词汇学论文

Compounding in English Neologisms

学院：Xxx

专业：英语

学号：2013102030121

姓名：Xxx

【Abstract】Language is the carrier of society, reflecting the specific period of the social culture, language is always in constant development and change. With the development of science and technology, political and economic and social, has appeared in English so many new words reflect the specific period, enriched the English a global language. This article lists some new words, the paper analyzes the background of the new words and word formation in the reflection of new words

【Key Words】neologism; Sources; word-formation;

Introduction

Language is a tool for human communication ideas. Generally speaking, the

thinking of people depends on language, and language expression. Word is

meaningful in language, the smallest of units used to be independent. Reflect the objective things in the brain, feeling, perception, representation, then the brain to generalize and abstract, feeling, perception, and representation form concept.

People use language form the concept of "fixed", to become a symbol for the

people to communicate, this is the word has a certain meaning. British linguist partridge (Eric Partridge) said, "Words have no fancy; people have a fancy for th em”. Times are changing, in the development of science and technology,

thinking in progress, as the reality of language nature also want to keep up with the pace of social evolution, adapt to the needs of social evolution, is the most sensitive part of the language vocabulary. English is the world common language, English vocabulary like any modern language vocabulary, continues to grow

unceasingly. Shakespeare‟s time recorded about one hundred and forty thousand words of English vocabulary, now even the English vocabulary with five hundred thousand words computing, there are more than two-thirds of words are created in nearly three hundred years. People experiencing new things, new experiences, develop new ideas, always have the words to describe them. Since the 20th

century, especially for nearly 50 years, appeared in English new words, new

meanings of many old words, English vocabulary is in the continuous

development in the process of metabolism.

1. The source of new words

New words are being invented or introduced all the time. Sometimes a new word is produced by single person only, in some special situation. These words are called nonce words used only once one coined for one particular occasion, and never occur again. Sometimes a new word coined by a single speaker is used by small group, such as the stuff of the institution, and exists for a time without gaining any wider circulation. Sometimes a new word is coined by a number of people, such a word becomes an accepted part of language, and is fixed in a dictionary.

1.1 The rapid development of modern science and technology

Modern science and technology bring about the addition of new words without numbers. They are the most important source of new words.

Modern science and technology contain many new branches apart from the existing fields. The appearance of new branches in modern science and technology gives rise to a great number of new words, such as:We can see that e - co - activist (ecology) and environmentalist scientist (environmental protection) talking about ecocatastrophe (ecological disaster), ecocide (ecocide) and eco - crisis (ecological), try to solve air pollution (air pollution), noise pollution (noise), thermal pollution (thermal pollution).Protect the ecological environment is so important that many goods ads are written in the environment - friendly (won't damage the environment, eco - friendly (won't destroy the ecological balance, the planet - friendly words (will not pollute the earth).

1.2 Political, economic and social changes

Political, economic and social changes are another important source of new words. Their influence on the English vocabulary is as great as that of science and technology .So we shouldn‟t neglect the import ance of this source.

1.2.1 International struggle:

The San Diego Union Tribune said” the war on terror,” “pro-Israel,” “a Palestinian state,” “anti-Bush enthusiasm that belong to new words or expressions created in the nineties of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. There is one word we should mention here , the word sheriff in the new expression the world‟s sheriff means …an important official if a shire or county charged primarily with judicial duties(as executing the processes and orders of courts and judges),‟ But here the word sheriff maybe suggests‟ a policeman with unlimited authority used in a derogatory sense.‟

1.2.2 Internal political struggle