La Néologie Terminologique by John Humbley (review)

Here is the first systematic manual of neology in terminology, winner of the 2019 Prix Émile Benveniste. Humbley's title might well have been La néonymie—as it stands, neology designates lexical innovation, and terminology the study of specialized terms and their formation, with new terms now labeled neonyms. Neologisms become neonyms when they are lexicalized with a fixed meaning in a specialized field. They undergo déterminologisation if their specificity is diluted. As indicators of language vitality, neologisms provide a window into societal tendencies, expressive needs, levels of language, prestige. Since neologisms are not found in dictionaries, the recent development of corpora and Internet availability has proven invaluable to large-scale study. Humbley traces the historique of neology and of terminology, then coordinates the two tracks by applying them to three topical sets of neonyms: the older field of sound recordings (ch. 8), and the more recent areas of economics and e-commerce (ch. 12). Considerations of language policy are handled in ch. 10, secondary neology in ch. 11. The first seven chapters review theory and published work in the field, then discuss three models. The incremental approach (ch. 5) focuses on terms resulting from existing words, whether by addition (affixation, compounding), subtraction, or other modifications such as transposition from one part of speech to another (métaphore grammaticale). Such formations, chiefly morphological in nature, occur on the paradigmatic axis. The discursive approach (ch. 6) works from the syntagmatic axis, at the level of text and speech. Old terms develop new meanings, through lexical metaphor (relation of similarity) or metonymy (relation of proximity). The cognitive hypothesis (ch. 7) attempts to explain the motivation of the creator via conceptual metaphor. Seen from the angle of onomasiology, concepts precede the process of naming. In Humbley's conclusion, the three models are relatively complementary. In fact, his manual argues throughout for a plural approach, including attention to diachrony and the intersection of the old and the new. Praise is due throughout for the clear, encyclopedic synthesis of a mass of material, including forty-four pages of bibliography. For a minimalist but surprisingly satisfying handling of neologism and its attendant concepts, see Guide de néologie terminologique (2014) <bk.admin.ch/bk/fr/home/documentation/langues/publications-en-terminologie.html>. Humbley's manual relies heavily on his own previously published work (28 pieces from 1987 to 2016). To counterbalance the discussion of machine names in German (ch. 8), this reviewer would have enjoyed discussion of some French set, e.g., the range of equivalents for 'swamp cooler' (first attested 1950 in Newsweek): (i) refroidisseur [d'air] par évaporation, (ii) refroidisseur évaporatif, (iii) refroidisseur d'évaporation, (iv) refroidisseur de marais (USA), (v) échangeur de chaleur, (vi) unité de traitement d'air, (vii) évaporateur, (viii) condenseur. Analysis of such a set could cover the range of strategies, from straight syntagm to abstraction, from neologism to neonym. My only real problem with Humbley's superb manual is the absence of a subject index, insufficiently remedied by the outline-like table des matières. Readers of a work of this importance deserve no less.