Skip to the main content

SPONDE: Časopis za jezike, književnosti i kulture između dviju obala Jadrana / Rivista di lingue, letterature e culture tra le due sponde dell’Adriatico / A Journal of Languages, Literatures and Cultures between the two Adriatic coasts, Vol. 1 No. 2, 2022.

Professional paper

The Birth of a New Language in the Pandemic

Danijela Berišić Antić ; Sveučilište u Zadru
Matea Maglica ; Sveučilište u Zadru

Full text: italian pdf 682 Kb

page 93-110

downloads: 215

cite

Abstract

The pandemic caused by COVID-19 has drastically
changed people’s daily lives. The unthinkable has become
a reality. It is hard to even imagine the return to
'normal'. The language, a subject to constant change,
became much richer in a short time. Although not
every term or neologism coined during the pandemic
will get into future dictionaries, some certainly
will, testifying to an era unlikely to be forgotten.
This paper aims to summarise and analyse the lexical
changes the language has undergone. Medical
terms that filled the newspapers, both in print and
online, soon entered the everyday language. The
circumstances wrought by the pandemic influenced
the coining of neologisms globally, but most originated
in the English language. COVID-19 has also
caused widespread pessimism, for everything people
once took for granted was gone; however, some have
found optimism in trying to defuse the situation by
coming up with playful words prefixed by corona- or
covid-. In addition to the abovementioned categories,
a part of this paper is dedicated to sports metaphors
related to coronavirus, used to better cope with the
difficult and painful situation the world is facing.

Keywords

COVID-19; medical terms; anglicisms; sports metaphors; funny words

Hrčak ID:

290710

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/290710

Publication date:

28.12.2022.

Article data in other languages: italian

Visits: 703 *