PERSONAL NAME-BASED NEOLOGISMS IN MACEDONIAN ONLINE JOURNALISTIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

Languages are permanently expanding their vocabulary with new words, which is an inevitable and constant process. The new words can be produced by the means of one language, borrowed from a foreign language, or created as a combination of one’s language means and borrowed elements. These novel words appear for the first time mainly in the journalistic articles, and then, depending on many factors, either spread into the general lexicon, or remain a part of a specialized language. The research question relates to the personal name-based neologisms in the Macedonian journalistic discourse aiming to reveal the most frequent word formation devices journalists use when creating such neologisms in their text. Thus, 2000 online news articles, informative and opinion based, are selected by using personal name-based neologisms as key words on Google Search. They serve as a sample, which is purposeful and cohesive. The data analysis rests upon the general qualitative inductive method and is enriched by the coding, i.e. organizational boxes are established in which the data are sorted for further analysis. The research results showcase that Macedonian journalistic discourse contains personal name-based neologisms which support the view that they are a common phenomenon in many modern languages. Further, the findings reveal that the suffixation is the most frequent language means used by journalists when generating personal name-based neologisms which reinforces previously stated outcomes. Furthermore, from the results it is obvious that the new personal name-based words are created with prefixes and that there are new compounds as well. In addition, these answers unveil that the personal namebased neologisms assist in achieving stylistic expression of the journalists’ text.