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NEOLOGISMS Introduction: Translation is the action of interpretation of the meaning of a text, and subsequent production of an equivalent text that communicates the same message in another language. The text to be translated is called the source text, and the language it is to be translated into is called the target language; the final product is sometimes called the target text or, simply, the translation. The goal of translation is to establish a relation of equivalence of intent between the source and target texts (that is to say, to ensure that both texts communicate the same message), while taking into account a number of constraints. These constraints include context, the rules of grammar of languages, their writing conventions, the readership, their idioms, and the like. Translated documents should read as if they were originally written in the target language by a subject matter expert.

Neologisms: overview: Neologisms have been given a lot of different definitions. In dictionaries, a neologism is generally defined as ‘a new word or a new meaning for an established word’. To be more specific, Peter Newmark defines neologisms as “newly come lexical or existing units that acquire a new sense” (Newmark 1988: 140). According to Oxford Dictionary of English a neologism is “a newly coined word or expression that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language”. In other words, a neologism is a word, a term, or a phrase that has been recently created (or coined) often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. They are also said to be the non-literary and the professional translator’s biggest problem. New objects and processes are continually created in technology. New ideas and variations of feelings come from the media. Terms from the social sciences, slangs, transferred words. Neologisms cannot be accurately quantified: their number is increasing steeply and as we become more language-conscious and self-conscious; articles, books and dictionaries devoted to them appear more commonly. Since they first arise in a response to a particular need, a majority of them have a single meaning and

can therefore be translated out of context, but many of them soon acquire new meaning in the TL. Even though they are opaque, obscure and possibly cacophonous (having a harsh, unpleasant sound; discordant), neologisms usually attract and please everybody. Most people like them, and so the media and commercial interest exploit this liking. Multinationals, with their ingenious adv ertising, make efforts to convert their brand names (Coke, Pepsi, Band-aid / Curita, Chiclet) into eponyms (i.e. any word derived from a propper noun, including acronyms). The creation of neologisms: In non-literary texts, you should not normally create neologisms unless you have authority or you compose it out of readily understood Graeco-Latin morphemes. As a translator, your job is to account for (not necessarily translate) every SL word, and you therefore have to guess the word's meaning: the external evidence (i.e., the linguistic and situational contexts) and the internal evidence (the composition of the word). Regarding the translator’s right to create neologisms: Firstly, in literary texts it is traslators’ duty to re-create any neologism he meets on the basis of the SL neologism. Secondly, when translating a popular advertisment, he can create a neologism, usually for a strong phonaesthetic effect, if it appears to follow the sense of its SL counterpart and is pragmatically effective. Thirdly, the translator can transfer SL neologisms, if for one reason or another he thinks it important. In that case, he has to assure himself that no other translation alredy exists and that both the referent and the neologisms are likely to interest the SL readership. To know whether the translation alredy exists, he has to consult the ISO (International Standards Organization) glossary. However, translators should not transfer SL neologisms which are evidently recent or devised for a particular SL text. He should acknowledge at least with inverted commas any neologism he creates in that case. The more formal the language, the more conservative he should be in respect of neologisms. The contextual factors of neologisms are: a. Purpose of the neologism b. Importance of the neologism to the SL and TL culture c. Recency

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d. Frequency e. Likely duration f. Translator’s authority g. Recognise translations h. Existence of referents in the TL i. Type of text j. Readership k. Setting l. Fashion, commercial m. Euphony n. Competition with others o. If it is linguistically justified p. If it is likely to become an internationalism q. If it is formed for prestige reasons

Types of Neologisms 1. OLD WORDS WITH NEW SENSES: These do not normally refer to new objects or processes, and therefore are rarely technological. The translation of this kind of neologisms can be technical or informal depending on the type of readership, who can be either experts on the subject, educated people with general knowledge who may require extra explanations of the topic or the SL culture, or ignorant people, who may need linguistic as well as technical

and cultural

explanations at various levels. They are usually translated either by a word that alredy exists in the TL, or by a brief functional or descriptive term.

With the chart above, we can notice how the meaning of a word can change along the years. In the 12th century, ‘gay’ should have been traslated as ‘lacivo’ o ‘lujurioso’, whereas in the 14th century as ‘alegre’, between the 17th -19th as

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‘alguien con un matiz de promiscuidad’ and finally as ‘homosexual’ o ‘aburrido y pasado de moda’ in the 20th century.

The case of network is similar. While in the 16 th century it may have been trasnlated as ‘tipo de disposición de hilos y cables’, in the 19 th century as ‘un sistema complejo de interconxiones’, in the early 20th century as ‘trasnmitir mediante una red de radio’, around 1972 as ‘una red de computadoras’ and in the late 20 th century as ‘red de personas’ Another example, if simpler, is the one with the word ‘web’, which in the past was used for ‘spider-webs’ (‘telaraña’ in Spanish) and has gained the meaning over the years of ‘a very large collection of documents, pictures, sounds etc stored on computers in many different places and connected through the Internet’, trasnlated nowadays as ‘red’. We can also mention the case of ‘ship’, which if you look it up you will find “a very large boat used for carrying people or goods long distances” though nowadays it has a widely spread meaning, mainly in social networks, which is: “short for romantic relationship / to endorse a romantic relationship” 2. COLLOCATIONS WITH NEW SENSES: Existing collocations with new senses are a translator's trap: usually these are ‘normal’ descriptive terms which suddenly become technical terms; their meaning sometimes hides innocently behind a more general or figurative meaning; thus ‘high-speed train’ – tren bala (in this case, the through-translation procedure is used). Collocations with new senses may be cultural or non-cultural; if the referent (concept or object) exists in the TL, there is usually a recognised translation or throughtranslation. For example ‘couch-potato’ (someone who spends a lot of time sitting at home watching television) should be translated as alguein que está todo el día tirado mirado televisión (inf) o un adicto a la televisión. If the concept does not exist (e.g.,

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'tug-of-love’) or the TL speakers are not yet aware of it, an economical descriptive equivalent has to be given: i.e. in English it means ‘a disagreement between parents who are divorced or living separately about who their child should live with’ and in Spanish it should be translated as “Litigio o disputa entre padres divorciados por la custodia de los hijos”. Another example would be ‘quality control’ which means the theory of probablity applied to sampling and that in Spanish would be ‘control de calidad’. A literal trasnlation is being used in this case. There is also the possibility of devising a new collocation (predator cafés/ hotspots) in inverted commas (“cafeterías depredadoras/hotspots”), which can later be slyly withdrawn along the text. Another example is Smartphones (a mobile phone that also works as a small computer, allowing you to store information and write letters and reports) translated as teléfonos inteligentes. 3. NEW COIGNATES: Nowadays, the main new coinages are brand or trade names (Sprite, Bacardi, Google, Tupper, Schweppes -onomatopoeic-) and these are usually transferred using recoignised TL translation so using transference unless the product is marketed in the TL culture under another name (Coca Cola and not Coke, Aspirina and not Aspirin); or the proper name may be replaced by a functional or generic term, if the trade name has no cultural or identifying significance (compramos ‘pañuelitos’ (tissues) y no Kleenex , limpiamos con una ‘aspiradora’ (vacuum cleaner) y no con una Hoover) 4. DERIVED WORDS: The great majority of neologisms are words derived by comparison from ancient Greek (increasingly) and Latin morphemes usually with suffixes such as -ismo, -ismus, -ja, etc., naturalized in the appropriate language. This word-forming procedure is employed mainly to designate non-cultural scientific and technological institutional terms. The translator will have to consult the appropriate ISO (International Standards Organizations) glossary, to find out whether there is already a recognized translation,

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whether the referent yet exists in the TL culture, how important it is and therefore whether it is worth “transplanting” at all. The translator has to distinguish the serious derived neologisms of industry from the created by the media (blends in particular), which may be short lived. Whether they are permanent or not, the translator has to consider their function (advertising?,etc) before deciding whether to re-create them in the TL or to translate the completed component of the blends. Medical neologisms and particularly the approved chemical names of generic drugs can often be produced with a naturalized suffix. Eg: somatomedin – somatomedina. Examples:  Type – tipear  Cloud – Nube  Tablet – T ableta  Google – googlear  Like - MeGusta 5. ABREVIATIONS: Abbreviations have always been a common type of pseudoneologism. For many speakers of English, one time abbreviations such as CD (compact disc), ER (emergency room), and PC (personal computer), respectively, in most style of speech; through this process new, previously nonexistent words have come into use. Characteristic of these alphabetic abbreviations (or initialisms) is that each of their letters is individually pronounced (they contrast with acronyms in this respect). Clipped abbreviations such as “prof” for professor, “fax” for facsimile, and “photo op” for photographic are known in common use. There are also orthographic abbreviations such as Dr. (doctor), Mr. (mister), Az (Arizona), and MB (megabyte), where the spelling of a word has been shortened but its pronunciation is not (necessarily)altered. 6. COLLOCATIONS: New collocations (noun compounds) or (adjective plus noun) are particularly common in the social sciences and in computer language. Thus 'lead time,' a term for the time between design and production or between ordering and delivery of a product, has to be translated in context; 'cold-calling' (making unsolicited sales call) may not last as a term, though the practice will; 'acid rain,' a 6

universal phenomenon, is likely to be literally translated everywhere, since it is 'transparent'; 'sunrise industries' refers to electronics and other 'high-tech' industries, and is likely to be ephemeral; therefore the metaphor can be ignored or reduced to sense. Narrow money (money held predominantly for spending), contrasts with Broad Money (physic money and as a store of value). The computer terms are given their recognized translation – if they do not exist, the translator has to transfer them, if they appear important, and then add a functional – descriptive term – as the translator does not have the authority to devise their own neologism. Sometimes there is the difficulty of translating English collocations which appear to juxtapose nouns with verb-nouns because they indicate the two most significant meaning components, but have varied and sometimes have strange case-relations. When translating institutional terms, such as ´British Council´, it is often transferred and the glossed to suit the readership: ´Government institution promoting cultural and scientific relations abroad´. Languages that cannot convert verbs to nouns, cannot imitate this procedure. For this reason English collocations are difficult to translate succinctly, and an acceptable term emerges only when the referent becomes as important (usually as a universal, but occasionally as a feature of the SL culture) that a more or less lengthy functionaldescriptive term will no longer do. Examples: •

Small business/ pequeñas empresas

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Guide book/ guía de viaje

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Agricultural policy/ politica agrícola

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Medical certificate / Certificado médico

7. EPONYMS: Any word from a proper name (therefore including toponyms) when they refer directly to the person, they are translated without difficulty and tend to fall or rise depending on their popularity, but if they refer to the referent's ideas or qualities, the translator may have to add necessary explanations. When derived from

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objects, eponyms are usually brand names, and can be transferred only when they are equally well known and accepted in the TL (e.g. ' nylon). In general, the translator should curb the use of brand name eponyms.

New eponyms deriving from geographical names appear to be rare—most commonly they originate from the products (wines, cheeses, sausages etc) of the relevant area in translation the generic term is added until the product is well enough known. Brand names eponyms normally have to be translated by denotative terms, e.g.: ´Tipp- Ex´- corrector. ´Bic´- lapicera. Examples • Jeff: You probably just Britta’d the test results. Britta: No, I double--wait! Are people using my name to mean ‘make a small mistake’? Jeff: Yes. (Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs in "Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps." Community, October 27, 2011) • "We are well-armed for battle in a Machiavellian world of reputation manipulation, and one of our most important weapons is the delusion that we are noncombatants." (Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom. Basic Books, 2006) • Cardigan: a knitted garment, such as a sweater or jacket, that opens down the front. Named after the Seventh Earl of Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell (1797– 1868), a British army officer. • Sandwich: named after John Montagu, the Fourth Earl of Sandwich (1718–1792), a British politician. • Andy: I really schruted it. Michael: What? Andy: Schruted it. It's just this thing that people say around your office all the time. Like, when you screw something up in a really irreversible way, you schruted it. I don't know where it comes from though. Do you think it comes from Dwight Schrute? Michael: I don't know. Who knows how words are formed. ("Traveling Salesmen," The Office, Jan. 11, 2007)

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Other eponyms in English include boycott, braille, camellia, chauvinist, dahlia, diesel, dunce, gardenia, gerrymander, guillotine, hooligan, leotard, lynch, magnolia, ohm, pasteurize, poinsettia, praline, quixotic, ritzy, sequoia, shrapnel, silhouette, volt, watt, and zeppelin. 8. PHRASAL WORDS: New phrasal words are restricted to English’s facility in converting verbs to nouns. E.g.: Work-out Break-up, Check-out. In English, they are usually between “informal” and “colloquial” whilst their translations are more formal. Phrasal words are often more economical than their translation. Examples: Work-out: Actividad física Check-out: Salida/Pago Knock-on Effect (or Domino Effect): Efecto Multiplicador/Efecto Dominó Break-up: Ruptura 9. TRANSFERRED WORDS: Newly transferred words keep only one sense of their foreign nationality. Their meanings are the least dependent on their contexts. If they are frequently used, they can develop additional senses. They are likely to be “media” or “product” rather than technological neologisms. Examples: Marketing VIP Spaghetti Kung Fu They may be common in several languages but have to be given a functionaldescriptive equivalent for less sophisticated TL readerships. Transferred words are translated like any other culture-bound words, therefore they are usually transferred together with a generic term and the requisite specific detail depending on readership and setting. • Spaghetti: La famosa pasta italiana, Espaguetti • Kung Fu: El arte marcial chino, Kung Fu

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• VIP: Even though it is widely used nowadays as an adjective in Spanish, if we are not sure whether the reader will understand the meaning, we can translate it as “exclusivo”, “de mayor categoría”, depending on the context. 10. ACRONYMS: They are an increasingly common feature of all non-literary texts, for reasons of brevity or euphony, and often to give the reference an artificial prestige to rouse people to find out what the letters stand for. In science, the letters are usually joined up and become internationalisms, like “LASER” (light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, amplificación de luz por emisión estimulada de radiación) and “RADAR” (Radio Detection and Ranging, detección y medición de distancias por radio) It is important to note that even though such words are originally created as acronyms, speakers quickly forget such origins and the acronyms become new independent words. The world of computers offers a wealth of acronyms: -

“URL” à Uniform Resource Locator

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“LAN”: Local Area Network

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“GIF”:Graphics Interchange Format

Acronyms are frequently created within special topics and designate products, appliances and processes. In translation, there is either a standard equivalent term or, if it does not yet exist, a descriptive term. Example: TOPP (Tagging of Pacific Predators) can be translated as “Etiquetado de depredadores del Pacífico, por sus siglas en inglés TOPP” Acronyms for institutions and names of companies are usually transferred, like FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), BMW (Bavarian Motor Works), and CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System). When acronyms are as important in the SL as in the TL, they may be different in both languages: EU (European Union) à UE (Unión Europea) WHO (World Health Organisation) à OMS (Organización Mundial de la Salud) UN (United Nations) à ONU (Organización de las Naciones Unidas).

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Acronyms for international institutions, which themselves are usually throughtranslated, usually switch for each language, but some, like “ASEAN” (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), “UNESCO” (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund) are internationalisms 11. PSEUDO NEOLOGISMS: A generic word stands in for a specific word. Peter Newmark has tried to give a comprehensive and flexible view of how to translate the words that teeter in the edge of language, which may stay, may vanish, depending on the needs of their users. The only generalisation he makes is that the translator should be neither favourable nor unfavourable in his view of new words. Example: “Bug” has always meant “insects” in general but now it also means “error”: “My computer has a bug” - Mi computadora tiene un error (informático) 12. INTERNATIONALISMS: An internationalism or international word is a loanword that occurs in several languages with the same or at least similar meaning and etymology. These words exist in several different languages as a result of simultaneous or successive borrowings from the ultimate source and as result of globalization. Pronunciation and orthography are similar so that the word is understandable between the different languages. It is debated how many languages are required so that a word is an internationalism. English has contributed a considerable number of words to world languages though there are a few which come from other languages. Some examples are: academy, airport, centre, chocolate, coffe, computer, doctor, hospital, international, internet, OK, police, radio, tsunami, ticket, television, taxi. In general, internationalisms are trasnlated by naturalisation.

Conclusion: All in all, a neologism is a word, a term, or a phrase that has been recently coined often to apply to new concepts to maintain languages up to date according to new tendencies, technological and scientific developments and people’s beliefs. Besides it’s important to highlight that some of them are created to last for a short period, mainly in advertising, and other to remain for a long time.

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