The Social Aspect of Brazilian Portuguese Neologisms

The Social Aspect of Brazilian Portuguese Neologisms N: leda Maria Alves University of Säo Paulo reologisms are constantly created in a language. They are closely related to the culture of a given society and mirror society in all its aspects. For this reason, the creation of new words is always associated to various kinds of events or situations in: politics, religion , art, sports, science, and so on. The neologistic aspect of lexical units has been traditionally identified by their lack of inclusion in dictionaries. Therefore, the absence of a word in a set of contemporary lexicographic works has been the most widely adopted criterion for a unit being considered a neologism . The compilation of electronic corpora, however, has changed the methodology for identifying neologisms, seeing that such corpora have been used as filters in determining the neologistic character of a lexical unit. As a whole, authors who have been studying the neology process have identified three types of neologisms (cf. Guilbert 1975; Boulanger 1979; Sablayrolles 2000). Two kinds are vernacular creations, which may heformal with the formation of derivations and compounds, or semantic, formed by means of attributing a new meaning to a word. In addition to these vernacular creations, borrowings from another language system are also considered a kind of neologism. In this paper, I emphasize two aspects of lexical neology: the "recycling" nature of the linguistic elements that form new lexical units and the role of social events in the formation of new lexical units. Dictionaries:Journal ofthe Dictionary Sodety ofNorth America 28 (2007), 149—153 150leda Maria Alves The analysis of neologisms in Brazilian Portuguese has led me to consider that, apart from borrowings, lexical units which are considered neologistic are not, in fact, new in the Brazilian Portuguese linguistic system . The novelty is the way of employing the new resources available to the language, because, instead of creating newwords, speakers reuse linguistic elements by recycling and adapting them to new situations. As an illustration, consider prefixed formations, which, today, are the most frequent in the group of neologisms in Brazilian Portuguese . Elements of Greek and Latin, such as hiper-, macro-, mega-, which designate 'increasing intensity,' micro- and nano-, which designate 'decreasing intensity,' and multi-, denoting 'variety,' traditionally formed scientific and technical terms, and currently form lexical units in the general language, outside specialized areas. Some examples found in the Brazilian press are: hipercompetiçâo, macrodesafw, megaaventura, microbiquini , nanoguitarra, and multidiretor1. The neologistic role played by prefixes in contemporary Brazilian Portuguese is also played by elements that, after a blending process, spread across general language and join other lexical units to form a word derived from prefixes. These new prefixes (aber- port, linear, lincagem and ranking> port, ranquear, ranqueamento. Neologisms in Brazilian Portuguese are created due to a number of historical events. They are also recycled to form new lexical units and, often, such as in the case of aber-, eco-, -gate, contribute to transforming the system of affixes in Brazilian Portuguese. 152leda Maria Alves References Boulanger, Jean-Claude. 1979. Néologie et terminologie. Néologie en marche (Série b: langues de spécialités) 4: 5-128. Guilbert, Louis. 1975. La créativité kxicak. Paris: Larousse. Sablayrolles, Jean-François. 2000. La néologie enfrançais contemporain. Paris: Honor é Champion. ...