Conference paper
NEW REALITIES AND THEIR NAMES. HOW AND WHY WORDS ARE BORN AND WHO TO “BLAME”
Ivo Žanić
; Faculty of Political Science, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In today’s world, the mass media are the key players in the processes of language innovation and change. New words stem from the recognition of the new contents of the reality or the newly-created awareness of its phenomena. Journalists are central actors in that process. They can be mediators – when recognizing a language innovation as expressively suggestive and/or communicationally necessary – or their authors – spontaneous creators at first, and later conscious promoters. Using the examples of the creation, spreading and semantic profiling of the words tajkunara (tycoon-dwelling), betonizacija (squeezing as many houses and parking lots as possible on a tract of land, without any parks, playgrounds, and communal spaces), apartmanizacija (rampant construction of insipid housing developments on the Adriatic coast), and its variant apartmanija, 1999-2004, the author shows that the role of journalists and the mass media in general is not only to shape a critical social awareness and to participate in the debate on socially relevant topics, but also to (co)create new terms and thus vitally contribute to their adoption.
Keywords
media language; jargon; word formation; language and society; language and culture; tajkunara; betonizacija; apartmanizacija
Hrčak ID:
22858
URI
Publication date:
26.8.2004.
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