The Language Of German Politics: Depolitonyms

Abstract

The article examines the political vocabulary of modern Germany, particularly, the lexical units formed from the names of parties (political names), for which the term depolitonyms is introduced. The research material was the digital media resources of the Federal Republic of Germany, where a large corpus of depolitonyms is found. The study revealed that the names of political parties in Germany have a high derivational potential, they act as a resource for the formation of concepts of social and political life, thereby performing a resource function in replenishing the modern political vocabulary. It was revealed that, first of all, abbreviated and truncated party names are the basis for the formation of a large volume of concepts and phenomena of political life. As for the methods of their formation, the dominant way of forming depolitonyms is compounding with the inclusion of the party name. At the same time, prefixing can be considered one of the effective ways of forming terms in the field of politics, however, prefixes of German origin are inferior in word formation to prefixes of Greek-Latin origin. In addition, complex depolitonyms are identified, including words of English origin, which corresponds to the international nature of political processes and the leading role of the English language in the world community.

Keywords: Depolitonym, derivational potential, Germany, political lexicon, political name

Introduction

In the modern German media space, special attention is paid to the political life of the country, the actions of political parties and the statements of politicians are actively discussed. In this regard, the political onomasticon is replete with anthroponyms, documentary names, chrononyms, etc. An important part of this onomastic fund is the names of political parties, in relation to which the term political name is used (<old Greek πολιτική 'social activity, politics' + 'όνυμ' name ') proposed by Shimkevich (2019).

It is assumed that the names of political associations serve as a resource for replenishing the political vocabulary, the result of which is the emergence of the so-called depolitonyms - words derived from the names of parties, the consideration of which is the subject of this study. It should be noted that the derivational potential of certain onomastic units is of interest to the scientific community, for example, the otanthroponymic adjectives of the Russian language have been studied (Norman & Plotnikova, 2017), the derivational potential of Russian hydronyms has been revealed (Krivoshchapova, 2017), the ottoponymic and otethnonymic names of courts have been investigated (Loport, 2016), ottoponymic word-formation models in the German language have been analysed (Voronina et al., 2019) and others, while we did not identify works that reveal the derivational potential of polyonyms, which makes our study relevant.

Problem Statement

The German audience is actively involved in virtual political and communication relations, which causes the need to identify new concepts and phenomena for effective political communication (Tkachenko, 2021). In addition, the very digitalization of political life in Germany has led to a huge influx of new words, many of which are formed from the names of political associations. These new words satisfy the communicative and cognitive needs of German society. So, the names of parties act as a resource for the formation of concepts of social and political life. It is possible to consider the resource function of polyonyms in comparison to the background of the methods of word formation in the German language. The traditional methods of word formation in the German language include compounding, lexical-syntactic method, morphological method, and morphological-syntactic method (Donalies, 2021; Fleischer & Barz, 2012).

Research Questions

• In the course of this study, the following questions will be answered:
• Which German political names act as a resource for designating the concepts of social and political life?
• What derivational methods are presented on the material of depolitonyms? Which of these methods are the most productive?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this work is to identify the place of political names in the language of politics. Besides, it is important to reveal the main ways of forming a socio-political vocabulary based on the names of parties.

Research Methods

The main part of the research was the collection of depolitonyms, which was carried out by extracting political communication from modern digital resources. An important resource for collecting material were the platforms of political parties in Germany, which, as shown in the study Afonasyeva and Khubetcova (2016), “are high-quality resources that provide readers with up-to-date information on the activities of the party, reflect its view of various social problems” (p. 393).

The changing media system creates new conditions for political communication. Thus, official websites, discussion forums and blogs of political parties have become a platform for discussions that allow participants to establish feedback, which can contribute to the formation and maintenance of a positive image of the party, which is confirmed by researchers: the Internet makes authorities closer and more accessible to the electorate. The presence of such a platform on the Internet also demonstrates the aspirations of official structures for information openness and dialogue with the electorate (Khaliullina, 2017).

In addition to the above resources, a continuous sample of digital information and political magazines and newspapers was carried out (Zeit, Spiegel online, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Focus online, Neue Osnabrücke Zeitung, Welt, Bild, TAZ, Frankfurter Allgemeine for 2019 - 2020, etc.), which made it possible to identify a range of political nominations formed from party names. Using this method, we managed to collect a corpus of lexemes formed from polyonyms in the amount of about 500 units.

The methodological approaches of modern linguistics were used in the analysis of depolitonyms. Etymological, structural, statistical, and derivational analyses of the collected material were carried out. The features of the vocabulary studied in this work lead to a special method of their study - to the contextual analysis of depolitonyms to study the functional specifics of nominations of this type. Thus, an integrated polydisciplinary approach that combines various methods has become the optimal solution for research.

Findings

Thus, during the study, it was revealed that Germanic political names in most cases act as a resource for the formation of:

designations of characteristics of objects and phenomena of political life:,;

words denoting members of parties and regional factions (chairmen, leaders, deputies): CDU-Chef, CDU-Generalsekretär, AfD-Politike, CDU-Ortsvorsitzender, Ex-Piraten-Fraktionschef, CDUler, CSU-Mitgliedschaft and etc.

words denoting representatives of the electoral section of individual parties:,, etc.

words denoting party events and information about them (forums, conferences, anniversaries, rallies, etc.):,,,etc.

words denoting the processes of political life, as well as names derived from them:,,. It is important to note that verbalized party names express support and agreement with the party's policies, as well as receiving the most votes in a given constituency.

The resource function of party names is considered in the contrast of the background of the methods of word formation in the German language, described above. Based on the material of the official secondary party names of the leading political associations of modern Germany, we were able to reveal that abbreviated word formation in the form of initials is the most productive way of term formation. Also, abbreviated names and truncated words (CDU, CSU, FDP, SPD, AfD, Grünen, Piraten) serve as the basis for the formation of new lexemes.

A huge layer of political terms is formed in a morphological-syntactic way, compounding being the primary part of it. Analysis of the factual material showed that all compound words, which include an abbreviated party name or a truncated word, are written with a hyphen. We have identified:

- two-component terminological combinations, consisting of a party name and a thematic word with a generalizing meaning: SPD-Wähler (FDP-Wähler, SPD-Wähler, AfD-Wähler, …), CDU-Vorsitzende (FDP-Vorsitzende, SPD-Vorsitzende, AfD- Vorsitzende, …), CDU-Chef, CDU-Generalsekretär, CDU-Mitglied, CSU-Mitgliedschaft, CDU-Spitze, SPD-Konkurrenz, SPD- Niedergang, Afd – Nachrichten, etc.

- three-component terminological combinations, consisting of the name of the party name and a complex thematic word with a generalizing meaning: CDU-Bundestagsabgeordneter, CDU-Ortsvorsitzender, CSU-Rechtspolitiker, CDU- Präsidiumssitzung, FDP- Parteibüro, AfD-Parteitag, etc.

A considerable number of identified lexemes are formed using the affixation method. Affixes of German origin and terminology of Greco-Latin origin are usually involved in the formation of political terminology. The following subtypes of word formation have been identified:

Prefix:

An important feature is the large number of terms, in the formation of which prefixes of Greek-Latin origin are involved. We have marked such prefixes as:.

As you can see from the above examples, the use of ancient "heritage" is a popular way of forming new political lexemes. Word formation also involves morphemes such as half-prefixes and half-suffixes, referring to affixoids or, in other words, sub-affixes. The use of semi-prefixes in word formation is justified by the fact that the system of prefixes in the German language has a relatively weak development, and, on the other hand, word composition is widely used. We marked the words,,, as semi-prefixes in the following lexemes:,,,.

Suffixation:

Suffixation is represented in words formed by the suffix method. Suffixes of German origin have their own meanings, for example, the suffix denotes an action or a process:.

The suffixes or denote the producer of the action. Thus, we have noted the popular word formation model of representatives of political parties in Germany: the abbreviated name of the party + the suffix: (NTV.de, 2020);(Elchler, 2019);(Woerlein, 2020).

The suffix, denoting belonging to something, is used to form the adjective from the truncated name of the party:,.

Prefix-suffix way of word formation:

We also marked words formed by the prefix-suffix way of word formation. In this case, a prefix and a suffix take part in the formation of a lexeme, for example, both affixes of German and term elements of Greco-Latin origin can be involved here:;

The analysis of the material showed that the morphological ways of word formation in the German language (prefix, suffix and prefix-suffix) are highly productive in the process of word creation.

The political vocabulary of the modern German language is now developing in the context of broad international, and, therefore, linguistic contacts. As a result of these multilateral ties, there is a constant flow of a whole stream of foreign and international vocabulary into the modern vocabulary, which becomes the property of the German vocabulary no less than the words that are originally German or are considered so today. Today, are an indispensable source of replenishment of the vocabulary of the German language.

We came across the morphological or derivational type of borrowings when we were analysing the prefix, suffix, and prefix-suffix methods of word formation, which are based, among other things, on the Greco-Latin term elements. According to the specifics of the borrowed material, it is customary to distinguish between mixed borrowing, in which hybrid borrowing and semi-borrowing are distinguished. So, in the digital German media space, we have noted only semi-borrowed political terms, where the second (main) part of the composite word is borrowed, and the first part is an abbreviated or truncated party name: (from French fonctionnaire), (from French. expert), (from Latin concurrens), (from Latin senior), (from English), AfD-Kapitän (from it. capitano), Anti-CDU-Video (from English), Anti-CDU-T-Shirt, Anti-AFD-Politik-T-Shirt (from English), etc.

The analysis of words formed from party names allows us to assert that semi-borrowings are mainly represented in the formation of which Latin, French and English are involved as the main "suppliers" of not only separate word-formation terms, but also lexical units. Unlike borrowings from French, Anglicisms are used primarily to meet the expectations of the public.

As for such a way of word formation as conversion, we noted only the verbalization of party names, in which the short form of the name turns into a verb:. The verbalized party names that we found express support and agreement with the party's policy, as well as receiving the largest number of votes in a particular electoral section:(Maier, 2018).

Conclusion

The analysis of German political derivatives based on a party name made it possible to reveal that abbreviated and truncated party names are an important resource for denoting a large volume of concepts and phenomena of political life in Germany. As for the methods of their formation, it would be legitimate to say that the most productive way of forming vocabulary with the inclusion of a party name is compounding. The advantage of complex words is the ability to concentrate a large amount of information in one lexical unit.

Prefixing is one of the most effective ways of forming policy terms. Prefixes of German origin are much inferior in word formation to prefixes of Greco-Latin origin, with the help of which a large layer of lexical units of the political sphere is formed. The international character of political processes and the leading role of the English language in the world community contribute to the fact that many words from the English language appear in German political terminology. Thus, Germanic political names have a high derivational potential, and depolitonyms formed from them are widely used in the language of politics.

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