GoogleGoogle is anAmerican company that provides internet services, including a search engine anda document sharing platform.
Today the term ‘google’ is a verb used to describea search for a piece of information through Google’s search engine. The use ofthe internet has increased significantly as society’s dependency on technologyhas increased through the years. The result of this technological change is thedevelopment of a new word. Can you make a link between the origins of the word’Google’ and the current meaning? Chillax Chillax is aneologism which is derived from the word ‘Chill’ and ‘Relax’, meaning for aperson to calm down and relax when they are stressing about something.
Thistype of neologism forms portmanteaus words (Literary Terms, n.d.)through a technique called compounding (Bodle, 2016), which is one ofthe most-common methods in developing neologisms. Compounding is the joining ofthe syllables of two words to form a new word. Go to page 8 for more information about Compounded Neologisms. There arethousands of other neologisms that reflect the evolution of culture andlanguage, that link to gender, sports, politics and more. The English societyhas adapted their language and marked a significant social change in culture byincorporating adaptations to the lexis.
Now that you have grasped the conceptof neologisms and how they closely link to culture, you are going to learn therest of the methods which form neologisms. Before you continue reading thischapter, can you think of how neologisms are a reflection of today’s culture? Dothey detract or enhance our use of the language? Or do they reflect positive ornegative changes in our culture? For example, google has become a neologism asa result of an increased use of the internet, we “google” what we want to findout instead of going to the library. You will learn the implications ofneologisms later in this chapter.
