语言学导论
外语03班
13号
马思嘉
This article mainly mentions some neologism appeared these years and studies the lexical change and semantic change of these neologisms, at the same time refers to some translating methods dealing with these words. A neologism appears because of changes of time, but it spread out only if they were known well and translated well.
The Word-Formation and Translation Methods of English Neologisms
Abstract: With the development of society and the influence of globalization, the increasingly emerging English neologisms have penetrated into various aspects of society and reflect the ever-changing contemporary world. The neologisms vary in word-formation, and majority of them are formed of the classical way of word-building. Others are loanwords or formed by coinage or by changes in meaning. Different translation methods should be used in neologism translation, such as literal translation, free translation, transliteration, and back translation and so on.
Key words: English neologisms; Lexical change; Semantic change; translation methods
Nowadays our society is in a changeable situation, many new things emerge in endlessly. As the most active part of language, vocabularies are changing rapidly along with the development of politics、economic、technology and culture , English neologisms spring up in large numbers at the same time . Neologisms reflect the improvements of technology、the changes of society、the transitions of fashion and the renewals of concept. If you want to hold the changes of world tightly and express new things using new words, you must know about the word-formation and translation methods of neologisms.
Ⅰ. The formation of neologisms
⒈using the traditional formation to build new words.(Lexical change)
1.1. Derivation
Many new words are formed by Affix and Root. Derivation is to derivate some neologisms by the way of adding prefix and suffix. For example, adding a “un” before “wedding ceremony”, therefore derivate to “unwedding ceremony” (means the divorce ceremony); adding the suffix “-ism” after “rank”, derivate “rankism” in order to show the force and overlooking to inferior people from those who have rank and power. And the word “surgiholic”, is combined by “surgery” and suffix “-holic”, means sb get addicted to surgery;
Because of the development of the technology, many technical words show and many of these are formed by derivation. Such as , prefix “cyber-” can derivate
“cyberspace”
“cybercrime”
“cyberpunk”
“cyberport”
“cyberterrorism” “cybersquatting” and so on .
1.2. Composition
Composition is a formation method that combines two or more than two words together in certain sequence. Composition is the most common formation method, according a survey studied in 2008, 2/3 of the neologisms taken down in Word Spy (an American word website) are formed by composition. E.g. ‘oxygen bar” “retirement panic” “road diet” “dental spa” “digital divide”.
1.3. Blending.
Blending is a formation method that combines two respective parts of two words into a neologism, or a cut part from a word adds a complete word. Common situation of Blending can be divided into four kinds:
1.3.1. The former word + the back part of another word.
E.g. paparazzi is formed by “paper” and back part of “paparazzi” , this word indicates those who write articles to expose others’ privacy.
1.3.2.front part of the former word + back part of the latter word.
E.g. mobisode is formed by front part of “mobile” and back part of “episode”, means short playlet can be played in mobile phone.
1.3.3. Front part of the former word + the latter word.
e.g. “emoticon” is formed by the front part of “emotion” and “iron”, means non-language signs or people’s facial expression.
1.3.4. Front part of former word + front part of latter word.
e.g. “yestertech” is formed by the front part of “yesterday” and the front part of “technology”. This word is a positive word, means one product is practical and not gaudy.
1.4. Analogy.
Analogy is to get similar words by analyzing the words we have. For example, using “white collar” as sample, we can get ‘blue collar’ ‘grey collar (those who are engaged in service)’ ‘pink collar (professional women)’ ‘gold collar (advanced staff)’ and so on.
Analogy usually divides into two kinds: Homoionym Analogy and Antonym Analogy.
E.g.
Mark
Simpson
from
UK
formatted
a
neologism
‘metrosexual(handsome men in metropolis)’ using Blending, and then he formatted a series of words ‘retrosexual’ ‘technosexual(men good at science
or technology)’ ‘ubersexual(super charming men )’.
A example for Antonym Analogy, the word ‘copyleft’ is formatted by one sentence marked at the end of an article -------‘ copyright-all rights reserved’, which means the others can not use what an author writes in an article. Copyleft means users have the rights to copy and modify the article.
1.5. Shortening.
Shortening usually has two kinds of pattern. One is to cut out from the word. E.g. ‘ad’ from ‘advertisement’. the other one is Initial Abbreviation. E.g. ‘BOGOF’ means ‘buy one, get one free’; and ‘BRIC’ means ‘Brazil, Russia, India, China’, and ‘BRICS’ means ‘Brazil, Russia, India, China and South America’.
⒉Changes in meaning.(Semantic change)
In this new society environment, the meanings of some words we have had changed. These changes include:
2.1. Broadening.
Broadening is a process to extend or elevate the meaning from its originally specific sense to a relatively general one.
2.2. Narrowing.
Narrowing is contrary to broadening: the original meaning of a word can be narrowed or restricted to a specific sense.
2.3. Meaning shift.
Meaning shift has nothing to do with generalization or restriction as mentioned above.
⒊Loanwords.
In this cross-culture social background, with the gradual acquaintances of culture, conditions and customs between many countries, many loanwords were absorbed by English, become an essential part to enrich English vocabularies. E.g. ‘du jour’, a word from French which means specialty in restaurant; ‘Parkour(跑酷)’, a word from French which means a kind of sport; and ‘karoshi’ ‘manga’ (two words from Japan); and ‘fengshui(风水)’ ‘taikonaut’（two words from china）
⒋Coinage.
Coinage means to create a new word we never see, e.g. ‘euro’ ‘Prozac (medicine treated spiritual depression)’ and so on.
Ⅱ.Translation method of neologisms.
Translating neologisms is not only an activity in language level, but also
belong to the scope of cross-culture communication. We must be true to the original and pay attention to fit the using habit of vocabularies when we translate them.
Ⅱ.⒈Literal translation.
Literal translation, or direct translation, is the rendering of text from one language to another \"word-for-word\" rather than conveying the sense of the original. (This distinction is valid only when a literal translation does not accurately convey the sense, which is not invariably true). e.g. ‘carbon neutral’ ‘politainer’ ‘celeblog’ ‘Ecycling’ ‘flash marriage (a popular word these years which means people get married within short time)’.
Ⅱ.⒉Free translation.
Free translations are used for translating of some words having special culture background or the words we cannot translate properly.
e.g. ‘fleshmeet’, a word used in internet, flesh means people that live in real life, so that ‘fleshmeet’ means net-friend meeting in real life; and we often use comma to divide numbers into some parts ,so new word ‘two commas’ can refer to millions of assets.
Ⅱ.⒊Combination of literal translation with free translation.
With the conditions permitting, literal translation is the best translation method, but sometimes literal translation can not convey the exact meaning of original word, so we need combine these two kinds of translation method together. E.g. ‘Bushism’ is a book in which are words Bush said.
Ⅱ.⒋Transliteration.
Transliteration is that translate a word according its pronunciation, many words are translated in this way. E.g. ‘hacker (黑客)’ ‘punk (朋克)’ ‘sundae (圣代)’ and so on. And some abbreviated words are translated in this way. E.g. ‘LOHAS’ (lifestyle of heath and sustainability) (乐活).
Ⅱ.⒌According to transliteration.
When the transliteration can not express the exact meaning of the original word, some paraphrase should be added. E.g. ‘yuppie’ translated into ‘雅皮士’, ‘toffee’ is translated into ‘太妃糖’, and ‘freeter’ is translated into ‘飞特族’. These words all add some explain on the basis of transliteration in order to make readers understand clearly.
Ⅱ.⒍Back translation.
There are many vocabularies in English lexicon, Chinese words are enormous in number especially, and Chinese neologisms emerge in a great deal also. Therefore, sometimes neologisms in English can be translated by finding a Chinese
word we already have; this method can be called Back translation. E.g. ‘box-office bomb’ can not be translated directly into ‘票房炸弹’, in Chinese, ‘炸弹’means something appears suddenly and has tremendous influence, but there this word means the box-office is gloomy, so it can be translated into ‘票房毒药’; and an abbreviation ‘NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Train)’, refers to young adults who don’t study and work and depend on their parents, can be translated into ‘啃老族’. Among web language, no matter in Chinese or American, there are many neologisms, and many English neologisms can find corresponding Chinese word. E.g. ‘newbie’ refers to new users in web, can be translated into’菜鸟’, and ‘oldies’ (老鸟), ‘knowbie’(大虾).
Ⅱ.⒎Omission.
Along with the exchange of culture and integration of world, many English words don’t need to be translated. E.g. DNA, WTO, NBA, CNN, GDP and so on.
Neologisms are the natural result of social development and civilization progress, not the results of people doing it purposely. The emergence of neologism is very flexible, maybe someone’s random words in internet can spread widely as a neologism, so the translation methods should also be flexible and should be used integrated with some translation methods. We should not only determine by one translation version, but we should chose the most lively and best accepted by the public, and put it into practice. However, no matter what kind of neologism, it can spread widely as long as its translation is brief, vivid and not tedious, therefore, we must think the translation carefully while transmitting
the neologisms, and they can be accepted only if they are simple and clear.
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