Лексичні та синтактико-стилістичні зміни в сучасній англійській мові: вплив комп’ютерних технологій

The structure of the work is done in accordance with the general conceptual framework adopted. Part I of the paper dwells upon neologisms as a linguistic phenomenon, stylistic differentiation of Modern English vocabulary, the difference between slang, jargon, and techspeak, and hacker culture as a loosely networked collection of subcultures. Part II presents tentative applications of basic approaches to hacker jargon analysis in terms of linguistics, semantics, stylistics, and phonetics. Conclusions contain the description of the major results of the research.

PART I

1.1.Neologisms as a Linguistic Phenomenon

No living language remains stable; its vocabulary is constantly growing and changing. Some words drop out of the vocabulary of a language with changes in the social system, with the growth and development of culture and technology.

The object of our interest and investigation is neologisms. Many linguists have researched this phenomenon.

«Neologisms is a linguistic term which refers to any newly coined word, word combination, a new meaning for an existing word, or a word borrowed from another language, the novelty of which is still felt»

(Arnold : 217)

Lexicographers consider neologisms words that appeared in the language not later a certain time. Some researchers put this boundary to be after the end of World War II (Миклашевская : 12); some linguists think that neologisms are words invented after 1957 – the year of the first satellite aprobation and of space. (Заботкина В.И. : 16)

New lexical units may be coined through « vocabulary extension and semantic extension.Vocabulary extension is the appearance of new lexical items which usually appear as the result of

•productive (patterned) ways of word-formation;

•non-productive (non-patterned) ways of word-formation;

•borrowing from other languages.

Semantic extension is the appearance of new lexical meanings of existing words.

(Ginsburg : 184)

1.1.1.Vocabulary Extension

Neologisms are usually coined out of elements, which already exist in Modern English. Deliberate coinage is mostly the product of one’s creativity, ingenuity, and imitation. One should distinguish between patterned and non-patterned ways of word-formation.

The most widely used patterned means are:

•affixation (suffixation and prefixation);

•conversion;

•composition

Neologisms coined by these means are made up of elements already available in the language. The novelty of them lies in the particular combination of these elements.

The affixes that are thought to be the most productive are: -ness, -er, mini-, over-:

e.g.: a roomer, well-to-do-ness, thingness, oneness etc.