Modern Nominative Processes In English Academic Discourse

Abstract

The work discusses modern nominative processes in English academic discourse. The research material is English neologisms taken from online articles and lexicographic sources. The article notes that the emergence of new units, the formation of new lexical meanings is connected with the constant work of the mind of a person, a cognitive process that can be understood and associated with the work of the intellect of a person. The appearance of new lexical units gives rise to an important process in comprehending the reality around us. This particular stage can be defined as the culmination of the whole process if capabilities in discourse and cognition in English; it is an essential part to study nominated objects and phenomena of reality, their characteristic features which are crucial in a person’s life. The article notes that the evaluative capabilities of neologisms, their lexical and semantic resources are revealed in a certain discursive environment as well as the emergence and consolidation in use of new lexical units themselves. Globalization influences the study of academic discourse: on the one hand, international educational programs appear, as a result of reforms the content and requirements of programs in different countries are unified; on the other hand, in the worldview of different countries, the attitude towards education, towards its value dominants is changing. The article emphasizes that the consideration of word-building models, the study of cognitive stereotypes that determine the specifics of English academic discourse can be called the most important and key sign of discursive varieties.

Keywords: NeologismEnglish academic discourseconceptualizationsemantic characteristicsword-formationevaluation

Introduction

The process of creating neologisms is constant: the semantic content represented by new units is immense. New thoughts, discoveries arise as a result of a new vision of the objects around us, new understanding of some features and characteristics of the lexical units under study. So, one should be able to see this new knowledge characteristic to neologisms, the specific information which is put into them (Kasyanova, 2009).

The peculiarity of studying linguistic works is that their consideration is associated with constant changes in the world, with the features inherent to the nation mentality and the attitudes of contemporary people. The problem of education is one of the vital one since it impacts people’s lives.

Problem Statement

The study of neologisms is reflected in the works of such scholars as Katermina (2017), Katermina and Lipiridi (2019), Lipiridi (2019), Ratsiburskaya (2016), Zhang et al. (2019) and others. Different articles and monographs connected with the study of neologisms confirm the relevance of this knowledge for modern science. In linguistic works neologisms are considered inextricably linked with discursive research: both neology and discourse depend on the sociocultural situation.

According to modern research, in a discursive environment the emergence and development of neologisms, the disclosure of their lexical-semantic, evaluative, discursive capabilities is possible (Ostrovskaya & Khachmafova, 2016; Zheltukhina, Vikulova, Serebrennikova, Gerasimova, & Borbotko, 2016).

The new vocabulary in this paper is considered to be a source for revealing the views and opinions of Anglo-American society regarding the solution of urgent problems in the educational sphere. The paper considers the most frequent word-formation models for creating neologisms and also takes into account their semantic potential. The article identifies the causes of changes in the lexical space of modern English academic discourse which are associated with the action of linguistic and social factors due to the relevance of the analyzed issues for the international community.

Research Questions

• What are the most frequent word-formation models for creating neologisms in academic discourse?

• How does the semantic potential of the analysed new lexical units reflect the changes happening in the society?

• What are the causes of changes in the lexical space of modern English academic discourse?

Purpose of the Study

This article is about the processes of nomination represented by English neologisms in academic discourse. The significance of this type of discourse, its significance is a complex of types of activities of an educational institution: teaching students, methods, disseminating educational ideas, the formation of new knowledge carried out using the language (Bogdanova, 2018; Trunova, 2016).

The concept “education” is considered to be an important concept among different peoples since the concept itself is somehow realized in different areas of life: upbringing, the moral and spiritual sphere of human life, professional activity, etc.

The concept “education” is considered to be an important concept among different peoples since the concept itself is somehow realized in different areas of life: upbringing, the moral and spiritual sphere of human life, professional activity, etc.

The concept “education” is a complex phenomenon: it includes several discourses – everyday, scientific, educational, didactic, educational, etc. The concept of “education” has a “mental nature” and a “cognitive-generalizing orientation”; it includes three levels of linguistic embodiment (levels of systematic potential, subjective potential and textual implementation, appealing to the components of its macrostructure) (Slyshkin, 2014).

Research Methods

• To achieve the aim of the research, the contextual-semantic method, the purpose of which is the analysis of neologism as part of a fragment of text which is a communicative event that requires decoding was used.

• To be able to identify the capabilities and to name the tendencies of using neologisms in the contemporary English the method of description of the widely used models of word-building was applied.

• In order to see the interdependence of the usage of different ways of expression in English neology based on the elements of culture we introduced the method of linguocultural studies.

Findings

The neological worldview reflects the axiology of changes that have occurred in English-speaking countries. So, in the late 1990s, charter schools appeared in the United States which got their place in the education system. Charter schools are a relatively new term, so it’s not accidental that the media pays some attention to this phenomenon:

But perhaps no two topics have surrounded DeVos more this election season than vouchers and charter schools. While not yet officially confirmed as Secretary, DeVos has expressed support for both as alternatives to traditional public school (Weller, 2017).

This week, the New Orleans Recovery School District permanently closed its last five traditional public schools, making it the first public school district in the country entirely composed of charter schools, according to The Washington Post (Klein, 2014).

So among the most important features the author singles out only two – vouchers and charter schools. Since the latter ones are considered to be an alternative to traditional public schools they should be analysed very thoroughly.

Learning models are also an important issue for the development of modern education. An example of this is flipped learning, the purpose of which is to change the traditional teaching model to a more “promising” one where students learn homework in the classroom.

This model is perceived revolutionary: It is a reimagination of life in a classroom (Strauss, 2012).

The use of the prefix re- indicates that new models are being introduced into this type of training.

On the other hand, this teaching model is compared with other teaching practices that have existed over the long history of the development of education.

Both neologisms (charter school and flipped learning) like most analyzed units are an example of compound words.

The English language occupies a leading position in the modern world, so the appearance of new complex units is a mixture of English with other languages which also indicates the processes occurring in the academic discourse. The first truncated component of such words is the name of a particular language, the second, as a rule, truncation -lish (от English): Swedlish – a blend of Swedish and English, Russlish – a blend of Russian and English, Denglish – a blend of Deutsch and English, Frenglish – a blend of French and English and so on.

Issues of academic discourse include many questions. Among the analyzed neologisms three types of education can be distinguished.

A vivid example of the traditional type of upbringing – the importance of discipline, obedience and excellent performance – is reflected in the neologism tiger mother which is based on a metaphor (tiger is associated with a strict and severe animal “demanding” a lot from the little tigers – in our case tiger mother is a synonym to a person who requires academic excellence from her children) (Tiger Mother, n.d.). This term was coined by Amy Chua in her 2011 book “The Battle Cry of a Tiger Mother”.

The opposite one is panda parenting (one more metaphor) – the association in the minds of English-speaking people is an encouraging grown-up person who does the best to raise responsible and sensible children.

The founder of this method is Esther Wojcicki, an influential American teacher from Palo Alto, California. She wrote her book How to Raise Successful People in 2019. In it, she shares the techniques she used to raise her three daughters in order to overcome the crisis in children’s upbringing.

The crisis of parenting that Esther Wojcicki spoke about is connected with neologisms such as helicopter parenting and lawnmower parenting. Note that the basis of neologisms, denoting types of education, is a metaphor.

These types of education emphasize the excessive control of parents, their desire to protect children from all difficulties, including academic ones.

Helicopter parent – a parent who is closely involved with their child's life and tries to control it too much, especially their child's education.

This neologism emphasizes a greater involvement in the lives of children which is expressed at the level of lexemes closely – in a very careful and strict way, too much – more than necessary, to control – to make people behave in a particular way.

Thus in the neologisms a negative evaluation of such types of education is present.

Conclusion

The system of education is the kind of institution in the society which reflects and reproduces the culture, its values, beliefs, norms, social practices.

Any changes in the development of society are reflected in the language system, in particular in the neological foundation of academic discourse. The education system in any country is generated by culture, and part of the culture is the worldview of a given community. Education forms, reflects and reproduces the state of culture in a certain period of time.

The process of neologizing the academic discourse of the English language is an orientation in the development of the opinions and ideas of society in matters of education. A complete analysis of the system for creating neologisms in English academic discourse, the study of their lexico-semantic, derivational and discursive features allows us to identify the main changes in how native speakers consider issues related to educational problems.

Acknowledgments

The research is given a financial support by The Russian Foundation for Basic Research (Department of Humanitarian and Social Science), the research project № 20-012-00033 entitled “Linguistic models of sociopolitical communication in online space: discursive fields, patterns and hybrid methodology of network data analysis” (2020-2022).

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