Productivity of New Indonesian Vocabulary in the Pandemic Time of Covid-19

Abstract

The phenomenon of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused many problems, starting from the health, economic, and socio-cultural field. However, in the field of language, the outbreak of Covid-19 has actually increased the productivity of the new Indonesian vocabulary. The rapid and massive development of Covid-19 to many countries has made the public and the government panic. Covid-19 has become the central topic of mass media coverage and various new terms/vocabularies are widely used. This study aims to describe the productivity of Indonesian’s new vocabulary during the Covid-19 pandemic, its category classification, frequency of use, and the factors that cause its emergence. This research is a qualitative descriptive study. Data collection was done by observation method with note-taking technique. Data analysis used the intralingual equivalent method. The results showed that the productivity of new vocabulary during the Covid-19 pandemic was in the form of basic words, affixed words, abbreviations/acronyms, compound words, and phrases. Based on the category, the new vocabulary is in the form of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. Based on the frequency of use, the most consecutive are nominal phrases, verbal phrases, and adjective phrases. The factors causing the emergence of Indonesian’s new vocabulary were extraordinary events related to the outbreak of Covid-19, the influence of foreign languages, and community creativity.