Neologizmy v dnešní češtině, ÚJČ AV ČR, Praha 2005 (Kolektiv autorů pod vedením O. Martincové). ISBN 80-200-0607-9.

Obsah

PREFACE

The research on neologisms, or new lexical devices, has been one of the important lines of linguistic interest for a long time. It is generally accepted now that the research on neologisms – the expressions and results of the language creativity and the means of the continuous regeneration, restructuring and stabilization of the vocabulary – is a contribution both to synchronic and diachronic study of the vocabulary, word formation, morphology, stylistics, of the form,communication and style differentiation of a national language, and to the exploration of general tasks of the language theory, semiotics, pragmalinguistics, sociolinguistics, etc. The importance of the study of neologisms is likewise emphasized when examining and solving the issues of language practice, language policy and language culture. The broad, internally segmented research on neologisms, neologic phenomena, processes and tendencies is exemplified by the large number of monographs, studies, essays and a copious production of neologic dictionaries. The breadth and development of the research on neologisms in our country and abroad is shown to a certain extent by a selected bibliography published under the name Neologie a neografie. Výběr z národních bibliografií (Neology and Neography: A Selection from National Bibliographies) by a team of the Section for Lexicography and Terminology of the Institute for the Czech Language, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. The first edition of the bibliography having been published in 1996, its extended version followed in 1999. [1]
By studying the existing neologic research, we discover not only which issues are at the forefront of the individual national linguistics, but also that the typical areas of the questions, problems and topics concerning neologisms have been changing. Most attention is generally paid to sociolinguistic aspects of neologisms on the one hand and to neologic dictionaries on the other. To illustrate both of these central directions, we could mention the comparative approach to present-day Slavonic languages in a collective monograph Słowotwórstvo / Nominacja developed in 2003 under the editorship of I. Ohnheiser.[2] This synthesizing comparison of contemporary Slavonic languages on the appellative level and in the area of word formation is based on dynamic tendencies and mainly on neologic material from the last decades of the 20th century. In doing so, the stress is put on neologism dictionaries as a material basis of the research conceived in this way.
Neologisms, their various aspects and functions have been constantly taken into consideration also in Czech linguistics. Starting with the classic period of the Prague Linguistic Circle, we can mention that the work Teze pražského lingvistického kroužku (Theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle) (1929)touches on the general features of neologisms. From the viewpoint of neology,the essays of B. Havránek, V. Mathesius, R. Jakobson and J. Mukařovský in the collection Spisovná čeština a jazyková kultura (Standard Czech and Language Culture) (1932) are also important. The changes and state of the standard-Czech vocabulary in its individual periods are described in a work already considered classic: B. Havránek’s Vývoj spisovného jazyka českého (The Development of the Standard Czech Language) (1936).
Since the 1960s, the number of works focused on neologisms, or taking them into account to some degree,has risen significantly. Observations on vocabulary enrichment in relation to extra-linguistic and linguistic factors and also the function of new words in the processes in the lexis are further developed by the monograph Vývojové postupy české slovní zásoby (The Development of Czech Lexis) (1968) by I. Němec. New lexical elements, the dynamics of word-formation types and devices are taken into consideration when characterizing contemporary Czech in the works of F. Daneš, A. Jedlička, F. Cuřín – J. Novotný, etc.[3] Further attention is given to neologisms in terms of stylistics (e.g. A. Stich, K. Hausenblas, A. Jedlička).[4]
A valuable contribution to neologic studies and to the elaboration of its problems on a general level are the works by M. Dokulil: Tvoření slov v češtině 1. Teorie odvozování slov (Word Formation in Czech 1: Theory of Word Derivation) (1962), J. Filipec: Česká synonyma z hlediska stylistiky a lexikologie (Czech Synonyms in the View of Stylistics and Lexicology) (1961) and J. Zima: Expresivita slova v současné češtině (Expressiveness of the Word in Contemporary Czech) (1961).
Together with the interest in neologisms, a need arises to solve conceptual and terminological questions. Therefore, the definition of neologisms, the difference between neologisms and innovations and other correlated terms, the typology of neologisms, their position in the lexis from the point of view of the center versus periphery, etc. are being considered in new ways (A. Stich, A. Jedlička, I. Němec, J. Filipec).[5]
When detecting new lexical devices in the contemporary standard Czech language, the completed Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (Dictionary of the Standard Czech Language) (1960-1971) is crucial; whereas both the collective work Tvoření slov v češtině 2. Odvozování podstatných jmen (Word Formation in Czech 2: Derivation of Nouns) (1967) and V. Šmilauer’s Novočeské tvoření slov (Word Formation in Modern Czech) (1971) provide the possibility of comparison when determining the character of neologisms from the point of view of the word formation.
Although we cannot exhaustively list all the contributions of the 1960s and 1970s here, we suppose that the already mentioned works indicate the existence of the conditions for a concentrated and systematic study of neologisms, neologic processes and tendencies in our linguistics. In 1983 the monograph by O. Martincová, Problematika neologizmů v současné spisovné češtině (The Problems of Neologisms in Contemporary Standard Czech), was published. In the years following, there were works by numerous authors dealing with neologisms or concerned with some of their aspects. Among the newer publications in which the interest in neologisms became very significant, let us mention at least the collective work Český jazyk na přelomu tisíciletí (Czech Language at the Turn of the Millennium) (1997).
The favorable state of neologic research in Czech linguistics, incentives coming from foreign neology and neography, and the new social situation after 1989 created the conditions for attention also to be paid to the lexicographical treatment of neologisms in the contemporary Czech language. The intention of the authorial team of the Section for Lexicography and Terminology of the Institute for the Czech Language, the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic found support with the management of the institute at that time and thanks to financial support from the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic the first manuscript of a dictionary of neologisms emerged to be published in 1998 under the name Nová slova v češtině. Slovník neologizmů (New Words in Czech: A Dictionary of Neologisms). During the work on the following grant for Systémotvorné procesy neologizmů v současné češtině (System-Formative Processes of Neologisms in Contemporary Czech), the team was gathering material for yet another dictionary of neologisms. The result of the ten-year-long work of the collective of authors are thus two dictionaries: Nová slova v češtině 1. Slovník neologizmů (New Words in Czech 1: A Dictionary of Neologisms) (1998) and Nová slova v češtině 2. Slovník neologizmů (New Words in Czech 2: A Dictionary of Neologisms) (2004).
For the sake of completeness, we should add that the Czech lexicography was also applying other approaches to new lexis in the 1990s: a) including new words into general monolingual dictionaries and b) creating supplements. An example would be the publication of the revised edition Slovník spisovné češtiny (SSČ) (The Dictionary of Standard Czech) in 1994, containing 600 new words or words with new meanings, and likewise some of the new words were included in the prepared manuscript of Akademický slovník cizích slov (The Academic Dictionary of Foreign Words in Czech) (1995). In the same year as the revised edition of SSČ, a dictionary by Z. Sochová – B. Poštolková Co v slovnících nenajdete (What You Won’t Find in a Dictionary) with the subtitle Novinky v současné slovní zásobě (New Words in Contemporary Czech Lexis) came out, intended basically as a supplement to Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (The Dictionary of the Standard Czech Language) (1960-1971) and to the first edition of Slovník spisovné češtiny (The Dictionary of the Standard Czech) (1978). Finally in 1999 the bilingual Rusko-český a česko-ruský slovník neologizmů (The Russian-Czech and Czech-Russian Dictionary of Neologisms) was released and its new extended edition followed relatively soon afterwards (2004).
The work on the dictionaries Nová slova v češtině 1 (New Words in Czech 1) and Nová slova v češtině 2 (New Words in Czech 2) initiated the intention to create, in addition to the dictionary version of the new lexicon, also a monograph version on the subject. The usefulness of this approach has been shown among others by the international conferences organized and the participation in international research projects whose results are presented in the anthologies: Nová slovní zásoba ve výkladových slovnících (New Vocabulary in Monolingual Dictionaries) (2000), Internacionalizmy v nové slovní zásobě (Internationalisms in New Lexis) (2003), Dynamika a inovace v češtině a bulharštině (The Dynamics and Innovation in Czech and Bulgarian) (2003) and Procesy innowacyjne w językach słowiańskich (Innovative Processes in Slavonic Languages) (2003).[6]
The outcome of the intention of the authorial team is an anthology of studies and essays which we are presenting here both to the professional and general public. By doing so, we try not only to continue in the study of neologisms in Czech linguistics up to now, but also to present the new lexis from a different point of view than is made possible by its dictionary version.
The anthology Neologizmy v dnešní češtině (Neologisms in Contemporary Czech) contains 16 studies and essays on new lexical devices from various perspectives. The distribution of the themes in the individual studies and essays is primarily based on the ways of creating and forming the new lexicon, to be more specific on the structural character of neologisms. Within this context, attention is paid to the new designations of persons and of abstract nouns, to new adjectival, verbal and adverbial designations, i.e. neologisms with the novelty feature being based on the designation of a new content with a new form. New lexical devices with the novelty feature consisting in the new content (meaning) of an already existing expression, i.e. neo-semantics, are dealt with separately. Special studies follow the dynamics in the area of prefixation and compounding of nouns. The present intensive borrowing of the vocabulary especially from English is reflected as well. The authors have not neglected even neo-phrasemes, abbreviations and some other minor semantic groups. We consider it necessary to emphasize that when describing and characterizing neologisms, the communication aspect, i.e. regard to the fact in which type of communication, in which communication area these new lexical devices have occurred, been used and perused, is utilized in all the works, although to varying degrees.
The aim of the authors is not to solve general questions in a new way (the definition of the term neologism; the determination of a set of specific units which may be included under the term neologism; the criteria based upon which actual language devices can be defined as neologisms; the typology of neologisms), the questions of methodology, etc. This and other problems were elaborated during the creation of the two dictionaries Nová slova v češtině.
The material basis of all the works is mainly formed by the treatment of neologisms in the Nová slova v češtině dictionaries. However, the publication has also drawn upon the unpublished materials contained in the electronic neologic archive of the Institute for the Czech Language.[7] In addition, the authors gathered further new materials from public websites on the Internet, also from the electronic archiveNEWTON ON-LINE and the computerized texts of the Czech National Corpus which is being developed in the Institute of Czech National Corpus at the Philosophical Faculty of Charles University in Prague.
In conclusion, allow us to add one further note. Although the studies and essays of the anthology being presented “communicate” with one another, they are a result of an individual approach of each author. The editorial team did not consider it necessary for the authors of the individual studies and essays to approach the themes in question from one and the same starting point, for their presentations to be founded on the same methodological bases. In addition to respecting fully the “incompleteness” of many neologisms, and thus also the difficulty in interpreting them unambiguously, we also take into consideration that certain differences in the approaches and treatment of the topics are caused by the variety of the authors’ individualities and naturally also by outer circumstances. Some parts allowed the authors to rely on an elaborate explanation and copious, classified material in the contemporary Czech grammars, lexicology and word-formation compendia; while for other parts there was no such support or it was insufficient. Consequently, it was necessary to treat the given topic in a wider perspective to enable it to serve as a starting point for a further more profound study. In some cases, the authors had to choose between different approaches to and definitions of the given phenomena etc. It would be possible to discuss which interpretation of the phenomena is more adequate, whether some departures from the hitherto interpretations of the language material in Czech grammars, word-formation compendia etc. are valid.
We would generally characterize our publication as a collection of studies. We are well aware that their main importance lies mainly in the elaboration of an extensive material. We would be glad if the readers were to find this work a contribution to the development of neology, lexicology and other disciplines.
Olga Martincová
Translated by Kateřina Millerová