Word family with a nonderivative onym in the internet discourse system

Abstract

The article examines derivational neologisms (including occasionalisms) identified as a result of analysing texts obtained from a popular internet forum. These coinages constitute a local subsystem, namely a word family where the base word is the onym daland. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to clarify the distinctive features of internet discourse as a dynamically developing linguistic object which reflects active processes in modern Russian word-formation. The research aims to identify the structural, semantic, and stylistic features of the system of onym-based neoderivatives (as well as the individual components of the system) in conjunction with the fulfillment of specific communicative-pragmatic objectives. The study was conducted using descriptive, structural-semantic, semantic- stylistic, structural-functional, and functional-stylistic analysis. As a result of examining the empirical material, the analysed word family was found to include mainly word-formation pairs. Short word-formation chains are less common. However, many of them are organised into word-formation clusters. Suffixation, compounding proper, and blending demonstrate a significant degree of productivity. Prefixes, suffixoids, linguistic contamination, as well as a combination of linguistic contamination and blending are employed somewhat less frequently. Other methods are rare. The use of the above-mentioned methods is often accompanied by stylistic devices, the major one being stylistic inconsistency (stylistic contrast). The semantic-stylistic features of word-formation units (word-formation methods, specific word-formation patterns and affixes) enable internet users to emphasise conceptually significant features of phenomena being named, as well as to express their attitudes towards such phenomena. Thematic semantic groups of derivatives ("Life stance", "Similarity", "Attitude (assessment)", and others) reveal a connection with relevant aspects of discussions. Consequently, the word family can be viewed as a form of reflecting the surrounding reality and, in particular, the image of a particular internet user.