A Morphological Investigation into Lexical Innovation and Neologisms within Post Pandemic Crisis English

Abstract

The pandemic of COVID-19 provoked a sudden change in the English language, which resulted in the appearance of a large number of neologisms that mirror the changing social, cultural, and communicative practices. The paper analyzes the lexical innovation under post-pandemic English in the morphological context, how the new coins were coined, and the classification of the new coins. A set of 80 neologisms was anchored on various sources, including social media, news, blogs, and online dictionaries. These lexical items are identified as 5 broad morphological processes by the study based on a qualitative and partially quantitative system of analysis that encompasses the following processes, including compounding, blending, affixation, acronyms, and conversion. The findings indicate that the most common processes are compounding (24) and blending (27.5) processes, meaning that individuals tend to use the available lexical units to create meaningful processes most effectively. The proportion of affixation is 17.5%, and acronyms and conversion are 12.5% in the dataset, respectively. The analysis also provides an understanding that numerous neologisms have highly emotional and sociocultural overtones, which reflect the experiences of society in the pandemic. The paper comes to the conclusion that English of the post-pandemic era is morphologically productive and adaptable; the significance of language as a dynamic tool to respond to crisis situations in the world is emphasized.