Neologisms are vivid manifestations of language’s creative function.
Background
Neologisms
are vivid manifestations of language’s creative function. These might be referred to as a set of
etymological procedures, through which new words may be coined. They are highly
useful in fields of expertise; generating a convenient jargon for that field.
That is to say when comes the thing comes the word. Initially, we are to delve
into the evolution of neologisms, the reasons behind them, how they are
accepted and the categories they take.
Neology
as a term may be exemplified by itself. It consists of two Greek-originated
words ‘’Neo’’ – new – and ‘’logos’’ – word or utterance (Online Etymology
Dictionary). This portrays our initiative sentence; the word ‘’neology’’ shows
a case of borrowing and morphological neology which are one of the forms used
to come up with new words. The use of this term with its actual significance
dates back to 1734 in France.
Historically,
the usage of this process was marked by various difficulties. Conservative
linguists have always sought since the Middle Ages to preserve words in terms
of their semantic and structural insights. While not paying any attention to
how that process was the one by which their language existed at the outset.
Verily, without neologisms, language would be outdated and mere bees dancing
language. Subsequently, the reasons dictating this phenomenon are to be stored
in the following section.
Reasons & Causes
Initiation of the Axe and Technology as an Initial Reason behind Neology
Neology
is a result of various overlapping reasons. And, as they are a part of
language, they aim to reinforce certain language functions. This shall be
conspicuously comprehended when taking a look at the French linguist Dubois’s
(2001) following assertation:
We are aware of the difficulty for the French in admitting neologisms: the 17th century contributed to freezing the capacities of French in matters of neology by rigorous prescriptions , but often unjustified (competition from suffixes did from time to time create possibilities in Middle French considered excessive derivation, each suffix does not manage to specialize in a sense). Since then, scientific, technical, and cultural progress have led to the need for ever-increasing terminology.(p. 322)
The attached assertion was in a French
linguistic environment. Yet, this can be generalised to every linguistic area.
The progress of technology results in the increasing immense need for words to
have the new items signified. Generally, neology is related to the evolution of
a society, while the latter seeks to have its linguistic needs of expression
fulfilled.
Social and Political Revolutions as Main Causes of Neology’s Occurrence
It is indispensable for a revolution to be accompanied by a set of
novel thoughts. Nevertheless, what would thoughts be if they cannot be conveyed
to others? —They, of course, require language. However, an old-fashioned usage
of language can never satisfy that requirement, as it does belong to a
pre-revolutionary epoch. Correspondingly, neology comes on the line, offering
an adaptive contemporary new words-generating area (Sébastian, 2009).
For instance, Mercier (1801), was to write his
work ‘’ Néologie, ou vocabulaire de mots nouveaux, à renouveler, ou pris dans
des acceptions nouvelles’’. The latter was tantamount
to a small dictionary, siting all the new words accompanied with the French
Revolution. Additionally, an example may be given from the 1917 Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia which witnessed the creation of multiple neologisms.
Globalisation and international interactions
Since
the appearance of human languages, interactions have been the main factors
conditioning their development. This was
to be often related to technical words, as is the case for some words that
might be found in various languages throughout the world. These are such as
Cotton (Arab-originated), Alcohol (Arab-originated), Philosophy
(Greek-originated) etc.
Taking
this in terms of international entities, we may encounter modern and ancient
ones. On one hand, the Roman Empire, the Greek City-states, and the Abassi
Empire are one of the most effective entities being the pioneers of a
tremendous linguistic etymological change in several parts of the world. On the other hand, France, the UK, and the
USA are the ones with huge impact recently, having large quantities of the
words of their languages borrowed in one way or another by different linguistic
environments.
The Process of Neologisms’ Acceptance
Having
words generated within the process of neology, it is necessary to get them
approved and thus put into wider use. The European Parliament’s Terminology
Coordination (2016) asserts that neologisms acceptance takes three phases:
Creation, trial, and establishment. The term comes up new (protologism), being
used by a few individuals. Thereafter, it keeps diffusing till it reaches a
considerable number of people. Finally, the term gets to be stabilised or
standardised when used in glossaries and dictionaries.
Accordingly,
countries seek to add stabilised words to their official languages’ glossaries,
using various criteria. One of the most continuous and well-updated glossaries
in the world is the Francophone one. The
latter is periodically updated by ‘’L’Académie Française’’ while having a variety of skilful
linguists on the head of the acceptance jury. In the Arab world, several
parties are a part of the process such as ‘’The Arabic Centre of Research and
Political Studies’’, ‘’Arabic Language Academy’’ etc.
Typology of Neologisms and their Terminological Creation Situation
Neologisms vary in terms of form and sense. That’s
thanks to the multiple sources they come from and the criteria that were used
to bring them about. Taking also the conditions under which, they have been
formed or updated sensibly or structurally. Broadly, typology may overlap
between morphological, semantic, and phonological.
Typology
Morphological neologisms
Morphological
neologisms can be considered as the most common. They can be easily derived and
meanwhile easy to accept, as they do often go hand in hand with the language’s
rules. An example of that are suffixes, prefixes, affixes, bound morphemes
either inflectional or derivational, etc. To illustrate, adding the prefix
‘’dis’’ to an existing word will result in this word generating another
word.
Complete nascent
neologisms involve borrowing; in this regard, borrowing takes a morphological
suit and might be affected by the morphological rules of the borrower language.
For example, the word ‘’rendezvous’’ was borrowed from French, additionally, it
assimilated under the morphological rules of English, producing new grammatical
forms following English such as ‘’rendezvoused’’, ‘’rendezvousing’’,
‘’rendezvouses’’, etc. Another type of borrowing in which literal translation
is used may also be included in the current section. This type of borrowing
follows the same morphemic structure and order of the source language but with
words from the target language. An
example of that may be ‘’Skyscraper’’ which was borrowed in the same morphemic
structure in various languages. The most prominent of which are Arabic (ناطحة سحاب) and
German (Wolkenkratzer).
Semantic Neologisms
This type of
neologisms is based upon providing new meanings for pre-existed words. This
implies preserving the same word with the same morphological structure while
having a new denotation assigned to it. Other cases, that may be called
‘’morphosemantic’’ do involve a morphological modification to the word, and
thereafter, it gets to have a different meaning, or that meaning has to be
added, as the morphological modification by itself in this case is not
sufficient to generate the targeted meaning. In other words, these types of
words stand both on semantic and morphological customisation.
This type may also
extend to include ‘’borrowing’’. Occasionally, a language borrows a word from
another, but utilising it differently. This alludes to a semantic modification to
have a word or term designating variable elements than those they designated in
their original language. To illustrate, the word ‘’Actually’’ is used as ‘’in
fact’’ in English, while in the romance languages from which the word was
borrowed, it is employed to denote ‘’currently’’.
Lexical Neologisms
Lexical neology
relies on producing new lexical units. It involves a novel word or set of words
that are to denote an object which was denoted by other priory words.
Concretely, this alludes to the process of ‘’transnomination’’. This category is often related to literature,
and nowadays to a higher degree to media. As a new word known and used by no
mentioned scale is instantly coined by an author or a media celebrity. To
exemplify, we may conduct a study of ‘’ HARRY POTTER’’ or of ‘’ SHAKESPEARE’s
works’’, which will, potentially, result in hundreds of words brought about to
use, when never been thought of or said before. Notably, borrowing related to
this section is seen generally. That is to say that borrowing is envisioned as
a factor behind a certain language’s vocabulary enrichment.
Phonological Neologisms
This
type is frequently unlisted, as it is mainly related to the vocal aspect of
borrowing. It merely portrays the case when a word is inserted into a language
orally, which means that the source of neology this time is majorly vocal even
if used later in the written language. Additionally, the borrowed word this
time is conditioned by its new linguistic environment. That is the case when a
word becomes globally common, and the public of each linguistic variety
pronounces it in accordance with their native language’s phonological rules.
Unfortunately, this type is often associated with the relationship between the
colonised nations and their colonisers, particularly, in the previous century.
To exemplify, Algerians and Moroccans heard several words from their French
counterpart during the colonisation epoch; those words were reformed by the
Maghreban public following the Arabic and Amazigh (A common ancient linguistic
variety in North Africa) phonetical rules. It was to the extent that nowadays,
numerous words are thought of as Arab or Amazigh-based while they are
French-based.
Neologisms’ Creation Situations
Primary
This
is the most prominent type of neologism in generating terminology. It is also
called original neologism (Rondeau, 1990) as it is the first and only source of
coining neologisms. It usually comes from experts each in his field of study.
Doctors may come across a new disease, consequently, it is them who coin a term
to designate it.
Translatorial
This term was coined by Hermans and
Vansteeland (1999) to denote the redundancy of a language’s primarily coined
term in other languages. It is when a translator or a terminologist seeks to
formulate an equivalent term in his language to transfer the distinctive
features designated by the source language’s term when not finding a
pre-existing terminological equivalent. This often differs in terms of
formulation and coinage regarding the field of knowledge and the target
language.
Conclusion
Pointedly, the emergence of neologisms serves as a vibrant
expression of language's capacity for creativity. This can be understood as an
etymological process in which any couple of distinctive features designating a
concept get an intense term to represent them. The same thing goes for mere
words that were created as potential semantic, pragmatic, syntactic, lexical,
or morphemic needs. Indeed, without the continual introduction of new words,
language would stagnate, resembling outdated forms of communication and losing
its vitality.
Bibliography
Online Etymology Dictionary. (n.d.). Neology. Retrieved from
[https://www.etymonline.com/word/neology]
Dubois, M. (2001). Le neologisme: Creations
lexicales et evolutions de sens. Presses Universitaires de France.
Sébastian, N. (2009). Language and Revolution: Making Modern
Political Identities. Continuum.
Mercier, L. (1801). Néologie, ou vocabulaire
de mots nouveaux, à renouveler, ou pris dans des acceptions nouvelles. Imprimerie de Bourgogne.
European Parliament’s Terminology Coordination. (2016). Terminology
Coordination for the European Parliament. Retrieved from
[https://termcoord.eu/]
Rondeau, G.
(1990). La terminologie: noms et notions. Quebecor.