Occasionalisms in Media Discourse in the Period 2014–2020 – Ethnopsychological and Word-Formation Aspects Cover Image

Оказионализмите в медийния дискурс през периода 2014 – 2020 г. – етнопсихологически и словообразувателни аспекти
Occasionalisms in Media Discourse in the Period 2014–2020 – Ethnopsychological and Word-Formation Aspects

Author(s): Teodora G. Ilieva
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics, Philology
Published by: Институт за български език „Проф. Любомир Андрейчин“, Българска академия на науките
Keywords: media text; Bulgarian phenotype; usus; occasional word-formation; derivational devices; Bulgarian language

Summary/Abstract: The study examines occasionalisms excerpted from Bulgarian media texts in the short time span from 2014 to 2020. These newly coined words with strong semantic and emotional intensity are the lexical emanation of Bulgarian ethnopsychology. They represent the linguistic picture of the divided and dichotomised Bulgarian society characterised by egocentricity, ethnoresistance, strive for globalisation, local selfconsciousness, slave complex, fault-finding, imitation of foreign fashions and at the same time – the stigmatisation of everything foreign, among others. The paper analyses occasionalisms as linguistic codes for deciphering the Bulgarian phenotype. They have been grouped according to 11 key ethnopsychological indicators that served as a prerequisite for exploring the participation of occasionalisms in ususbased and non-usus based relations and their connotative dimension, in particular – whether their emotional expressiveness is negative- or positive-evaluative. Further, the author has studied the various word-formation devices occasionalisms employ and has identified both word-formation representations based on familiar linguistic models – ones using a single pattern or a contamination of two or three patterns – and original combinations of two derivational means. Loanwords motivating the formation of occasionalisms have been identified as well.

  • Issue Year: 68/2021
  • Issue No: Special
  • Page Range: 205-223
  • Page Count: 19
  • Language: Bulgarian