CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

As the world changes, so does the language of a speech community. This

language change reflects every aspect of the changing life as well. Through

invention, discovery, and creativity, human beings are able to create or form new

terms or vocabulary to name their invention and things that exist in human’s life.

There are many new words that come up in daily communication and these words

are also added to the lexicon of the language (Fromkin and Rodman, 1983:264).

New inventions of things and behavior produce new ideas which have to be given

a name. It can happen because human language has property, which is called

productivity or creativity that enables them to produce any words and understand

them (Yule, 1985:23). This property takes place in the existence of new

vocabularies in society. New word, i.e. neologism is raised by productivity and

creativity and enters our mind and our language in daily communication. To speak

and understand language means knowing the words of that language, yet the

existence of words is usually taken for granted by the speakers of the language.

Neologism exists in cultures which are rapidly changing and also in

communities where there are easy and fast developments of information (English

Wikipedia). Neologism comes into the public through the mass media, the

internet, or through the words of mouth by people. They are often created by

combining existing words or by giving suffixes or prefixes into the words and in
some cases they can be created by shortening the word. Moreover, neologism can

be considered as the manifestation of word creation. As one part of the language,

word formation has a very important role in creating or forming new words.

Neologisms often become accepted as part of the language. As cited in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelogism, a neologism continues as part of the

language depends on many factors, probably the most important is acceptance by

the public. A neologism may disappear from common usage among society.

When a word or phrase is no longer used, it is no longer a neologism. In other

words, if public still continues to use the term, it always has its status as

neologism and used in daily communication and mass media. Furthermore,

neologism can also refer to an existing word or phrase which has been assigned a

new meaning (as cited in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism). Related to this,

it is obvious that a word can still be assumed as a neologism although it is not a

new term in society. In some cases, words succeed because the idea behind them

is memorable or exciting.

The occurence of neologism to the public, such as mass media, internet, or

through words of mouth by people created fast development of creativity and

invention both constructing and forming words. It brought to people’s daily life

up on their communication one and others, leading a fast growing speech

community. Neologism may possible created in newspapers, advertisements,

magazines, and internet which deliver information to the public through the

content.
 It seems quite certain that neologism or new words are present in

advertisements because advertisements are attractive ways to attract customers in

order to make them interested in trying the products that are advertised. Because

of that, many advertisers make their advertisements as interesting and effective as

possible. In making an effective advertisement, the advertisers have to give

attention not only to the visual images that will be displayed but also on the

language that is used in advertisement.

Cigarette advertisement, for instance, deliver its creativity and unique to

attract the consumer or make an eye catching such as A Mild, Djarum, LA Lights,

and Lucky Strike. The cigarette advertisers build their creativity through certain

aspects such as visual images and the attractive words. To create attractive words,

it is possible that they forming new words with its formation. Neologism, new

word, such as Avolution, Starmildisme, and Slimznation are found in cigarette

advertisement. Concerning to this matter, the writer is curious to know how the

new words are created. As Paulson and Bruder (1976:184) stated that “the word

formation process is the heart of word study” (Veniranda, 1999:29).

In order to analyze how the new words are constructed, it is important to

observe them through the morphological process. This term, which literally means

“the study of morphemes” and deals with the structure of words in their

construction, in other words, it studies the linguistic way of creating new words or

neologism. According to Yule (1985: 52), rather than heed such protest that the

language is being debased, we might prefer to view the constant evolution of new

terms and new uses of old terms as a reassuring sign of vitality and creativeness in
the way a language is shaped by the needs of its users. In other words, it is needed

to investigate word formation through some ways in linguistic field, which is

word formation process.

In studying the word formation of neologism commonly found in visual

cigarette advertisement, the writer wants to know how neologism is constructed.

That is the goal of this research and hopefully it gives the reader of her thesis an

understanding or clear explanation of word formation process of neologism using

Yule’s theory (2006) found in visual cigarette advertisement. To solve this

problem, the writer proposed two questions:

1.2 Statement of the problem

1. What types of word formation processes are applied in neologism used in

visual cigarette advertisement?

2. What is the frequency of occurrence and the predominant type of word

formation processes in neologism of visual cigarette advertisement?

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research is to find out the type of English word

formation processes that are used in visual cigarette advertisement. Moreover, the

writer identifies which type of word formation processes that is often used in

neologism and the predominant type that is frequently used in visual cigarette

advertisement.

1.4 Significance of the study

 There are two significance of this study. Theoreticaly, the importance of

the study is to add acknowledgement about word formation process concerning

the neologism in visual cigarette advertisement. Second, practically the result of

this research hopefully can enrich the student’s vocabularies and implement the

neologism in both formal and informal communication, particularly in writing and

speaking skill. By understanding the word formation, the students of reading class

may also gain benefits since sometimes they have to make very good guesses of

unfamiliar words. Students of writing class are expected to improve their

creativity in forming new words, since creativity is one of human’s unique

properties. For general readership, hopefully, this study may be useful reference in

understanding the words in visual cigarette advertisement.

1.5 Scope and Limitation

The scope of this study is about morphology analysis especially in word

formation. The limitation of this study is that the neologism taken from visual

cigarette advertisement that found in newspaper, magazine, banner, and brochure.

Cigarette advertisement that analyzed are A Mild, Clas Mild, X Mild, U Mild, Star

Mild, LA Lights, Djarum, Gudang Garam Surya, and Lucky Strike. The writer

uses those cigarette advertisements because English words often used to create

neologism than others.

1.6 Definition of Key Terms

1. Neologism: word, term, phrase, which has been recently created

(“coined”), often to play new concepts, or to reshape older terms in

newer language form (http://www.wikipedia.com).

 2. Word formation process: the linguistic process of creating new words

or terms from the old world to the new uses (Yule, 2006:52)

1.7 Organization of the Study

The writer organizes this research into five chapters. The first chapter is

introductory part, which describes the background of the writer in choosing the

topic, the statement of the problem, purpose and significance of the study, the

scope and limitation, definitions of key terms, and the organization. In the second

chapter, the writer presents the review of related literature that consists of

classification that the writer uses to analyze the data. The third chapter is a

description of the methodology used by the writer in doing this research. The

findings of this research and the analysis will explained in chapter four, while

chapter five is the conclusion of this study.