Neologism and Semantic Shift among Politically Created Terms during Pandemic: A Morpho-Semantic Analysis

Abstract

This paper morpho-semantically analyzed the various global politically-created words during pandemic focusing on neologistic features and semantic changes this plethora of words convey. The researchers used discourse analysis as a research design to analyze these terms integrating the frameworks of Hatch and Brown [11], O’Grady and Guzman [12], and Yule [13]. The types of word-formation processes elicited from the politically-created terms were coinages, acronyms, compounding, borrowing/loan words, and derivational. This study found out that the new terms are rooted on different processes, while other terms have already existed and the pandemic attached new meanings to these words. These newly created terms are an affirmation to human creativity and language evolution thus supports Lawson’s [76] assertion that linguistic creativity reflects major preoccupations of the time and is able to show how people gather to talk about new challenges and contexts. Therefore, the researchers commend that language enthusiasts should cover wide language studies in concepts including semantics since conceptual meanings and the relations between words, context, components, and features may be congruent, but the way language is used is different. This study provides understanding of the new terms that were created during pandemic and how these terms are used in context.