and formation.

A neologism (Gr néos ‘new’ and logos ‘word, study’) is a new lexical unit introduced into a language to denote a new object or phenomenon. The term is first attested in English in 1772, borrowed from French néologisme. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event.

While the typical lexical growth areas of the 1980s were the media, computers, finance, money, environment, political correctness, youth culture and music, the 1990s saw significant lexical expansion in the areas of politics, the media and the Internet.

Nonce words (occasional words) (an ellipsis of the phrase for the nonce ‘for the once’) are lexical units created by the speaker on the spur of the moment, for a given occasion only, and may be considered as ‘potentially’ existing in the English vocabulary, e.g. what-d’you-call-him /-her/-it/-them, n. is used instead of a name that one cannot remember.

A lot of neologisms resulted from nonce words, e.g. yuppie, n. ‘a well-paid young middle-class professional who works in a city job and has a luxurious lifestyle’; coach potato, soap opera, generation X, thirty-something, glass ceiling ‘an unacknowledged barrier to advancement in a profession, especially affecting women and members of minorities’; gerrymander /'dʒɛrɪ‚mandə/, v. ‘manipulate the boundaries of (an electoral constituency) so as to favour one party or class’.

Semantic neologisms – new meanings of already existing words – result from semantic derivation due to the functional mobility of the vocabulary:

virus, n. ‘a piece of code which is capable of copying itself and typically has a detrimental effect, such as corrupting the system or destroying data’;

black hole ‘a place where money or lost items apparently disappear without trace’;

trophy, adj. ‘used for impressing others, in sb’s opinion’ as in trophy wife ‘a young and attractive wife who is regarded as a status symbol for the husband, who is often older and affluent’, trophy-child ‘a child whose birth or achievements are paraded to enhance the parents' status’;

spin, n. ‘a form of propaganda, achieved through providing an interpretation of an event or campaign to persuade public opinion in favor or against a certain organisation or public figure’ as in spin doctor, spin crew, spin journalism.

to open the kimono ‘to open a company's accounting books for inspection; to expose something previously hidden’; a sleep camel ‘a person who gets little sleep during the week, and then attempts to make up for it by sleeping in and napping on the weekend’; to put skin in the game ‘take an active interest in a company or undertaking by making a significant investment or financial commitment’;

Ohrwurm – earworm, n. ‘a catchy song or tune that runs continually through someone's mind’;

вешать лапшу на уши – to hang noodles on sb’s ears (to dupe smb, to string smb along); Потемкинские деревни – Potemkin village ‘a show’; to Potemkinise, Potemkin election; хотели, как лучше, а получилось, как всегда – we tried our best – you know the rest (used in reference to the natural tendency of things to go wrong in Russia); упал – отжался – drop down and give me some push ups (a jocular threat to punish sb);