Semantic and Motivational Characteristics of Neolexemes of Enmity: Discursive Disclosure of Inner Form of the Word

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study of a number of Russian-language neolexemes functioning in Internet communication over the past two decades. The object of the analysis are subjects designations with the suffix –oid (Russian isteroid, oranzhoid, etc.). By their pragmatic components of meaning we consider these lexical units to be the vocabulary of enmity. They are united by the special role of the structural motivator in the formation of motivational meaning. Semantic and motivational characteristics of the nouns are described. Their partner tokens are found out. Conclusions are made about the influence of atypical combinatorics on the meaning of the word-forming component and on the transformed classification feature; about the blurring of boundaries between different language variants and styles. It is shown that in the immediate context, the properties attributed to the designated subjects are verbalized. The author analyzes the regularities of discursive disclosure of the inner form of the studied units by means of explication of motivational connections within different types of motivation. It is revealed that the most frequent way to actualize motivational models in the addressee’s speech-thinking strategies in Internet communication is the explication of lexical motivation and metatext motivation, while the explication of structural motivation and occasional author’s motivation are less frequent. It is shown that the specificity of discursive practices affects the reflecting consciousness of the addressee, and the patterns of representation of motivational models are refracted through the features of discourse.

Keywords

• enmity vocabulary
• subject designation
• motivation
• semantics
• inner form of the word
• struc-tural motivator
• lexical motivator