Speakers constantly create new words for a broad range of reasons, such as naming new concepts, attracting attention, building rapport, or just for fun. Linguists are highly interested in how these neologisms appear and spread. In this course, we will discuss various word-formation processes and how to study them. Online dictionaries, databases, and electronic corpora provide easily accessible means of detecting and studying individual neologisms, as well as more general word-formation processes. We will discuss how to use these tools for linguistic research.
This class is both an introduction to theories of word-formation, and to the empirical investigation of neologisms in English. It also provides efficient ways to stay up to date with the latest changes in English vocabulary.
- Enseignant·e: David Correia Saavedra