5．Ways of the formation of Internet English neologisms
On the Internet there are innumerable neologisms coming and dying. The Internet provides a space for individuals to freely create new words. The rapid spread of information on the Internet makes those new words well known among netizens. This part will explore the formation rules that Internet English neologisms will follow.
5.1 Compounding
Compounding is a process of word-formation by which two independent words are put together to make one word. Words formed by compounding are called compounds. At the beginning, some of the compounds appeared as a phrase; the components were relatively independent and stood by themselves. Now hyphens are used between some of them and more and more of the former phrase-like forms tend to appear as single words on condition that there won?t be the similar misunderstanding which happens between ?dark room? and ?darkroom?.
There are various ways to classify the compound words. For convenience, we can study the compounds in Internet English neologisms by sorting them out into the following categories:
1). Open form. Open form refers to a new expression formed by two words and there is space between the two words. Such as: key pals; mouse potato; ankle biter; forced coolness; feature creature
2). Hyphenated form. Hyphenated form refers to the neologism formed by two words, which is connected by a hyphen. Such as the following words: internet-bar; computer-nerd; chat-fly; brain-dead; brick-and-mortar; drop-outs; drop-ins
3). Solid form. Solid form refer to a new word formed by two words but there is no space between them. Such as: wideband; vapourware; webmaster; netcop; networm; firewall; keyboard
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5.2 Affixation
Affixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding derivational affixes to roots to supply grammatical or lexical information. This process is also known as derivation, for new words created in this way are derived from old forms, and the words formed in this way are called derivatives. According to the position which affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subclasses: prefixation and suffixation. [11]48 In Internet language, there are lots of neologisms formed in this way. And moreover, many words can be found in connection with computer, Internet or the information age.
5.2.1 Prefixation
Prefixation is a main type of word- formation putting a prefix in front of the base, sometimes with, but more usually without a change of word class. [12]44 For example:
Cyber-: meaning “computer” or “computer network”
cybercrime; cybercrub; cyberspeak; cypertheft; cyberpunk; cybersquatting e-: shortening for “electronic” and also meaning “computer”
e-Business; e-Cash; e-Market; e-Shopping; e-Service; e-Life; e-Loyalty;
e-Journal
5.2.2 Suffixation
Suffixation is the other kind of formation of neologisms by adding a suffix to the root, with or without a change of word class. [11]49 For example:
-ware: computing terms, meaning “software\
freeware; shareware; groupware; shovelware; donorware -ize: a verb suffix signifying to make, to do, to practice digitize; normalize; informationize -or/er: meaning doer of the action
accelerator; browser; hacker; surfer; spammer; scanner
5.3 Clipping
“Another common way of making a word is to shorten a longer word by cutting a
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part of the original and using what remains instead. This is called clipping or shortening.” [11]101A clipped word is created by cutting out one or more than one syllables of a word, which fall into four classifications, that is, apocope, aphaeresis, front and rear clipping, and syncope. “Abbreviations have always been a common type of pseudo-neologism…” [13]. For example, prof. from professor, bus from omnibus, etc. Here, “abbreviations”, in its sense, refer to the clipped word, because abbreviations, in broad sense, include not only clipped words but initialisms and acronyms as well.
In Internet language, there are three types of clipped words, namely, apocope, aphaeresis, front and rear clipping.
1) Apocope. Apocope refers to loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word.
info---information rep--- reputation sec--- second Mac--- Macintosh 2) Aphaeresis. Aphaeresis indicates the loss of one or more sounds from the beginning of a word.
K--- ok Link--- hyperlink U--- you Y? --- Why?
3) Front and rear clipping. Front and rear clipping, obviously, denotes the loss of front and rear sounds of a word. However, the words on Internet by this kind of formation is rare. For example, r--- are.
5.4 Acronymy
Acronymy is the process of forming new words by joining the initial letters of names of social and political organizations or special noun phrases and technical terms. Words formed in this way are called initialisms or acronyms, depending on the pronunciation of the words.
5.4.1 Initialism
Initialism is formed from the initial letters of more than two words. Initialism cannot be pronounced as a word, but letter by letter. [11]103 The initialism on the Internet is characterized by its usage in the chatting room. There are two kinds initialisms according to whether it contains numbers. 1) Pure initialism without numbers
IT--- information technology LOL--- Laugh out loud BTW--- By the way AFAIK--- As far as I know
2) Initialism with numbers. This way to form a neologism is one of the characteristics of
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the Internet English neologisms and the partial tone, whose definition is given in 4.2.2, is a special form derived from it. In these words or phrases, the word “to” is often been replaced by the number “2” and “for” is replaced by “4”, because their pronounciations is the same. There are examples:
P2P--- Peer to peer B2B--- Business to business B2C--- Business to Consumer B4N--- Bye for now Any1--- anyone 4get--- forget
5.4.2 Acronymy
The word “acronym” comes from Greek, meaning heads of names. Acronyms are usually made from the capitalised initials of the words it represents but pronounced as a normal word.
The word “acronym” comes from Greek, meaning heads of names. Acronyms are usually made from the capitalised initials of the words it represents but pronounced as a normal word.
On Internet, most of the acronyms are technical terms or comupter terms. For example, the word “LAN” is a acronym of “Local Area Network”, which is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport. Other examples like:
WAN--- Wide Area Network SOHO--- small office or home office RAM--- random access memory ROM--- read only memory
5.5 Blending
The process of simultaneously combining and shortening is blending. A Blending is a word made by joining two or more forms but omitting at least part of one. This simple process has a number of variations, some quite complex. Words formed in this way are called blends or portmanteaus. [14]10 On the Internet, neologisms formed by blending can be grouped to five categories: head + word, head + tail, word + head, head + head, word + tail. The examples are:
(1). head + word: netiquette---network + etiquette Emoticon---emotion +icon
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(2). head + tail: netizen---network + citizen e-zine---electronic + magazine (3). word + head: webcam---web + camera Cybercafé---cyber + cafeteria (4). head + head: telco---telephone + company infocosm---information + cosmos (5). word + tail: webster---web + master netcast---net + broadcast
5.6 Adding new meanings to existing words
Although newly-created words are especially striking, it must not be forgotten that old-established ones often take on additional shades of meaning as a result of extended technical knowledge or a changed point of view resulting from scientific or sociological causes. About 15 percent of new words are simply old words with new meanings. Actually, old words taking on new meanings are a common phenomenon in a language. There are also a large portion of Internet English neologisms formed by this way. For examples:
Worm: its original meaning is a small thin tube like creature with no backbone or legs which lives in the earth, but on the Internet, it means the virus in the computer programs.
Wheel: its original meaning is a circular object with an outer frame which turns around an inner part and now it is used to describe a great personage on the Internet
Toast: its original meaning is to make food such as bread or cheese brown, by holding it close to heat and on the Internet it means that somebody damages a computer program which leads to its breakdown.
5.7 Coinage
Coinage, one of the least common processes of word-formation, is sheer invention. An outright coinage is hard to remember because it has no familiar elements to aid the memory. So wholly new coinages are born harder to make and less likely to be remembered and used. [15]37
However, on Internet, because of its special traits, there is a small portion of neologism created by sheer invention. They are often terms and reflect the development
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