BUSINESS NEOLOGISMS IN MODERN ENGLISH

Abstract

Background. The article focuses on business neologisms in modern English and their formation mechanisms. Neologisms are defined as recently coined lexemes or word combinations that denote new concepts and phenomena or existing words that have acquired new meanings and are still in moderate circulation amongst the majority of speakers of a certain community. Business neologisms provide profound insight into current business and lifestyle trends, they simultaneously reflect and shape modern reality.

Methods. The research methods used in the survey are: 1) semantic analysis (to investigate the lexical meanings of business neologisms in modern English); 2) descriptive method (to provide a description of business neologisms and analyze their similarities and differences); 3) structural analysis (to consider productive word-formation methods of business neologisms, mainly abbreviation, compounding, blending; 4) statistical method (to calculate business neologisms under consideration and classify them into word-formation groups).

Results. The research showed that the most productive word-formation mechanisms of business neologisms are compounding (40 % of the neologisms of the sample), blending (26 % of the sample), and abbreviation (21 % of the sample). Less popular word-formation mechanisms of business neologisms are affixation (11 % of the sample) and analogy (2 % of the sample).

Conclusions. The sphere of business is a productive source of neologisms that embody new phenomena in the English-speaking environment. The latter include the sphere of employment overall and the portrait of modern employees and their preferences and lifestyles in  particular. The business neologisms under consideration reflect the emergence of new types of employees (e.g. new collar worker, HENRY, office-park dad), modes of working (e.g. WFB, nomadification, hushed hybrid), some of which appeared in the aftermath of Covid-19 (e.g. ghost colleagues), inflation varieties (e.g. greedflation, cheapflation), business trends (e.g. AI washing, Slowvember, tip creep) etc.