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Lexical Innovation

Lexical Innovation. Dennis Davy University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) 18 November 2006 25th TESOL France COLLOQUIUM (Paris). W.W.W. While we wait… Think of some new words or expressions which have been coined recently and new meanings & uses of ‘old’ words.

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Lexical Innovation

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  1. Lexical Innovation Dennis Davy University of London Institute in Paris (ULIP) 18 November 2006 25th TESOL France COLLOQUIUM (Paris)

  2. W.W.W. • While we wait… • Think of some new words or expressions which have been coined recently • and new meanings & uses of ‘old’ words

  3. The words you came up with • A spin doctor • Podcasting • Bling bling • A bobo • A mouse • An ASBO • A tsunami • A blog

  4. Lexical Innovationover the last 25 years • What are ‘new words’ • Various ‘contexts’ for lexical innovation • Different reasons for producing neologisms • Processes for forming new words • Paper-based and electronic collections of new words • The Pedagogical Potential of new words

  5. The last quarter century • Changes in the world (politics, technology, fashion, food, society, etc) are reflected in the new words that have been created. • What happened in the world over the last 25 years ?

  6. Computers • Internet/the Word Wide Web • Medical problems (AIDS, SARS, avian flu, RSI, mad cow disease) • Mobile phones (text messages, camphones) • Changes in musical genres (garage, rap, techno, bhangra) • Climate change (global warming, greenhouse gases, tsunamis, etc) • World affairs (9/11, fatwa, regime change, Blairism, the European Union)

  7. Societal change (chavs, ASBOs, binge drinking) • Films and TV (Big Brother, soap operas, reality shows, a muggle, quidditch) • Food (a foodie, tiramisu, balti, banoffee pie) • See worksheet 1: New words from the 1960s

  8. Various contexts for lexical innovation • Children learning their L1 • People picking up an L2 • Sub-groups of native speakers • People working in specific areas • Advertising and marketing • Language academies and commissions • Literature (poetry, novels and plays) • The media • Comedy • Everyday situations with ‘normal’ people • See worksheet 2: Reasons for creating new words

  9. Different reasons for creating new words and expressions • To name new inventions, discoveries etc • To label new concepts, phenomena & fads • To replace taboo or clichéd words • To protect one’s native language • To make language less discriminatory • To show one’s originality and sophistication • To indicate membership of an in-group • To exclude people • To be humorous, playful and to have fun • To compensate for deficiencies in one’s language skills

  10. Academic Studies of Lexical Innovation & Neologisms • Sornig (1981) • Sablayrolles (2000) • Pruvost (2003) • For full bibliographical references, see attachment 3: Bibliography of Lexical Innovation

  11. Processes for forming new words • Studies of English word-formational processes: • Bauer (1983) • Tournier (1985, 1993) • Cherry (1989) • Plag (2005)

  12. Comparative Studies of English and French Word-Formational Processes • Van Roey (1990) • Paillard (2000)

  13. Affixation Compounding Conversion Borrowing Blending Reduplication Back-formation Semantic shifting Shortening: Clippings Acronyms Initialisms Onomatopoeia Words from people & places Words from nowhere The mechanisms of lexical innovation

  14. Processes for Forming New Words • See worksheet 4: The Mechanisms and Processes of Lexical Innovation • See worksheet 5: The different types of new words from the 70s and 80s (word-formational processes)

  15. Paper-based and electronic collections of new words • Dictionaries of new words • Oxford • Longman • Barnhart • Bloomsbury • Collins • Websters

  16. Newspaper columns • Radio and TV programmes

  17. Electronic sources • Websites • Filters linked to electronic dictionaries (through which texts are passed to pick out the new words) • Corpora • For details of website addresses, see the attached webliography (attachment 6)

  18. The Pedagogical Potential of new words • Inherently interesting to students • Students develop dictionary and IT skills • Excellent for out-of-class autonomous learning and project work • Study of new words helps students understand up-to-date language (in films, songs, websites, text messages, emails…)

  19. An awareness of underlying WF processes can enable students to unpack new words • … and to be lexically innovative by coining their own new words …

  20. Collections of new words for teachers and students to explore • Attachment 7: 190 new words from the 1980s • Attachment 8: 80 new words from the 1990s • Attachment 9: 40 new compound words and collocations (1980-2005) • Attachment 10: 40 new acronyms, initialisms, blends and reduplicatives

  21. Attachment 11: 20 new prefixes, suffixes and other combining forms • Attachment 12: New meanings and uses for 15 ‘old’ words

  22. Worksheets for students • Worksheet 13: Revision of 10 new words • Worksheet 14: 10 new words and expressions coined in the 1990s • Worksheet 15: 18 new words from the 2000s (the ‘noughties’)

  23. The End? • Well, not quite… • I would love to hear from teachers about how they have used new words with their students • Dennis Davy d.davy@ulip.lon.ac.uk

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