Working groups

WG1: MULTILINGUAL GLOSSARY OF NEOLOGY

Leaders: Prof John HUMBLEY, Dr Ana SALGADO

A shared metalanguage is a prerequisite for establishing and consolidating an international research community. Since the metalanguage of neology is not sufficiently accounted for, a multilingual glossary is being built to describe the main terms (e.g. loanword, blend…) used in the discipline to help stabilise the definition of concepts and show the various points of view at the international level. Despite renewed interest in neology, no dictionary or glossary of the subject appears to have been made, apart from attempts such as Correia & Lemos’ (2005) glossary for Portuguese.

Lexical innovations are approached from several perspectives and domains (general linguistics, sociolinguistics, typological studies, cognitive linguistics, etc.) aiming at giving credit to the many and varied viewpoints in a more global and inclusive view.

The open-access glossary os being produced following several steps:

• compiling a specialised corpus of linguistic studies of neologisms
• identifying the core concepts used in the field of neology
• deciding on the format of the lexicographic articles in the microstructure
• writing up the lexicographic articles.

The ongoing WG1 tasks and the respective coordinators are:

1.1 Exploration of the Lambert-Lucas pilot corpus | Raquel SILVA

1.2 Corpus building (NeoCorpus) & Neology database (NeoVoc) | David LINDEMANN

1.3 Domain & Knowledge Organization | Margarida RAMOS

1.4 Macro & Microstructure Planning | Ilan KERNERMAN

1.5 Data Representation & Presentation | Ana Salgado & Federica VEZZANI

1.6 Glossary Editing | Onorina BOTEZAT

1.7 Documentation & Guidelines | Anna VACALOPOULOU

WG2: METHODS, DIGITAL RESOURCES AND TOOLS FOR NEOLOGY

Leaders: Dr Ana OSTROŠKI ANIĆ, Prof Federica VEZZANI

The first objective is to establish an online repository of digital resources, methods, and tools linked to lexical innovation research and studies. This online repository will also be available within the Virtual Language Observatory developed by the CLARIN consortium.

The digital resources will include:

• dictionaries of lexical innovations, mono-, bi- or multilingual (as for English-based loanwords), comprising more or less sophisticated information (lexical innovation processes, part-of-speech, statistics on diffusion, etc.);
• corpora, designed explicitly or not for lexical innovation studies, covering the broad spectrum of media types (speech, written, multimedia), domains and communicative event types and genres, mono- and multilingual, diachronic (retrospective or dynamic) or synchronic.

The computational methods and tools will include:

• usage-based methods: e.g., to detect and follow the lifecycle of neologisms across corpora, to assess the productivity of new morphemes, or retrieve semantic and constructional innovations;
• experimental-based methods: e.g., neological perception/evaluation;
• sociolinguistic studies: e.g., on neologism perception across communities or social network analysis of the diffusion of neologisms across linguistic communities and domains. As a result, diffusion paths of lexical innovations will be analysed.

The second objective is to foster the exchange and cross-fertilisation of ideas linked to computational methods and tools among other scientific communities (e.g., Artificial Intelligence, Linguistic Linked Open Data, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, etc.) with lexical innovation as a research object. Good practices on the methodology of neology extraction, description, analysis, and follow-up will be shared.

The ongoing WG2 tasks and the respective coordinators are:

2.1 Survey on lexical innovation methods and practices, available resources, and tools | Jelena KALLAS & Kristina KOPPEL

2.2 Digital resources and tools for neology | Hiwa ASADPOUR

2.3 Guidelines and best practices on the methodology of neology extraction, description, analysis and follow-up | Anca GATA & Neslihan ONDER-OZDEMIR

2.4 Methods for the identification and monitoring of neologisms | Voula GIOULI

2.5 Neology from a lexicographic perspective | Kris HEYLEN & Ilan KERNERMAN

WG3: DIACHRONIC AND SYNCHRONIC COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF NEOLOGY

Leaders: Prof Vincent BALNAT, Dr Kris HEYLEN

Much work has been done on lexical innovation and the dynamics of languages in terms of study and comparison of recent neologisms, including borrowings, and the equivalents which may accompany them, not forgetting the words they replace. The main thrust is to measure the “permeability” of languages to outside influence (especially in new digital and web-based technologies) and the degree of reactivity they show in creating and disseminating new expressions. This will be done by case studies on several languages represented in the Action, in particular in languages with differing traditions of and attitudes to neologisms.

Firstly, lexical creativity and productivity of neologisms will be considered and assessed across the languages of the project. From a purely linguistic point of view, the degree of acceptability and integration of borrowings will be analysed and compared across languages, as will the reactivity of each language in producing native forms. An assessment of the evolution of societies will be drawn from the study of recent neologisms within the digital field in relation to what areas the various languages source their borrowings from. From a vocabulary sample, naming tasks will be organised, allowing diatopic and diastratic perspectives on borrowings and local variants.

Studying the repercussions of language contact brought about by globalisation requires comparisons with other languages and continents. The globalisation of exchanges has led to the consolidation of Anglo-American English as a lingua franca and consequent influence on other languages.

The ongoing WG3 tasks and the respective coordinators are:

3.1 Blends | Alina VILLALVA

3.2 Neology and Discourse | Petra STORJOHANN

3.3 Neology and proper nouns | Jean-Louis VAXELAIRE

3.4 Phonological, orthographic, grammatical and semantic inclusion of neologisms in our mental lexicon | Esther BREUER

3.5 Verb neology | Radka MUDROCHOVA & Andrzej NAPIERALSKI

WG4: TRAINING IN NEOLOGY

Leaders: Dr Judit FREIXA, Dr Petar BOŽOVIĆ

The research on the didactic aspects of neology aims to develop an innovative methodology and didactic materials for teaching neology in various professional domains, including translation, interpreting, terminology, language teaching, lexicography, and language planning, among others. This general objective will be achieved through four specific objectives to be developed sequentially:

• Designing innovative approaches to teaching neology (Deadline: June 2025)
• Developing teaching materials (Deadline: April 2026)
• Organizing a training school (Deadline: October 2026)
• Fine-tuning innovative methodology and materials (Deadline: June 2027)

WG4 is currently working on designing innovative approaches to teaching neology. The ongoing tasks and their respective coordinators are:

Task 4.1. Status quo analysis

• • Task 4.1.1. Needs analysis | Hiwa ASADPOUR
  • Task 4.1.2. Literature review | Sorina CIOBANU

Task 4.2. Defining neology competences | Miguel SÁNCHEZ IBÁÑEZ

Task 4.3. Designing innovative forms of teaching neology | Daniela HASA & Etleva KONDI