学科分类号0502本科学年论文题目(中文)论英语新词汇的发展(英文)On the Development of New English Words姓名学号院(部)外国语学院专业、年级2012级英语专业指导教师职称讲师二○一四年六月ContentsAbstract (1)Introduction (2)Chapter 1 Introduction to the English Language (4)1.1 The Development Process of English (4)1.2 Rules of Word-building (5)1.2.1Affixiation (5)1.2.2Composition (6)1.2.3Shortening (6)1.2.4Loan word (7)Chapter 2 The Changing Words in English (8)2.1 New Words Created by Shakespeare in the Past (9)2.2 New Words Being Developed Recently (10)Chapter 3 The Influence and Tendency of the Change (11)3.1 The Influence of the Change (11)3.2 The Tendency of the Change (12)Conclusion (13)Bibliography (15)Acknowledgements (16)On the Development of New English WordsGao LiuAbstract:Language is always changing. With the changes and development in politics, economy and technology, there are many new English words appeared. According to the statistics, there are about 2 million words in English, and about 1500 new words are added every year. Words are the most active and sensitive part of a language, especially English. This thesis studies the development of new words in terms of the causes, the sources of new words and the formation of new words. Based on these, this paper expounds the influence and tendency of the development of new English words and provides a reference for English learners.Key Words: new English words; word-building rules; Shakespeare’s contribution to English words; development tendency;摘要:语言总是在改变。
随着政治、经济、科技的变化和发展涌现了许多英语新词汇。
根据调查数据,英语中共有大约200万词汇,每年还有约1500个新词加入。
词汇是语言中最积极和敏感的部分,尤其是对英语来说。
本文通过对新词产生的原因,新词的来源以及新词的形成的研究阐述了新词的发展。
在此基础上,本文说明了新词发展的影响和趋势,为英语学习者提供了参考依据。
关键词:英语新词;构词法;莎士比亚对词汇的贡献;发展趋势IntroductionGenerally speaking, there are only two types of languages in the world: the one is that having been abandoned or nobody use it anymore, which people call it “dead language”, such as Hebrew and the ancient Latin; the other is that still being used at present, which the English learners call it “living language”, Chinese, English, French are included in this type. Besides, they are the most commonly use d. It’s not hard to notice that those “living languages” all changed and developed as time goes by. English, as the most commonly used language in the world, is also the language that changes most. Therefore, people from all walks of life come to pay attention to the changes of new English words. The reasons come out that, in the first place, the study in new words will largely broaden learners’ knowledge quantity. In the second place, study on the changes of English words will provide more methods for English learners in remembering new words. In the third place, without knowing the up-dated words, people will confront with many difficulties or even make some embarrassment in daily communication.“What is the definition of new English words?” Perhaps this i s a question that every researcher must answer. According to their different backgrounds, there are different definitions towards it. Generally speaking, in practical level, there are two meanings about new English words: on the one hand, it means the words appeared at the first time during a certain period, for example, the Longman Register of New Words (1989) included the words appeared from 1986 to 1988; on the other hand, it means the words having not been included in a certain dictionary or even all the dictionaries. The Word-Coinage, Being anInquiry into Recent Neologisms, Also a Brief Study of Literary Style, Slang, and Provincialisms, published in 1902 is the earliest work studied on new words in 20 century. Although it was not a dictionary, it collected some articles about new words. In these articles, Mead firstly carried out the research on new words, and listed many new words created by the former American writers. In 1944-1976, Doctor Russell write a paper called “Words and meanings, New” for th e British Yearbook once a year. From 1970s, the study on new words and dictionary has been of great concern. The columnists begin writing papers about new words and their usages. “On Language” of William Safire—the columnist of New York Times was the longest and most influential column.Researches and studies on new English words has never stopped, which are the very examples to show its unparalleled significance. This paper will start from the history and origin of English to the significance of its change and development. And then make a research about it comprehensively. Ways carried out in this paper is to combine the careful analysis of all available resources with the experiences the common college students have in confronting with the new words in daily communication. In addition, I will also learn from senior and experienced teachers. Only in those ways a careful and cautious conclusion would be awaiting us.Chapter 1 introduction to the English language Before studying on the new English word, it is necessary to know about the origin and development of English and English words.1.1 The Development Process of EnglishThe history of the English language began over 1500 years ago in the north of Europe. Round the fifth century A.D., tribes of people known as the Angels, Saxons, and Jutes traveled west from Germany and Denmark across the North Sea. They settled in Britain, by the late seventh century, they were speaking an early form the English. In the late eighth century, the Vikings attacked England. Fighting continued for almost two hundred years. During this time, many Latin, Danish, and Norse words entered the English language. In 1066, the Normans conquered England. French became the language of the wealthy and powerful, and English was spoken mostly by poorer people. In the late fourteenth century, English became the first language again. By this time, many words used in English came from French or Latin, and a lot of the early words no longer existed. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, people became interested in the classics. At this time, words from Latin and Greek peoplere included in the English language. A lot of words or parts of words, from those languages are used in modern English.Today, English has loan words from many of the world’s languages. Everyone can probably find a word used in English that first came from their native languages.1.2 Rules of Word-buildingAfter knowing about the origin o f English, now it’s time to get a deeper understanding from the aspect the formation of English words.1.2.1 AffixationAffixation is generally defined as the formation of words by adding word-forming or derivational affixes to base. This process is also known as derivation, by which new words are derived from old or base forms. The words created in this way are called derivatives. According to the positions affixes occupy in words, affixation falls into two subcategories: prefix and suffixation.On the other hand, the suffix, from its meaning people can know that it is another kind of word-making, which creates new words by adding some parts from the old ones. For example, “-phobia”, the word “claustrophobia” means someone may feel scared and anxious when staying in a place with small space. Part of the prefix, suffix and some word-building elements are especially prolific or particularly active. Such as “anti-”, “-logy”, “mini-“, “multi-” and so on, such kind of word formation components in the process of form neologisms plays a very positive role.1.2.2 CompositionThis kind of word is mostly consisted by two or more than two morpheme (also known as morphemes) terms, it means two or more than two words are combined to form a new one. These two words can be in the form of one word, and can also be a compound phrase or be a totally new word or phrase by using a hyphen to connect the two parts. In the modern English vocabulary, the compound words account for the vast majority, and most of these words are made up of two morphemes, words consisting of more than two morphemes are few.At present, many new words are created by a new method--that ismaking a new word by breaking off both ends of the two words, this method is also called patchwork method (also known as blending). For example, the Comsat (communications satellite), created by the word of “communication” and “satellite”; Chinglish (Chinese type of English), synthesized from “Chinese” and “E ng lish”; and so on. From above, it’s obvious to see that composition is a very common feature of new English words and people use it everywhere in the life.1.2.3 ShorteningEnglish shortening can be mainly divided into two categories.The first one is called shorten words (also known as clipped word), which means using the original word to have some processing or to cut some parts and then create new words, when cutting the front part of one word to get another one, such as the word “phone” from “telephone”, “story” from “history”, “copter” from “helicopter” and so on; when cutting the back part to get a new one, just like the word “ad” from “advertisement”, “expo” from “exposition”, etc.This kind of word formation has the characteristics of conciseness, convenience and is easy to be used. In the process of English development, many words using the abbreviation or shortening have replaced the original words or phrases, such as the word “bus” replaced “omnibus”, the word “plane” replaced “aero plane”, the word “laser” replaced the phrase of “light amplification by stimulate demission of radiation” and so on.1.2.4 Loan wordLoan word is one of the most important parts of the English vocabulary. In any dictionary, some 80% of the entries are borrowed,which indicated that there are a large number of borrowed words in English. For instance, English borrowe d “typhoon” and “kungfu” from Chinese; “judo” and “kimono” from Japanese; “comedy” and “tragedy” from Greek; “genius” and “habitual” from Latin and “government” and “saint” from French.With the rapid increase of English vocabulary, studying English loanwords is becoming even much more important and necessary to learn and understand the English language.Chapter 2The Changing Words in EnglishAccording to the analysis of the most widely used languages in the world, it is not difficult to find that there is a similarity among them: they are always changing.2.1 New Words Created by Shakespeare in the PastMany people would say William Shakespeare influenced English most. Shakespeare is a world—famous playwright. Besides, he is also a genius in language, his vocabulary is amazing. According to a statistics, he invented over 1700 of our common words by changing nouns into verbs, changing verbs into adjectives, connecting words never before used together, adding prefixes and suffixes, and devising words wholly original. The first method is quoting words from other languages. Shakespeare created more than 600 words through quoting words from Greek, Latin, French, and so on. The second method is transformation. Changing the characteristic or property of a certain word into another type is one of the most important methods that Shakespeare always used. For example, there are some adjectives which can be used as nouns in order to indicate a kind of people: the poor, the rich, the educated, the disabled and so on. In fact, the usage firstly began from Shakespeare. In The Tragedy of King Richard II, there is a verbal battle in the beginning: Then call them to our presence; face to face, and frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear the accuser and the accused freely speak. It is obvious to see that Shakespeare used “accused”as a noun. The third method is creating new words by Shakespeare himself. “Assassination”is created when he wrote Macbeth. As the bravest general, Macbeth was appreciated by the king. When the king inspected the battle field, Macbeth decided tokill the king and substituted him to be the king. Now there is a piece of entangled monologue: If it we re done when ’tis done, then it was well. It was done quickly: if the assassination. Could trammel up the consequence, and catch with his surcease success. Besides, Shakespeare also created many new words, such as agile, allurement, catastrophe, critical, demonstrate, dire, emphasis, emulate, expostulation, extract, hereditary, horrid, mediate, modest, vast, prodigious, perfectible and so on.2.2 New Words Being Developed RecentlyNew English words do not show up randomly. On the contrary, it is the social backgrounds and some main factors that lead to its appearance, even prosperity. Then, what can be the catalyzer in this process and from what aspects can the learners have a deep understanding about the causes and formation of new English words?On the one hand, since the second half of the 20th century, science and innovation of technology emerge endlessly. All sorts of new things about technology in various fields have sprung up during an extremely short period of time, especially in the field of medicine and computer. Medical instruments and equipment are becoming much more advanced, the innovation and development of medical method is getting faster than ever before. Computer types increase gradually, and the continuously extension of computer using greatly reflect on the aspect of new English words, for example, from the word cloning, test-tube baby to sex-change surgery, avian flu, and so on; and from the word website, the Internet access to e-books, online shopping, etc. The increasing innovation of science and technology progress is becoming an important power to pushthe development of new words in English, also the importance and significance of science background is becoming more and more prominent.On the other hand, the wide spread of Internet is the premise of new cyber words’ appear. The Internet has influenced people’s lives in many aspects, meanwhile, it influenced the language people use in daily communication. With the development of the Internet, on-line shopping has become a heated shopping style. Many people choose to do shopping on line because of the cheap price and convenience. Interestingly, “showrooming” appeared at the same time. It means to select the goods in a hypostatic store and then buy it on the Internet in a cheap price.Another common example is “phubber”. The development of smart phones has brought us many benefits, but people still cannot deny that there are also many disadvantages exist. “Phubbing” means only focus on the phone and don’t even look up to see the other people on social occasions. And learners call people who always do that as “phubber.”Apparently, the appearance of all these words should be contributed to the changes and development in science and the Internet.Chapter 3 Influence and Tendency of the Change Apart from the analysis above, it’s necessary to analyze the influence and the tendency of the change and development in English new words. Only through the analysis below can the readers benefit more from the thesis.3.1. The influence of the changeIt cannot be denied that people do benefit a lot from the appearance of these buzzwords. Through the development of new words, people get closer and closer to the outer world. For example, without the appearance of the word “euthanasia”, if the government wants to make the euthanasia legal, what will they explain it to the public? They should explain it like this: euthanasia is the practice of killing someone who is very ill and will never get better in order to end their suffering, usually done at their request or with their consent. What’s worse, the public may still be confused. But with the creation of “euthanasia”, people can get a better and clearer understanding about it.As the saying goes “every coin has two sides.” Although these buzzwords have brought us many benefits, their disadvantages should also be noticed. One of my friends told me a joke. One day his brother suddenly said to him that he has found out the reason why he can’t learn English well. It’s because of the large glossary! And there are still many new words added into English every day! What she said reminded the author that the continuously op-dated words are big problems to English learners. Besides, there are many loan words only used in local place and known by local people. Recently “tuhao”, “no zuo no die” are commonly used in China, and they are also included in the America UrbanDictionary. From the author’s point of view, there is no need for Chinese to be too excited about it. Actually, in English-spoken countries, people do not use these words as frequent as people are. In other words, they don’t have much meaning in practical usage.3.2 The tendency of the changeThe reason why English can exist so long and spread so fast and wide is that the source is diverse. Countries such as England, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand take English as the first language; countries such as India, Pakistan and Nigeria take English as the second language; there are also many countries take English as the common language in international communication. All these countries bring new words to English. What’s more, with the development of technology and advancement of economy, a large group of new words spring up. The new added words are more focus on the field of the technology of the computer and smart phone, like mobile dating app, for instance. In addition, the change of meaning is another important tendency. For example, the word “gay”was used to mean “happy,”while the decriminalization of gay marriage gave it a new life, which means love the one who is in the same gender with you. Last but not least, the pace of life goes quicker and quicker, people desire to get the most information in a least time, acronym has been widely used. Such as WTO(World Trade Organization), UNESCO(United Nations Educational、Scientific and Cultural Organization) and so on. Apart from this, some interesting concise expressions have been advocated commonly. OIC stands for “Oh, I see!”A FA IK stands for “as far as I know,”etc. In a word, the new words are closer to the daily life and more concise to use.ConclusionWord is the most flexible factor in English, especially in the fickle world. It is created from our daily life and served our life as the feedback. Therefore, when people do exercise in English reading, people should not only have a clear and thorough understanding of the new words, but also analyze the constitution of the word formation. Besides, it is extremely necessary for us to read a lot, back dip to the source of the new words, and then people may learn about the way of coming into being of new words, even use them in English studying or our daily life skillfully and expertly.Closer and closer contact between countries make the whole world a global village, and with the forward steps of rapid social development, people need to know more about new English words. So this paper introduces how the English came into being and the rules of word-building, which includes affixation, composition, shortening and loan word in chapter 1. In chapter 2, I describe in the view of time: from the words created by Shakespeare in the past to the words being developed recently. In chapter 3, the author analyzes the influence and tendency of the change. Both the advantages and disadvantages have been considered. Besides, the tendency of the change means there is a better future waiting for English.From the information above, people may get a closer relationship with English. And with times moving on, people’s attitude towards English also need to move forward and should be positive, what can’t be denied is that when people have a large number of English vocabulary, knowing how to understand and analyze English structures, and get theway of mastering English skills, then people may truly enrich themselves, understand the world and keep up with the social progress!Bibliography[1]M.A.K.Halliday,Colin Yallop: Lexicology, A Short Introduction[M]. 2007.[2]John Algeo, Thomas Pyles:The Origins and Development of the English Language (Fifth Edition )[M].2002.[3]Allab, A, M, Allaby.The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Earth Sciences[D]. 1990.[4]Merriam-Webster. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary (Unabridged) and Seven Language Dictionary [D]. 1986.[5]Random, House, Dictionary of the English Language (Unabridged, 2d.)[D].1998.[6]黄婷婷. 英语新词产生及其对汉语词汇的影响[D].2008.[7]陆佳佳. 21世纪英语新词的产生和发展[D].2006.[8]沈红. 浅析莎士比亚戏剧对英语词汇的影响[J].2003.[9]张志华. 英语新词新语的构成特征及发展趋势[J].2010.[10] 徐昌和.英语新词新语导论[M].2009.AcknowledgmentsI would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis.Special thanks to Miss. Yan, my supervisor, who provided me with some enlightening suggestions for the idea of the thesis, but also recommended me the related information.I also wish to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the entire faculty of the college who has provided me with their warm and constant encouragement. I am always grateful to them for their kindness, patience and instructions.Next, I express my special thanks to Dawid, my foreign teacher, who helped me outline the framework of the paper.I should finally like to express my gratitude to my beloved parents who have always been helping me out of difficulties and supporting without a word of complaint.。