Language is a living organism.

Language is a dynamic phenomenon which

accurately reflects contemporary society.
TERMINOLOGY AND
NEOLOGY
 Topic Overview
Terminology and Neology
Definition of Neology and Neologisms
Types of neologisms
Structural and semantic peculiarities of
neologisms
Pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of
neologisms
 Neology
is the science dealing with neologisms or
“new words” (including the technical terms)
appearing in the language.
However, this traditional definition of neology, only
covers linguistic processes for forming new words,
and is today not comprehensive enough to describe
all the activities centred around linguistic
innovations.
Neology is placed on three levels
linguistic,
cultural, and
political.
As Boulanger (1989) states
Neology currently refers to at least five different activities:
1. the practical process of creating new lexical units
2. 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.
3. Institutional activity that is systematically organized to
gather, assign, disseminate or implement neologisms
within a special language policy;
4. the task of identifying entirely new or recently
developed special subject fields, or fields that have gaps
requiring intervention
5. the relationship between the new item and
dictionaries, especially in two regards: the use of
dictionaries as a filter for recognizing neologisms and
the analysis of how neology is treated in dictionaries
 Neologisms
A neologism (from Greek néo-, meaning ‘new’
and logos, meaning ‘speech, utterance’) is a
new term which has entered common use,
but has not yet been fully accepted into
mainstream language.
(The word “neologism” was coined around 1800 and was,
at that time, a neologism itself.)
Neologisms appear due to developments
in social life, culture or science, and are
usually directly attributable to their specific
era.
Some new words are closely tied to
temporary phenomena, and fade into
insignificance, while others, related to
enduring aspects of society, remain, and
become permanent features of our lexicon.
The characterization of a specific
segment as neological is not easy
unless certain points of reference,
which are to some extent arbitrary in
nature, are taken into account.
There are several possible parameters to
determine if a unit is a neologism or not:
diachronic: a unit is a neologism if it has arisen
recently;
lexicographic: a unit is a neologism if it is not in
dictionaries;
systematic instability: a unit is a neologism if it
exhibits signs of formal instability (e.g.
morphological, graphic, phonetic) or semantic
instability;
psychological: a unit is a neologism if speakers
perceive it as a new unit;
Neologisms pass through three stages:
Creation (The new term enters common language
and is used only by a limited audience).
trial (the term is then diffused) and
establishment (finally it becomes widely
accepted and stabilised)
 a stability which is indicated by its
appearance in glossaries, dictionaries and
large corpora.
There are two types of situation that require
specific intervention.
first, when two or more designations
converge in a concept and this results in a
negative impact on communication; and,
secondly, when a special language does not
have the designation required for expressing
a concept.
In the former case, the various designations
must be reduced so that only one remains
for the benefit of accurate communication.
In the latter case, a new designation must
be created to express the new concept.
Some unsolved problems
the problem of the term “neologism”, which
by its very nature is ambiguous.
how long should newly coined words or
submeanings of existing lexemes should be
considered as “new”?
2. Types of Neologisms
A classification of neologisms cannot be
based on a single criterion, but rather must
be multidimensional. Different types of
neologisms are identified below according
to what they are based on.
From the standpoint of their belonging to
the general language
there is a distinction between two large
groupings of lexical neologisms that behave
differently:
those present in the general language (true
neologisms) and
those present in special languages (also
known as neonyms).
True neologisms / Neonyms /
Lexical Neologisms Terminological
Neologisms
belong to general language belong to special languages

spontaneous, appear for no arise because of the need

particular reason for a designation and are
usually more stable.
are not affected by reject synonymy because it
synonymy but usually can distort communicative
coexist with synonyms. efficiency.

tent toward formal phrases

conciseness
They often appeal to old and They often appeal to to
dialectical forms of the compounds based on
language and to borrowings neoclassical languages.

They do not usually spread are designed to be

beyond the language in which international
they have been created

lack of ambiguity, single

reference, belong to a
special field, stable.
(characteristics of
terms)
 From the poit of view of their
function
there are referencial and expressive
neologisms.
referencial ones develop because they are
required to fill a gap,
the expressive neologisms develop simply
to introduce new forms of expression into
discourse.
From the point of view of their formation
In fact, very few of the new words which
appear in the English language are
completely ‘new’ – they account for less
than 1% of all English neologisms.
The vast majority of new words and
expressions include at least one lexical
component which is already familiar to
us.
3. Structural and semantic peculiarities of
neologisms
New vocabulary units are as a rule
monosemantic and most of them are
marked by peculiar stylistic value – they
primarily belong to the specialized
vocabulary.
Neutral words and phrases are comparatively
few.
 4. Pragmatic aspects of neologisms
The key to survival for neologisms is usage.
They exist for just as long as the people
using them find them relevant.
The linguistic conditions that a neologism
must exhibit in order to have a reasonable
chance of being accepted, especially if it is to
replace a borrowing that is already in use, are
the following:
It has to designate an explicitly delimited, stable concept
that already exists so that the new term is unambiguous.
It has to be as brief and concise as possible, even if
phrasal forms are more prevalent in some fields.
It has to conform to rules of grammar.
It has to be as transparent as possible.
It has to able to be the basis for possible derived forms.
It has to conform to the phonological and graphic
systems of the language.
In addition to these linguistic criteria new
terms also have to have certain
sociolinguistic characteristics.
They have to result from necessity, i.e. they
must name a new concept.
 Cultural acceptance
After being coined, neologisms invariably
undergo scrutiny by the public and by linguists
to determine their suitability to the language.
Many are accepted very quickly, others attract
opposition.
As a rule, neologisms are retained by the
language if they are felt necessary, in
accordance with the principle that a language
usually ousts whatever is superfluous.
Cultural acceptance
The higher the tempo of development of a
given country and society the shorter the
period of time this or that tremor
submeaning of an existing word is
considered to be a neologism. The slower
the tempo of development of a speaking
community the longer is the period of time
a given “new” word or meaning is
assimilated and considered as a neologism.
Some useful international links and
websites dealing with neologisms:
Lexicopoeia: A Lexicon of Neologisms
Merriam-Webster Word Central
Neologics: Neologism Sites on the Web
Neolosfera (Universitat Pompeu Fabra)
NetLingohttp://www.netlingo.com/
NeoUSAL (Universidad de Salamanca)
Online Etymology Dictionary