The Formalized Semantics of Neologisms-Slangisms in the Context of the English Translation of A Military Narrative

Abstract

Each new designation associated with a designation already fixed in the language is traditionally and automatically considered a case of semantic neology and is a case of polysemy. This simplistic analysis does not take into account morphological analysis and ignores the semantic laws that govern changes in meaning. The paper examines the meaning and evolution of semantic neologisms in military English discourse. In particular, three types of neologisms can be distinguished: neologisms-borrowings, neologisms-homonyms, and semantic neologisms. The emphasis is placed on semantic neologisms since they are the ones that become a problem for translators due to the tendency to polysemy. The paper examines the neologisms of military discourse in the context of the specifics of the narrative of translations of military texts by S. Zhadan. Unlike a large number of other linguistic concepts, such as a phoneme, morpheme, the concept of neologism seems to be well known to everyone, and in general, consensus means “new word”. Based on this, one might expect unanimity in the identification and analysis of neologisms and slangisms. However, there are many discussions about the neological status of a particular lexical item. Scientists emphasize a very high rate of dispersion of linguistic new formations, without a clear differentiation between neologisms and slangisms. Therefore, in the presented work we analyse the problems of translation of semantic neologisms and slangisms on the basis of English translations of the existential specificity of the narrative of the war-themed texts by S. Zhadan “Boarding School”. The issue of the newest intuitive concept of neology and the potential of slangisms to form a formal matrix, and neologisms - a semantic one, is actualized.