Social Factors and Neologisms

Coining a new world we deal with such social parameters as social status of the speakers, their age, sex, level of education, personal qualities and characteristics. There are certain limitations in choosing new words with offensive vulgar and unpleasant connotations.

For the sake of observing public decencies and political correctness in choosing a new word we prefer lexical units without harsh, obscene, indelicate overtones: thus, not to offend old people, we use the word middlescence (период жизни от 40 до 65 лет) on the anology with adolescene, third age (период жизни от 65 лет до …) is used together with senior citizen as well as golden age and silver age.

Euphemistic neologism may disguise mental and physical defects:

learning disable, special (умственно отсталый);

underachiever (отстающий студент)

mental hospital (психиатрическая лечебница)

A lot of euphemisms – neologisms are built to distract the attention from social angularities – aggression, violence, political blackmail, economic machinations, corruption:

correctional facilities – тюрьма;

community home – исправительная колония для малолетних преступников;

the troubles – вылазки экстремистов в Северной Ирландии;

protective reaction – бомбардировка военных объектов в Ираке

Fourth World – страны, отстающие в экономическом развитии.

Neologisms are registered by special dictionaries of new words:

“A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary”;

Berg P. “A Dictionary of New Words in English”;

“The Barnhart Dictionary of New English”;

“The Longman Register of New Words”.

Occasional words

A peculiar position at the periphery of idiolects is occupied by new words which present the products of individual word-building creative activity of the speakers. Their study helps to define the diapason of word-building possibilities and observe realization of language potentials. Such words are called occasionalisms (Lat. Occasio – случай).

These lexical units are created to feel the gaps in idiolexicons or as expressive equivalents of ordinary words and word-combinations: paper-pirates (журналисты), diaper-wetter (грудной ребенок), headline-grabber (знаменитость).

Occasional words of all structural types are characterized by unique character and derived or compound structure. They are built by linear patterns of word-building (affixation, composition) and non-linear ones (conversion, substantivation and adjectivazation) or their combination.

The optional qualities of occasional words – their dependence on the context and speech situation.

Polycomponent occasional complexes may be understood without any context:

misery-go-round (J.B. Priestly) – сплошные неудачи, «карусель неудач», night-before-Christmas-about-to leave-town-operation (R. Ruark) – ложное представление о второй Мировой войне среди молодых американских солдат – «одна боевая операция – и к Рождеству домой!»

Occasional words are met among nouns (1), adjectives (2), verbs (3) and adverbs (4).

1. It was a relief not to machete my way through a jungle of what-are-you-talking-aboutery before I could get at him. (K. Amis).

2. … if it hadn’t been for clever Dave he wouldn’t be staring in a pawnshop window with a half-share in eighteenpence, a fortune earned by searching for takebackable beer bottles on the tips… (A. Sillitoe).

3. “You can’t read. You only pretend-read. I can read, can’t I, Uncle?”(J. Braine).

4. … But the blow is so sudden. I must speak to Mr. Winterbourne. Our hearts are breaking here. (Sobissimo). Thank you. I’ll wait till you ring me. (R. Aldington)

Occasional compound adjectives of a syntactic type fully reveal their meaning in combination with a noun they determine:

go-to-hell voice (E. O’Brien), it’s-great-to-be-alive feeling (H. Robbins), don’t-lie-to-me glance (K. Amis), Master-what-is-thy-will look (S. Maugham), couldn’t-care-less attitude (K. Amis).

Occasional adjectives built through affixation in some cases are characterized by broken valency (combinability of morphemes):

cab-horsy (R. Aldington), Huxley-Darwinish (J.B. Priestley), family-physicianary (J.K. Jerome).