现代英语新词分析 [9]
论文作者:陈晓燕论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-09编辑:刘宝玲点击率:17717
论文字数:26000论文编号:org200904091709537915语种:中文 Chinese地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:新词来源构词法趋势Neologismssourcesword-formation processestrend
e best of our adjectives had very pejoratives meanings in earlier times. No one today would feel angry being described as shrewd or nimble. But a shrewd used to be connected with evil or wickless, and a nimble one was thought to be good at taking things without permission.
4. Degradation of Meaning (Deterioration)
This process refers to words with a commendatory meaning was shifted into the one with negatives sense. Observation shows that it is much more common for word meaning to be changed into pejorative than it is for them to go the other way.
Table 2. Examples for Deterioration
words original meaning changed meaning
adj. silly happy, holy foolish, imbecile
cunning knowing, skillful sly
gay happy homo***uality
n. wench girl, young woman prostitute
villain villager evil people
knave boy rascal
The process of semantic change is a great contributor to English neologisms.
Ⅲ. General Trend Of English Neologisms
By a study of English neologisms, we are able to detect the recent trend of the English vocabulary and make some predications of its future development. The trend of them is as follows:
1) Due to the development of society and the technology advancement, English vocabulary is developing at an unprecedented high rate. New words flourish and the meanings of old-established words change on a very large scale.
2) With the increasing of international cultural exchanges, English words borrowed from other countries will have a profound development.
3) Most of the neologisms are appearing in the newspapers, magazines, and TV programs, etc. These words have the characteristics of informed color, which reflects the quick tempo of modern social life. The trend of using less formal words and making them simplification in communication is growing.
4) Modern people pay more attention to the interpersonal relationship. In order to make the talk perform well, many of the euphemisms are used frequently. Because euphemistic words and expressions can neutralize the unpleasantness, a great many euphemisms will be appeared in modern English vocabulary in the future.
Conclusion
The emerging of English neologisms is influenced by many factors, but the most important aspect comes from the development of science and technology. Observations show that a vast number of English neologisms are related to this field, in which the newly-coined computer words are the most noteworthy thing.
The appearing of a great many English neologisms is not free. Most of them are subject to one of the ways, such as borrowing, word-formation processes, or semantic change and so on.
With the increase of international cultural exchanges, English words borrowed from other languages will have a profound development.
The number of compounds surpasses all the other types by a large scale. The reason might be that the inherited vocabulary is very limited compared with the unlimited complexity of things and the new ideas we have to discuss. When new things and concepts appear, people are faced with the urgency of naming, and the new forms are difficult to create, the better way seems to be making compounds in which old words are combined to express new concepts.
Derivation and conversion are traditional word formation ways and very convenient to be used for forming neologisms when new need arises. However, they are not enough to satisfy people’s strong desire for novelty, and therefore not so attention-catching as some of the other types, such as
本论文由英语论文网提供整理,提供论文代写,英语论文代写,代写论文,代写英语论文,代写留学生论文,代写英文论文,留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。