1887
Volume 25, Issue 1
  • ISSN 0929-0907
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9943
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

Many neologies receive a large amount of metalinguistic focus during their conventionalization. This includes explicit metalinguistic comments, as well as several ways of emphasizing a new word qua word in running texts, so-called (e.g., quotation marks). This article reports from a large quantitative study of 360 Swedish neologies. It investigates the nature and the amount of metafocus during conventionalization. More than 96% of the neologies received metafocus at least once, but the mean proportion of metafocused citations was low, just under 3.5%. Metafocusing is likely to be more intense in early phases and is likely to decline over time. No long-term effects of metafocusing on the conventionalization process itself were found in corpus data.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/pc.18005.sva
2019-06-12
2025-04-25
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Baayen, R. Harald
    2009 Corpus linguistics in morphology: Morphological productivity. In Anke Lüdeling & Merja Kytö (eds.), Corpus linguistics: An international handbook, 900–919. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Bauer, Laurie
    1983English word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139165846
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139165846 [Google Scholar]
  3. 2001Morphological productivity (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 95). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511486210
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486210 [Google Scholar]
  4. Benczes, Réka
    2006Creative compounding in English: The semantics of metaphorical and metonymical noun-noun combinations (Human Cognitive Processing 19). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/hcp.19
    https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.19 [Google Scholar]
  5. 2010 Setting limits on creativity in the production and use of metaphorical and metonymical compounds. In Sascha Michel & Alexander Onysko (eds.), Cognitive approaches to word formation, 221–245. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110223606.217
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110223606.217 [Google Scholar]
  6. Berry, Roger
    2005 Making the most of metalanguage. Language Awareness14(1). 3–20. 10.1080/09658410508668817
    https://doi.org/10.1080/09658410508668817 [Google Scholar]
  7. Bower, Jack & Satomi Kawaguchi
    2011 Negotiation of meaning and corrective feedback in Japanese/English eTandem. Language Learning & Technology15(1). 41–71.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bybee, Joan
    1985Morphology: A study of the relation between meaning and form (Typological Studies in Language 9). Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/tsl.9
    https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.9 [Google Scholar]
  9. 2010Language, usage and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511750526
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511750526 [Google Scholar]
  10. Fischer, Roswitha
    1998Lexical change in present-day English: A corpus-based study of the motivation, institutionalization, and productivity of creative neologisms. Tübingen: Narr.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Kerremans, Daphné
    2015A web of new words: A corpus-based study of the conventionalization process of English neologisms. Frankfurt am Main etc.: Peter Lang. 10.3726/978‑3‑653‑04788‑2
    https://doi.org/10.3726/978-3-653-04788-2 [Google Scholar]
  12. Metcalf, Allan
    2002Predicting new words. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
    [Google Scholar]
  13. Morzycki, Marcin
    2011 Metalinguistic comparison in an alternative semantics for imprecision. Natural Language Semantics19. 39–86. 10.1007/s11050‑010‑9063‑5
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11050-010-9063-5 [Google Scholar]
  14. Predelli, Stefano
    2003 Scare quotes and their relation to other semantic issues. Linguistics and Philosophy26. 1–28. 10.1023/A:1022278209949
    https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022278209949 [Google Scholar]
  15. Schmid, Hans-Jörg
    2008 New words in the mind: Concept-formation and entrenchment of neologisms. Anglia126 (1). 1–36. 10.1515/angl.2008.002
    https://doi.org/10.1515/angl.2008.002 [Google Scholar]
  16. 2016English morphology and word-formation: An introduction. 3rd edn.Berlin: Erich Schmidt.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Semino, Elena
    2016 A corpus-based study of ‘mixed metaphor’ as a metalinguistic comment. In Raymond W. Gibbs Jr. (ed.), Mixing metaphor (Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication 6), 203–220. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Svanlund, Jan
    2006 Hur man etablerar sig som curlingförälder och stafettläkare. Svenskans beskrivning28. Örebro universitet. 359–368.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. 2009Lexikal etablering: En korpusundersökning av hur nya sammansättningar konventionaliseras och får sin betydelse (Stockholm Studies in Scandinavian Philology, n.s., 52). Vällingby: Elanders.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/pc.18005.sva
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/pc.18005.sva
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): conventionalization; corpus data; metafocus; metalinguistic comments; metasignals; neologies
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error