Week 11 Neology and terminology Lecture notes

The appearance of a new concept normally coincides with the appearance of a new designation.
Two types of situation that require specific intervention:
- two or more designations converge in a concept and this results in a negative impact on
communication
- a special language does not have the designation required for expressing a concept
Definition. Neology is the field of study that deals with new phenomena that appear in
languages.

These phenomena can be seen at all descriptive levels of language, in the phonetics,
phonology, morphology, syntax or the lexicon.
E.g. Newsletterul (inanimate)/niuzletăr (neutru), week(-)end

Neology currently refers to at least five different activities:

· the practical process of creating new lexical units
· the theoretical and applied study of lexical innovations: the processes of creation;
the criteria for recognition, acceptability or spread of neologisms, the social and cultural aspects
of neology, etc.
E.G.: hardware-software

. institutional activity that is systematically organized to gather, assign, disseminate or

implement neologisms within a specific language policy
. identifying entirely new or recently developed special subject fields, or fields that
have gaps requiring intervention
· the relationship between the new item and dictionaries

Other classifications:
primary neology,
secondary or translation neology.
spontaneous neology vs planned neology
referential vs expressive

Neologisms – not a clearcut notions.

There are several possible parameters to determine if a unit constitutes a neologism or not:
a. diachrony: a recently arisen unit (define recently!)
b. lexicography: not in dictionaries
c. systematic instability: signs of formal instability (e.g. morphological, graphic,
phonetic) or semantic instability
d. psychology: speakers perceive it as a new unit

A classification of neologisms cannot be based on a single criterion but rather must be

multidimensional.
Neologisms in special languages – neonyms).

Differences:
· creation
· primary function
 · relationship with co-occurring synonyms
· resources favoured for creating the word
· continuance in the language
· the way they coexist in the system
· the way they relate to other systems

Differences: neonyms:
- new designational needs
- reject synonymy
- form – phraseology preferred
- form – compounds based on neoclassical languages preferred
- designed to be international
Function:
- referential
- expressive
-
Four basic types of neologisms:
1. neologisms in form, including the following structures:
a. derivations (with prefixes and suffixes)
b. compounds
c. phrases
d. abbreviations (initialisms, acronyms, clippings)
2. functional neologisms, including cases of lexicalization of an inflected form and
those formed by syntactic conversion
3. semantic neologisms, including three types of processes: broadening or narrowing or
change of the meaning of the base form
4. borrowed neologisms, which are true borrowings and loan translations

Linguistic characteristics of neologisms:

- unambiguous
- monoreferential
- descriptive
- often phraseological
- stable

Neonyms – monoreferential
The study of neology:
the linguistic aspect: planned neologisms are more often phraseological
the cultural aspect
the political aspect

Three ways of adapting borrowings to a language:

1. changing one or more elements of the borrowed form
2. deletion of an element
3. addition of an element
Pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of neologisms
Applied neology – ensuring that a language of culture is capable of being used in all types of
communication
The study of neologisms is particularly linked to language planning, language standardization
Linguistic conditions for a neologism to survive: they have to
· designate an explicitly delimited, stable concept that already exists so that the new term
is unambiguous.
- be as brief and concise as possible
- be as transparent as possible.
- be able to be the basis for possible derived forms.
- conform to the phonological and graphic systems of the language
- result from necessity
- not have negative connotations

The translator’s/terminologist’s task rel. to neologisms:

1. understanding the meaning of the SL neologism
2. confirming that it is not a typographical error
3. confirming that it is not an aberrant invention by a non native speaker
4. assessing its status in the language; i.e.
a. checking whether it is already in technical or general text
b. checking whether it is already in a dictionary
c. judging its likely staying power
5. identifying and weighing it against competing alternatives
6. finding an equivalent neologism in the TL
7. dealing with etymological and other complicating linguistic factors
8. rendering its meaning in a paraphrase or synonym.

Definition of neologisms in corpus linguistics: the first occurrence of a word or multi-word unit
found within a given corpus.
- nonce formation/ hapax legomenon
-
Semantic neology – discoverable by comparing the collocates of each word entering the corpus
with the collocational pattern.

Semantic and formal neology – a semantic shift is often accompanied by a grammatical

reassignment. (ex. cap ~ capi/capete/capuri)

Productivity A sign of the increasing institutionalisation of a neologism in text is the appearance

of associated inflected and derived forms.
(based on M T Cabre, 1999)