Social Networks: A Source of Lexical Innovation and Creativity in Contemporary Peninsular Spanish

Abstract

There is no doubt that the Internet, where English is ubiquitous, has revolutionized our way of life. Socially, it has opened frontiers to such an extent that nowadays human beings can be permanently connected, no matter the distance between them, in virtual encounters where social networks play a crucial role. Linguistically, on the other hand, it has created a new global language which combines properties of written and oral speech. The Internet’s lexical level, in particular, is described as extremely innovative, creative and playful since it is full of neologisms, many of which are Anglicisms, coined to name the new realities constantly brought along with the evolution of the digital world. In order to demonstrate that social networks are indeed the source of a wide array of creative and playful neological Anglicisms in Peninsular Spanish, we have carried out a corpus-based analysis of the names of five current social and interactive forms of Internet communication in two contemporary Spanish corpora; specifically, that of the indirect social network generically known as the blog and those of the direct social networks Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and WhatsApp. Our study focuses, specifically, on four facets of these neological Anglicisms: (i) their date of introduction into the language; (ii) their frequency of occurrence; (iii) their diverse spellings; and (iv) finally, the different word-formation processes they enter.

English Code-Mixings in WhatsApp interactions among Spanish adolescents and their orthographic competence

“…Finally, what is noteworthy is the presence of neologisms and orthographic and morphological adaptations of these ECM. Although this is the least common pathway in studies such as Verheijen and Van Hout (2022) for Dutch, our data coincide with previous research in Spanish (Giménez Folqués, 2022;Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, 2021). These ECM, therefore, already serve as the basis for the formation of new words (buffeado, banneado, farmear) and they "are beginning to lose their neological status", signaling "their emerging integration in the recipient language" (Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, 2021, p. 17).…”

“…In some cases, these foreign words present orthographic (feisbuh 'Facebook', kises 'kisses') or morphological alterations (fashoneta 'fashion victim') to adapt them to the phonetics or the grammar of the L1 (Mancera Rueda & Pano Alamán, 2013). In general, several studies agree that most of the anglicisms used in Spanish CMC are nouns, followed by verbs and adjectives (Giménez Folqués, 2022;Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, 2021); on the other hand, Sanou (2018) highlights that vocatives (bro, brother, love, bitch) and interjections (please, sorry, thanks) are abundant. Moreover, they usually belong to certain semantic fields, such as technology (hackear, jaqueo 'hacking ', streaming, influencer, buffeado 'buffered', baneado 'banned'), sports (gym, coaching, team) or fashion (outfit, tuneada 'tuned up', flow, chill, look) (Sanou, 2018).…”

‘I am very emo’

“…The evidence also strengthens the multilingual standpoint that languages are undoubtedly and intimately related to particular social-cultural contexts, native language influences and language users (see the outer frame in Figure 3). Thus, language transformation or adaptation is ‘inevitable and unstoppable because human beings live in a permanent state of flux’ (Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, 2021: 17).…”

“…Unique phonetic properties, such as tonal structures and playful sounds, may be created to render desired communicative effects (Oladipupo & Unuabonah, 2020; Pavlova & Guralnik, 2020). Neological anglicisms also show remarkable features of spellings, or morphological processes such as affixation, either maintaining their original English forms without any modification or being adapted anglicisms (Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, 2021). For instance, Munday (2015: 62) uses ‘cyberspanglish’ to refer to lexical units combining an anglicism with a native Spanish element (e.g., affix, base).…”

“…Some terms are created to refer to the specific language used by youngsters in web-mediated communications, such as ‘netspeak’ (Crystal, 2006) and ‘virtual language’ (Pop, 2008). Due to the close interrelationship between young generations and the Internet, it is no surprise that social networks have become a highly productive resource for lexical innovations and linguistic creativity in English (Rodríguez Arrizabalaga, 2021). More recently, those neologisms used in social networking spaces occupy a privileged position because they are currently, as Vettorel (2014: 6) asserts, ‘the preferred means to keep in touch with friends.’ Because of the very common presence of English in Chinese social networking spaces, we agree with the statement that ‘in the virtual world, English exerts more of its influence among its speakers as seen in social media and chat avenues’ (Reyes & Jubilado, 2012: 43).…”