8. A neologism

is word, term, or phrase which has been recently created-often to apply to new concepts, or to reshape older terms in newer language form. Neologisms are especially useful in identifying inventions, new phenomena, or old ideas which have taken on a new cultural context. Neologisms are by definition "new", and as such are often directly attributable to a specific individual publication, period or event.

The term "neologism" was itself coined around 1800. It can also refer to an existing word or phrase which has been assigned a new meaning. Neologisms are newly coined words, or words that have acquired a new meaning because of social, economic, political or cultural changes in human society.

Neologisms come about by diff. means: some are imported from other lang-s, for example, when Eng.-speakers encountered a round bread roll with a hole in it popular among Jews, they simply borrowed the Yiddish word beygel (changing the spelling to bagel). Some phrases are translated from another language (these are called calques): marriage of convenience translated literally from the Fr. and superman, from the Ger. Many are made by combining familiar words or roots to make new combinations, e.g. the Greek word tele, meaning "at a distance," and the Latin word visio, "sight" gave the word television. Some words began life as acronyms or other abbreviations: laser is an abbreviation of "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation".

Many neologisms have come from popular literature: for instance, McJob from Douglas Coupland's Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, and cyberspace from William Gibson's Neuromancer. Sometimes the title of the book will become the neologism. For instance, Catch-22 (from the title of Joseph Heller 's novel).

There are diff. types of neologism: scientific — words or phrases created to describe new scientific discoveries or inventions: black hole (1968), laser (1960); political — words or phrases created to make some kind of political or rhetorical point: political correctness (1990); imported — words or phrases originating in another language to express ideas that have no equivalent term in the native language: tycoon, potato (1565). Trademarks are often neologisms to ensure they are distinguished from other brands: Kodak, Tesco.

Neologisms belong to both literary and conversational layers, e. g. literary: pre-plan, nominee', conversational: telephonee, bloomers, yuppie. New notions constantly come into being, requiring new words to name them. The intensive development of science, industry, means of communication has called forth the invention of new words and phrases, e.g. PC, hardware, electronic virus, micro-surgical, suicide bomber, weapons of mass destruction, 9-11, facial profiling, etc.

Linguists distinguish three versions of neologisms: unstable, i.e. extremely new, being proposed, or being used only by a very small subculture; diffused - having reached a significant audience, but not yet having gained acceptance; stable - having gained recognizable and probably lasting acceptance.

Every word in a language was, at some time, a neologism, though most of these ceased to be such through time and acceptance. Neologisms often become accepted parts of the language. Other times, however, they disappear from common usage. When a word or phrase is no longer "new", it is no longer a neologism. Neologisms may take decades to become "old", though. Opinions differ on exactly how old a word must be to no longer be considered a neologism; many are accepted very quickly; others attract opposition.

Semantics is the study of meaning (M) in human lang. The term semasiology was introduced into ling. studies in 1825 by Reisig. He regarded it as a historical discipline that should establish the principles of governing the develop. of M. There are two schools of thought in modern ling-cs on the prob. of M: relative or functional and denotational or referential approach. The relative app. is based on treating the lang. as a semiotic system - the theory of relations. Each sign achieves a M only in comparison with other signs, its neighbours, i.e. M can be studied only through context. It is an attempt to study the system of semantic relations b/w words.

The denot. trend of semantic studies considers a word as a unit possessing its own M. The main prob.is the relation b/w the word, its M and the object in reality which it denotes. The basis of the denot. theory is the double nature (ideal and material) of the word. The lex. M of a word is the realization of a notion by means of a definite lan. system. A word is a lang. unit, while a notion is a unit of thinking. The term notion was introduced into lexicol.from logic and psychol.. A notion denotes the reflection in the mind of real objects and phenom. in their essential features and relations. Notions, as a rule, are internat-l. M can be nationally limited. It is recognized that, word M is not homogeneous and is made up of various comp-nts. There are 2 impor. elements of the M: the denotat. and the connotat..

The denotation of a word is the direct explicit M that makes communic-n possible.The connot of a word is what the word implies in addition to its denot. M. It is the set of associations that a word's use can evoke. E.G.: a hovel denotes "a small house", and besides implies that it is a miserable dwelling place.There are 4 main types of connotation:stylistic(e.g. to beat it - to retire), emotive(e.g. dog - doggie), evaluative (e.g. famous/welt-known - notorious), and expressive or intensifying (e.g. splendid,, fantastic, beastly, etc. are used colloquially as terms of exaggeration).

Denot. and connot. components make up the semantic structure (or semantic paradigm) of a word. Semantic structure is closely connected with polysemy. Polysemy is the ability of a word to possess several Ms or lexico-semantic variants (LSV), e.g. bright means "shining" and "intelligent". Many words in Eng. are polysem. or have a complicated semantic structure. There are few monosem. words in Eng. They are mainly special terms like morpheme, antibiotics, numerals, etc. In a polysem. word various Ms coexist at a certain period of the develop. of the Eng. Lang. All LSVs of a word taken together form its semantic structure.

Thus, semantic structure of a word is the interrelation and the interdep.of all its lexico-semantic variants. It is determined not only by the No of its LSVs but also by their types. The semantic structure of a word is a flexible category, it changes with the develop. of the lang. Polysemy exists only in lan., it is a phenomenon of lang.not of speech. Polysemy belongs to paradig. description, syntag-ly we do not deal with polys. Paradig. relations define the word M through its interrelations with other members within 1 of the subgroups of vocab. units. Syntag. relations define the word M in the flow of speech in different combin-s through various contexts.

There are two processes of the semantic develop. of a word: radiation and concatenation. In cases of rad. the primary M stands in the center and the secondary Ms proceed out of it like rays. Each second. M can be traced to the primary M. In cases of concat. Second. Ms of a word develop like a chain. In such cases it is difficult to trace some Ms to the primary one. Often the last Ms have nothing to do with the primary ones, and in such cases homonyms appear. This phenomenon is called the split of polysemy.