L.V.

Ustymenko

Coursework
NEOLOGISMS IN SOCIAL MEDIA

Supervisor: T. M. Vavrina

 Introduction

 What neologisms are

 How new words are created

 Morphological processes

 Research and results

1. Research -Facebook

2. Research -Twitter

3. Research -Instagram

4. Research -WhatsApp

5. A Comparison: Facebook – Twitter – Instagram – WhatsApp

 Conclusion

INTRODUCTION
Neologisms are an integral part of our life,we use them every day when communicating live or changing texts in
messengers. Knowing what neologisms are, what they are and where to use them is quite important for a modern person.
Starting to work on this project we set the following objectives:

Task.

-to understand what neologisms are

-to investigate the field of use.

-how they were invented

-process of new neologisms creation

-what neologisms are used in various social networks.

WHAT NEOLOGISMS ARE

A neologism is a newly developed or coined word that has started to fall into mainstream usage. When the word
is fully accepted into everyday usage, it typically gets picked up by dictionaries and is technically no longer a neologism.
Neologisms can take many forms, and may be entirely new, or formed of existing words. Neologisms - serve, on the one
hand, for the nomination of new or not yet named concepts, realities, and on the other hand, for the replacement of
previous names with new ones. The intensive development of neologisms began in the period from (1917 to the beginning
of the 1930s)..[1]
HOW NEW WORDS ARE CREATED
New words or neologisms are formed based on word formation rules. This means that most of the time (although
there certainly are exceptions), words are not just randomly assigned letters, but rather vocabulary units whose origin
could be traced back. What’s more, a new word does not simply enter a language. There are three main stages before a
neologism becomes a part of the vocabulary of a language. The first stage is the “creation” of a new word. At this stage,
the word is not widely used. Then, there is the so-called “trial.” This is when the word gains popularity but is still used
only in certain situations and contexts. Last, a word has been “established,” which is the last stage, when it appears in
dictionaries, glossaries, or corpora. This is a sign that a word has gained widespread approval. However, keep in mind that
once a word appears in a dictionary, for instance, it does not mean that it stops evolving. Indeed, a word can go through
these three stages over and over again, or every time it accumulates a new meaning.[3]

MORPHOLOGICAL PROCESSES
The most initial process in creation of neologisms in any language is the one observed through a study of
morphology. There are certain mechanisms used to produce neologisms. For instance, neologisms may have been created
through some morphological processes such as derivation, back-formation, compounding, conversion, borrowing,
abbreviations, clippings, acronyms and onomatopoeia. Nevertheless, it has been discovered that the most commonly used
processes in the development of neologisms are those that shorten the existing words, such as clippings, abbreviations and
acronyms (Shahlee&Mustaffa 2019: 1-2). It is to be pointed out that morphological processes may alter stems to derive
new words. They may change the word’s meaning or grammatical function of a word. In addition, there are various types
of processes, not all of which are present in all languages [2]

Compounding

Compounding is the morphological operation that, generally speaking, puts together two or more free
morphemes and gives rise to a new word. The importance of compounding stems from the fact that there are probably no
languages without having this process recognized, and in some languages (e.g., Chinese) it is the major source of new
word formation (Lieber 2009: 44). Some examples of the compounding process are presented below: video-conferencing
– number of people taking part in a conference or conferences by means of video equipment rather than all meeting in one
place; break dance – to dance with acrobatic movements. The composition of this word is break and dance; dry-clean – to
clean clothes using chemicals instead of water, formed through the combination of dry and clean. [2]

Reduplication

Reduplication is a process of a grammatically functional repetition of a radical element or a part of it occurring

usually at the beginning of a word and often accompanied by change of the radical vowel. Sometimes, there is the entire
morpheme repeated, but quite often there are some consonant or vowel changes in the repeated element (Lieber 2009: 81).
For example, bye-bye (the entire morpheme bye is reduplicated), ding-dong (where the base is ding), chit-chat (where the
base is chat), criss-cross (where the base is cross), knick-knack (where the base is knack) [2]

Affixation

Affix is understood as a grammatical element that is combined with a word, stem, or phrase to produce derived
or inflected forms. There are three main types of affixes: prefixes, infixes, and suffixes. To define these briefly, a prefix
(such as anti-, dis-, hyper-, homo-, re-, tri-, uni-, under-, mis-) occurs at the beginning of a word or stem (pre-determine,
un-willing, dis-connect, hyper-tension, under-cooked, mis-understand), a suffix (such as -able, -acy, -er, -en, -ment, -ful, -
ance, -ly) occurs at the end (wonder-ful, depend-ent, act-ion, wonderfully, plentiful, excitement, importance), whe-reas an
infix occurs in the middle (English has no true infixes, but they are mostly found in American Indian languages, Greek,
Tagalog, and elsewhere) (Lieber 2009: 35). [2]

Conversion

Conversion involves pairs or sets of word forms which share both their phonological (and orthographic) form as
well as some elements of meaning, but which seem to belong to different word classes. In addition, it is extremely
productive and contributes to the word formation in the English lexicon as it proves to be an easy way to create new
words from the existing ones. Thus, the meaning is perfectly and easily comprehensible and the speaker can quickly fill a
meaningful gap in their language or use fewer words (Lieber 2009: 49). For instance, there are a few new morphemic
statuses of the following words, which means that they have changed their word class, but maintained their original form:
1) Nouns convert to verbs: butter, google, email, ship Last night I received your email vs I emailed you last night 2)
Adjectives convert to verbs: better, clean, empty, open Your house is perfectly clean vs I will clean my house tomorrow
3) Verbs convert to nouns: desire, guess, love, smell You smell beautifully vs I can feel a strange smell in the house [2]

Abbreviations and Acronyms

Abbreviation represents the word formation process in which a word or phrase is shortened (PMS =
premenstrual syndrome; VIP = very important person; A.M. = ante meridiem i.e., in the morning). Initialisms are the
most common type of abbreviation formed by the initial letters of a word or phrase. Although abbreviation is largely a
convention of written language, sometimes abbreviations carry over into spoken language (Lieber 2009: 51). On the other
hand, Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as they are spelled, not as
separate letters. For example, AIDS - acquired immune deficiency syndrome; NATO - North Atlantic Treaty
Organization; UNESCO - United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization; SIM (card) - subscriber
identification module (Lieber 2009: 51). Accordingly, there is no much difference between the two, but the two
mentioned processes are quite similar. [2]

Clipping
Clipping is the word formation process in which a word is reduced or shortened without the change in the
meaning of the word (Lieber 2009: 52). The most common examples heard everyday are: lab = laboratory; sitcom =
situation comedy; gas = gasoline; pub = public house. [2]

Blending
Blending is a type of word formation in which two or more words are merged into one so that the blended
constituents are either clipped, or partially overlap (Lieber 2009: 52). For example netspeak = (internet + speak) This
word is used to refer to the words, idioms, and peculiarities of spelling and grammar that are characteristic of online
documents and communication. It can be synonymous with talk, chat or teen talk. Internet slang, online acronyms, net
trends, and most internet-related terminology can be regarded as netspeak (Massrura 2013: 148) thumbo = (thumb + typo)
The word Thumbo refers to an error made while using the thumbs to type, particularly on a mobile device keypad. The
word is mainly used by youngsters. flirtationship = (flirt + relationship) The word refers to a situation in which someone
regularly flirts with an acquai-ntance or friend, but it never goes any farther than that. It is more than a friend-ship, less
than a relationship. Frienemy=frenemy = (friend + enemy) A friend who acts like an enemy; a fair-weather or
untrustworthy friend is known as frenemy (alternately spelled frienemy). It is a portmanteau of friend and enemy that can
refer to either an enemy disguised as a friend, or someone who is both a friend and a rival. The term is used to describe
personal, geopolitical, and commercial relationships both among individuals, groups, or institutions (Massrura 2013: 148).
[2]

RESEARCH AND RESULTS

This part of the paper describes results of the study and provides a discussion on the analyzed data. It discusses
on the issue of neologisms found in internet-based communication taken from four different social networking sites
(Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp). It will be divided into four different sections – section 1 research the data
from Facebook, section 2 presenting the data from Twitter, section 3 being focused on the data extracted from Instagram,
and finally section 4 identifying the neologisms found on WhatsApp. Each section will present the examples of
neologisms along with the context they appear in, also at the end of this section there will be a diagram that will give a
better understanding of it Furthermore, all the extracted examples for all four social networks were collected from 17 July
2020 until 18 July 2020[2]

Research -Facebook

Facebook has probably been the most popular social networking service in 2020. Online interaction on
Facebook relies on posts, comments, a user’s status, Facebook groups, pages and similar. The Messenger application is
connected to Facebook as well, but it will not be used as a source of neologisms in this study. a) CLIP WORDS
(examples): 1) Make another member an admin (administrator) or moderator. 2) Help me out! I have a Hoover
Floormate vacuum/mop combo (combination). 4) The Facebook app (application) Page celebrates how our friends
inspire us, support us, and help us... 5) Learn more about Facebook advertising and how you can manage and create ads
(advertisement) on Facebook. 6) Moisture perm (permanent) for medium length. 7) Are you ready for more info
(information)? 8) Show someone this vid (video) and say nothing. 9) Essential weekend vibe (vibration). 10) Scroll on
our news feed and check out some merch (merchandise)! b) BLEND WORDS (examples): 11) Boris Johnson crashes
Brexit (Britain + exit) dinner to warn Michel Barmier deal must be done ... 12) I made an infomercial (information +
commercial) on 8-bit music, ... 13) Your friend used to be a confidante and cheerleader; suddenly she turns into a
frenemy (friend + enemy) 14) We’re collecting smiley face emoticons (emotion + icon). 15) Wake up sheeple (sheep +
people). 16) Meet the widest Android phablet yet! (phone + tablet). 17) Please take a look at our upcoming webinar
topics to see if there is a ... (web + seminar). 18) Breakfast, brunch, lunch, late snack; join us 9 - 4 every day (breakfast +
lunch). 19) ...Check out my anticipated video with my mom’s hair transformation and it was a “Paranormal Hairtivity
Situation” (hair + activity) c) COMPOUNDS (examples): 20) I had previously registered to have less junk snail mail
(snail + mail). d) ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS (examples): 21) TBT throwback Thursday 22) OMG.... that smile.
oh my God 23) IMHO, boy and man should also watch this. in my honest opinion [2]

Research -Twitter

Twitter is a social networking service where one can find a great number of so-called tweets. Today, it is
probably not as popular as Instagram and Facebook are, but it is still one of the most popular social networking sites. a)
CLIP WORDS (examples): 1) This past Saturday I had the chance to sit with the wonderful angelayee and discuss
everything... the album, the doc, life, love, hardship...everything … (documentary). 2) She’s used to breaking boundaries
— Sampaio was already the first trans model to make the cover of a Vogue edition (transgender). 3) Mini seascape hand
painted onto a pebble. A fab paperweight or desk art. Comes gift packed with tissue in a hessian bag with coastal quote.
Ј16.95 free shipping (fabulous). 4) Magu have decided to fight back by leaking memos that expose Malami’s corruption
(memorandum). 5) These came in my veg box this week but I’m not sure what they are or what to do with them
(vegetable). 6) Thank you for checking this gator out (alligator). 7) They still had a cracking old chute there 10 - 15 years
ago (parachute). 8) … my first ever update is now live go check it out, link is in my bio … (biography). 9) This place has
been part of my summer. I have been taking online google applications trainings and creating several digital notebooks,
google docs., and google slides (documents). 10) Sounds like an epic time to go to Disney World with the whole fam
(family). b) BLEND WORDS (examples): 11) BREAKING: All-Time Blockbuster Muthu will be telecast on Sun TV
next Sunday at 6.30 PM. A 25 years old movie gets the primetime slot on the biggest Indian channel (tele + broadcast).
12) Long story short, I must tell yall that North Western Engines is, well, currently not exactly cancelled but it will be a
long time before something related to it happens. (you + all). 13) Quarantine Update: Being isolated and alone during this
quarantine has pro- vided me with very limited social interaction so I decided to send a text to myself inviting myself over
for brunch (breakfast + lunch). 14) I HATE rain, but it does enhance some things. A fabulous day exploring north
Yorkshire staycation walkmore (stay + vacation). 15) Italexit can’t come fast enough I would love to see Italy leave the
Eurozone and the European Union as soon as possible (Italy + exit). 16) Downfall of breaking the new rules of
Netiquette, how the daughter in law of a prime minister learned her lesson (network + etiquette). 17) Obviously he knew
what was going to happen, back to our regular scheduled Edutainment (education + entertainment). 18) Brangelina’s
back, apparently … (Brad + Angelina). 19) Padma Lakshmi’s “Taste the Nation” might seem at first glance like a trave-
logue showcasing America’s most beloved dishes. But it’s really a sharp in-dictment of a national cuisine based on
betrayal, writes sophieGG (travel + catalogue). 20) How’s Stagflation treating everybody (stagnation + inflation). c)
COMPOUNDS (examples): 21) Did you buy the optional Pooper Scooper? (pooper + scooper). d)
ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS (examples): 22) TOO MUCH CUTENESS OMG LOVE THIS CONCEPT (OMG oh
my god). 23) brb booking a flight for after corona (brb be right back) 24) some are for distance school learning so it’s
pretty funny imo (imo in my opinion). 25) Omw to send you new songs (omw on my way). [2]

Research -Instagram

As regards to this globally popular social networking service and this analysis per se, it is interesting to mention
that Instagram is one of the words that also got shortened and is already frequently called the Gram. Thus, it can be
confirmed that the word Instagram itself has already been a subject to clipping. After its launch a decade ago, Instagram
has rapidly gained an enormous popularity offering its users various posting options, including photos and videos,
browsing other users’ content by tags and locations and viewing trending contents. In the corpus analyzed for the present
paper, there have been 40 examples of neologisms found on Instagram (note that sources of those neologisms are various
sections on Instagram – Bio, Description, Comments, etc., including hashtags): a) CLIP WORDS (examples): 1) Merch
vegansavage “(Biography section of the account vegainstrength) (merchandise). 2) Ebook, Vegan app (Biography section
of the previously mentioned account) (electronic book, application). 3) If you’re trying to lose weight, join my free
Facebook group (bio) (biography). 4) It’s only for the Gram (Instagram). 5) fave (favorite). 6) celeb (celebrity). 7)
pantryinspo (inspiration). 8) Coachella vibes (vibrations). 9) Can you please tell me which mic you are using in this
setup? (microphone). 10) Comfy simple 100% cotton dress with pockets. (comfortable). 11) rona (corona). 12) failvid
(video). 13) delish (delicious). 15) follow your ADMIN (administrator). 16) pic (picture). b) BLEND WORDS
(examples): 16) Brunch: All day, every day (breakfast + lunch). 17) We played a live round of Pictionary today and it
broke up some of the monotony that has settled in, while engaging some of the kids who weren’t feelin’ it before. (picture
+ dictionary). 18) Understand how to steer your life!! Coming soon with a Webinar Series... Join us! (web + seminar).
19) Get familiar with our brand-new single FRENEMY! (friend + enemy). 20) *Duck emoticon inserted here* (emotion +
icon). 21) Follow us for daily crossfit motivation! (crosstraining + fit). 22) This isn’t just an infomercial. (information +
commercial). 23) Wake up sheeple. (sheep + people). 24) This is a preview of the spread illustration I did for a sport
illustrated style haikyuu fanzine! (fan + magazine). 25) Meet the new Huawei Mate Xs foldable phablet, just announced
in Barcelona. (phone + tablet). 26) Try*Checking the network cables, modem, and router. (modulator + demo- dulator).
27) Palm-sized camcorders. Large production. (camera + recorder). 28) Hangry is a real thing. (hungry + angry). 29)
Cosplay by me, corset by nemuro_corsets, ... (costume + play). 30) Happy Sunday InstaFam! (Instagram + family). b)
COMPOUNDS (examples): 31) hashtag – (hash + tag). 32) I was only away one night but the furkids are showing they
missed me by refusing to get off my lap. And I love it! (fur + kid). 33) slowfood (slow + food). 34) PhotoBomb – (photo
+ bomb). c) ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS (examples): 35) lol laughing out loud. 36) omg oh my God. 37) tbt
throwback Thursday. 38) ootd outfit of the day. 39) mua make-up artist. 40) dm direct message. [2]

Research -WhatsApp

WhatsApp Messenger is a messaging service which allows users to send text and voice messages, to make voice
and video calls and share different media. It provides simple and fast messaging and calling to its users. It is to be
highlighted that texting and calling on WhatsApp is encrypted and that the users’ privacy is highly respected. a) CLIP
WORDS (examples): 1) doc 2) veg 3) ad 4) bio b) BLEND WORDS (examples): 5) hangry 6) yall 7) emoticon 8)
webinar c) COMPOUND WORDS (examples): 9) hashtag 10) photobomb d) ABBREVIATIONS/ACRONYMS
(examples): 11) omg 12) lol 13) PMS 14) btw 15) imo 16) fyi 17) jk 18) brb [2]

A Comparison: Facebook – Twitter – Instagram – WhatsApp

It is an undisputable fact that neologisms are generated in the media, advertising and technical domains as a
‘response to a particular need’ and that online communication on SNSs has been filled with neologisms as a response to a
new need of speakers’ – to have as quick and efficient type of interaction as possible. Figure 1 below shows such a
vigorous usage of neologisms found on SNSs – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp. As it can be observed, the
obtained results from three types of corpora (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) are almost identical in the type of
neologisms used, with the most frequent types of neologisms being clip words and blend words. Considering the fact that
WhatsApp is a type of messenger, it is not surprising that there were more abbreviations and acronyms found in the
WhatsApp corpus. Generally, it can be concluded that neologisms are enormously important in internet- based
communication and that there is a new plethora of neologisms created on a regular basis for the purpose of social
networking and communication. [2]

CONCLUSION

Language change has been influenced by various aspects in life; one of them is technology. Modern technology
provides all kinds of different social networking services which then provide a special type of communication – online
communication. The mentioned interaction has distinctive features which can be also observed through the results
obtained from this study. Indeed, the results obtained from the four different SNSs demonstrate this topic being very
current and up-to- date signaling innovations in online English and in the English language in general. In addition, they
also provide an insight into the use of neologisms in internet-based communication today. The use of neologisms in
internet communication is extremely important as speakers can express many concepts in the shortest way possible. Thus,
there are many examples of the neologism use observable in internet communication – a lot of examples of clip words,
blend words and abbreviations/acronyms and compounds. There were more than 120 examples of neologisms found in
the corpus – examples of specific type of neologisms (clip words, blend words, compounds and abbreviations /
acronyms). Facebook, Twitter and Instagram results happen to be almost identical with mostly clip words and blend
words being the most frequent. On the other hand, abbreviations and acronyms and compounds were more frequent in the
WhatsApp corpus. As for compound, they were the most frequent in the Instagram corpus. Due to their significant use,
neologisms are proven to be widely and quickly accepted in SNSs boosting communication between speakers, fostering
relationships and making business ventures possible all over the world. Neologisms created by different morphological
processes are mostly used in internet-based communication, especially blend words, clip words, abbreviations and
acronyms. New words are created on a daily basis as there exists the inevitable need for fast communication. Needless to
say, this study has also some limits since not all types of neologisms were taken for the corpus. In addition, not all
existing SNSs were analyzed as well. On a positive note, the results provide readers with an overall insight into
neologisms online and inventions in the English lexicon today. Further research on online neologisms is desirable and
highly necessary for linguists, sociolinguists and lexicographers to ensure that new words in English are systematically
recorded and tracked. [2]

APPLICATIONS
Resources

1)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neologism
2)https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349108997_Today's_Usage_of_Neologisms_in_SocialMedia_Communication
3)https://www.milestoneloc.com/what-are-neologisms-how-to-translate-them/
4)https://books.google.com.ua/books?id=f1v9CQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=uk#v=onepage&q&f=false
5)https://www.grin.com/document/1190354