Германские языки | Филологический аспект №04 (108) Апрель 2024

Neologisms as a reflection of economic phenomena in the language

Сибул Виктория Владимировна
Кандидат филологических наук, доцент кафедры иностранных языков экономического факультета Российского университета дружбы народов, РФ, г. Москва, sibul-vv@rudn.ru
Ерошкина Ева Вадимовна
Ассистент кафедры, Институт мировой экономики и бизнеса, Российский университет дружбы народов, РФ, г. Москва, eroshkina914@gmail.com

Аннотация: The article is devoted to the study of English neologisms in economic texts. Neologisms reflect those events and phenomena that seem to be the most important and relevant in a certain period of time. Economics, as one of the most important spheres of human life, is a valuable source of new words that are actively used and subsequently consolidated in the language. As a result of the analysis, the main semantic fields of neologisms in economic texts in the period from 2018 to 2023 were identified, as well as the most productive word-formation models.
Ключевые слова: neologism, economic text, media text, semantic field, word formation.

Sibul Viktoria Vladimirovna
PhD in Linguistics, Associate Professor, Foreign Languages Department, School of Economics, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Russia, Moscow, sibul-vv@rudn.ru
Eroshkina Eva Vadimovna
Department assistant, Institute of World Economy and Business, Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, Russia, Mocsow, eroshkina914@gmail.com

Abstract: Данная статья посвящена изучению английских неологизмов в экономических текстах. Неологизмы отражают те события и явления, которые представляются наиболее важными и актуальными в определенный период времени. Экономика, как одна из важнейших сфер человеческой жизни, является ценным источником новых слов, которые активно используются и в последствии закрепляются в языке. В результате проведенного анализа были определены основные семантические поля неологизмов в экономических текстах в период с 2018 по 2023 гг., а также выявлены наиболее продуктивные словообразовательные модели.
Keywords: неологизм, экономический текст, медиатекст, семантическое поле, словообразование.

The relevance of neology as the science of neologisms is determined by the specifics of the modern stage of language development, characterized by the so-called ‘lexical explosion’, which became a natural result of dynamic social, economic and cultural changes in society and was accompanied by the growth of scientific and technological progress in the second half of the 20^th century. The interest in studying the causes of the appearance of new words and the patterns of their formation has not waned for many decades.

The problems of neologisms have been studied by many linguists, such as V.G. Gak, V.I. Zabotkina, E.V. Senko, M. Kadok, R. Quirk, N.Z. Kotelova, D. Crystal, E.R. Rosen and many others. Modern works on neology emphasize that the process of the emergence of lexical neoformation begins with practices and word usage, since historically established political, economic and cultural living conditions of a linguistic community affect lexical and nominative speech activity [2].

I.V. Arnold refers to neologisms any new word or stable expression created in accordance with productive language models of a given language; a word with a modified meaning of already existing lexemes; a word borrowed from another language and perceived by native speakers of that language as something new [1].

The creation of new words is carried out primarily as a reflection in the language of the needs of society in expressing new concepts that constantly arise as a result of the development of science, technology, culture, public relations, etc. One of the most dynamically developing spheres of public life is the economy. Economic processes are becoming increasingly important in human life – every day there are a large number of articles in the media devoted to current economic problems. Due to the need to identify new economic realities, new concepts are constantly emerging in this area.

Media texts are proper sources of innovations in the language. It is in media texts that new and current trends in language are reflected, which arise in the process of dynamic linguistic development. Thanks to the wide coverage of the press, lexical innovations are rapidly spreading, as well as their consolidation in the national language. As a result, printed and electronic publications clearly reflect the state of all styles and sub-styles that exist in a particular language at a given time period.

This study is based on the material of electronic versions of such journals and news sites as ‘The Telegraph’, ‘The Times’, ‘Yahoo! News’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘BBC’, ‘Forbes’, ‘The Financial Times’, ‘Entrepreneur’, ‘Management Today’ and others. We examined a total of 95 neologisms in articles related to the economic sphere in the period of 2018-2023.

Main results

A semantic field denotes a segment of reality symbolized by a set of related words. The combination of words into semantic fields is based on the belonging to the same field of logical concepts of their referents or the connection of concepts that are expressed in words and which express the connections of objects and phenomena of reality. Semantic fields are characterized by autonomy, continuity and integrity.

Based on the analysis of neologisms in economic texts, we have distinguished the following semantic fields:

1. ‘Economic trends’ (10% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which is characterized by general trends in global economy and various types of economy, for example: kindness economy, flat white economy, shecession, sleeponomics, womenomics and others.
2. ‘Domestic economy’ (14% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which include neologisms describing trends in state economy, caused by specific government and company policies, for example: breadflation, greedflation, skimpflation, sausage tax, latte levy, etc.
3. ‘External economy’ (2% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which describes trends in international economic relations and operating business in other countries due to various reasons: friendshoring, nearshoring.
4. ‘Commerce’ (15% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which is characterized by types of commerce and related to traditional trade and online shopping, for example: conversational commerce, recommerce, voice shopping, Green Friday, Amazon effect and others.
5. ‘Business’ (7% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which includes different types of businesses and entrepreneurs, for example: soonicorn, zebra, headtrepreneur, edurpreneur, etc.
6. ‘Employment’ (31% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which includes words describing trends in employment, types of work and employees, for example: climate quitting, silver exodus, unretirement, ghost colleague, graternity leave, overemployment, etc.
7. ‘Social media’ (5% of the total number of analyzed neologisms),which is characterized by trends in using social media networks as platforms for operating business, earning money and selling products, for example: finfluencer, patient influencer, live shopping, sponcon, etc.
8. ‘Finances’ (16% of the total number of analyzed neologisms), which describes trends in personal and public financial management and types of spending money, for example: bucket budgeting, financial cleanse, Great Wealth Transfer, comfort spending, revenge spending and others.   

Figure 1: Results of the study

Word formation models

Word formation is the most important way of developing the vocabulary. Formation of new words occurs according to models that have already been established in the language or reappear in connection with allocation of new word stems and the use of new affixal elements due to the development and improvement of the word formation system [5]. Each language has its own word-formation traditions and models, according to which most neologisms are formed.

The analysis of neologisms in economic texts allowed us to identify the main word-formation models in their basis. Hereinafter we will consider the most frequent word-formation models in the material we have collected.

1. Affixation

As a word-formation process, affixation involves adding bound morphemes to existing roots, which results in newly created derivatives [7]. In this case, neologisms are formed most often using the suffixes –tion, -ism for nouns; -ize for verbs; prefix de- and others.

• Recommerce (prefix re-) – the practice of buying and selling used items, such as electronics and clothes, on the internet, usually on websites created for this purpose;
• Unretirement (prefix un-) – the act of going back to work after you have retired;
• Overemployment (prefix over-) – the practice of a remote worker secretly having more than one full-time job and working just enough hours at each one for their employers not to notice;
• Returnment (suffix -ment) – going back to work after a period of time not in paid employment.

2. Compounding

Compounding is the process of combining two or more words (free morphemes) to create a new one [7].

• Friendshoring (friend + shoring) – the practice of operating a business or part of a business in a country that is an ally;
• Nearshoring (near + shoring) – the practice of operating a business or part of a business in a nearby country, usually because it involves paying less tax or other costs but is still close enough to be convenient;
• Pay-what-you-can – a way of selling goods that allows a shopper to pay only what they can afford.

3. Shortening

Shortening (clipping, truncation) is a method of word formation including merging two or more truncated stems or words, as well as merging a full word or stem with a truncated one.

• Shecession (she + recession) – an economic recession that affects mostly women;
• Womenomics (women + economics) – the activities undertaken by a government to enable more women to enter the workforce, especially into high-level jobs;
• Breadflation (bread + inflation) – a continuous increase in the price of bread;
• Skimpflation (skimp + inflation) – the situation when the price of a product or service stays the same but the quality becomes worse;
• Soonicorn (soon + unicorn) – a startup that is likely to become a unicorn (i.e. a business valued at over $1 billion) in the near future
• Headtrepreneur (headteacher + entrepreneur) – a headteacher who looks for and develops opportunities to raise money to provide funds for their school;
• Finfluencer (finance + influencer) – someone who attracts followers on social media through giving financial advice.

4. Abbreviation and acronyms

Abbreviations are words formed from the first letters or sounds of a phrase. It is an active and extremely productive way of word formation in the modern period of the development of the English language [5]. Acronyms are also a source of neologisms in modern economic discourse. They are words formed from the initial letters or initial elements of a phrase and pronounces in speech according to the rules as an ordinary word [3].

• RTO (abbreviation) – ‘return to office’: going back to the workplace after working from home during and after the Covid pandemic;
• FIRE (acronym) – ‘financial independence, retire early’: a way of life that involves working hard and saving as much money as possible during your 20s and 30s in order to be able to retire when you are in your 40s.

5. Semantic innovation and derivation

Many neologisms occur as semantic innovations, when a combination of commonly used lexemes gives an effect of novelty and attracts the attention of the recipient [4]. Such neologisms often resemble already existing models of words and word combinations.

In the process of semantic derivation, the word acquires semantically derived meanings, semantic connotations, additional meanings. That is the process of expanding the semantic scope of the word, leading to the emergence of semantic syncretism, the result of which is the appearance of the so-called polysemy. Semantic derivation also includes metaphorization, when a new unit loses its original lexical meaning and becomes an independent scientific concept by transferring from one vocabulary set to another based on the formal similarity of denotations. In neologisms created through metaphorical transference, a metaphor is a clarifying component that is used to give a term a specific additional meaning or to create imagery and expressiveness [6].

• Flat white economy – the wealth created through the large number of people using a coffee shop or café to work in, rather than working in an office;
• Sausage tax – an amount of money added to the price of processed meats, such as bacon and sausages, and paid to the government with the aim of reducing the consumption of these foods and therefore the associated health problems;
• Green Friday – an alternative to Black Friday, when consumers are encouraged to shop less and/or buy sustainable products instead;
• Zebra – a new company that aims to improve society as well as to make a profit;
• Silver Exodus – a trend in the employment market beginning in 2021 that has seen a much larger number of older people than usual stop working;
• The Great Resignation – a trend in the employment market during 2020 and 2021 that has seen a much larger number of people than usual resign from their jobs;
• Great Wealth Transfer – the gradual movement of money from baby boomers (people born in the mid-1940s to mid-1960s) to younger generations, either given as gifts or passed on through inheritance.

6. Borrowing

Neologisms can also appear in the language by calque or direct borrowing from other languages.

• Kakeibo (Japanese: 家計簿) – an approach to managing your money that involves using a journal to plan and monitor your spending each month.

Conclusion

Therefore, the analysis of English neologisms in economic media texts in the period from 2018 to 2023 showed that neologisms reflect the most relevant and important phenomena in the economic sphere. The biggest semantic fields are ‘Employment’, ‘Finances’ and ‘Commerce’. Furthermore, the practical material of the study allows us to conclude that the most productive word formation methods of neologisms in economic texts are affixation, shortening, semantic innovation and derivation.

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