Dictionarization and Lexical Variation in Dictionaries of Spanish Neologisms

Abstract

Dictionaries of neologisms are quite complex to characterize; furthermore, there is little discussion on this issue in the literature and hardly any theoretical reflection on it. In this paper we claim that the specific nature of this kind of dictionaries lies, in part, in the peculiar character of the concept of neologism itself, and in part in the problems involved in lexicographic typologization in general, and of dictionaries of pluricentric languages in particular. We describe dictionaries of neologisms from three points of view: as ‘transition’ devices, ‘remedial’ devices, and documents. The aim of this article is to show how Spanish dialectal variation is represented in dictionaries of neologisms that were published since 2008. The main focus of our analysis is the Antenario. Diccionario en línea de neologismos de las variedades del español (http://www.antenario.wordpress.com), designed and written by the Antenas Neológicas Network (https://www.upf.edu/web/antenas). Our discussion is focused on how the pluricentric nature of Spanish impacts on the representation of varieties in the Antenario, which to date is the only dictionary that explicitly sets out to capture this phenomenon. We consider two of the structures of the dictionary: the macrostructure or headword list and the microstructure or structure of the entry.

Los diccionarios de neologismos son obras complejas de caracterizar; de hecho, hay escasa discusión al respecto en la bibliografía y poca reflexión teórica en torno a ellos. En este artículo sostenemos que la naturaleza específica de ese tipo de diccionarios reside, en parte, en el concepto mismo de neologismo y, en parte, en los problemas relativos a la tipologización lexicográfica en general y a la tipologización de diccionarios de lenguas pluricéntricas en particular. Describimos los diccionarios de neologismos desde tres puntos de vista: como dispositivos de “transición”, “remediales” y como documentos. El propósito de este trabajo es mostrar cómo la variación dialectal del español se representa en diccionarios de neologismos publicados desde 2008. El foco principal del análisis es el Antenario. Diccionario en línea de neologismos de las variedades del español (http://www.antenario.wordpress.com), diseñado y compilado por la Red Antenas Neológicas (https://www.upf.edu/web/antenas). Nuestra discusión se centra en cómo la naturaleza pluricéntrica del español impacta en la representación de las variedades en el Antenario, que hasta el momento es el único diccionario que explícitamente propone capturar este fenómeno. Consideramos para el análisis dos de las estructuras del diccionario: la macroestructura o lemario y la microestructura de la entrada.

Keywords:

• Spanish varieties
• neologism dictionarization
• dictionary of neologisms
• neologicity
• Antenas Neológicas Network

Palabras clave:

• variedades del español
• diccionarización de neologismos
• diccionario de neologismos
• neologicidad
• Red Antenas Neológicas

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 We appreciate the careful reading of the anonymous reviewers, who contributed significantly to improve this paper. This work was developed in the framework of the project NEÓMETRO: La medición de la neologicidad y la diccionariabilidad de los neologismos en español ‘NEÓMETRO: Measuring neologicity and dictionaribility of neologisms in Spanish’ [(FFI2016-79129-P) (AEI/FEDER, UE), directed by J. Freixa y S. Torner and funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España ‘Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness, Spain’. It is also the result of the following national projects: Clases semánticas nominales: estudios teórico descriptivos y desarrollo aplicados ‘Nominal Semantic Classes: theoretical descriptive studies and applied developments’ (CONICET PIP 112 20150100062) and Clases de nombres: semántica, neología y lexicografía ‘Nominal Classes: semantics, neology and lexicography’ (UNGS 30/3306).

2 All the translations from Spanish and French are ours.

3 According to Mattiello (2016, 115), “Dressler (1993, 5028) reserves the term ‘neologism’ for ‘new words which are meant to enrich the lexical stock of a language (or which are already accepted as such),’ as distinct from ‘occasionalisms’ or ‘nonce words’ referring to ad hoc formations that are not recognised by the speech community of a language. Occasionalisms, in fact, appear only once and are mainly produced for specific textual effects. The function of neologisms, instead, is the enrichment of a language lexicon.”

4 Crespo Bastos and Gómez Clemente (2008) suggest there is a similar gradual property, linked to dictionarization in dictionaries of neologisms, which they call “calidade neoloxica” (neological quality) and propose degrees in terms of types of neologisms.

5 The unstable status of this kind is recorded in a special way in dictionaries like Macmillan, which has an Open Dictionary based on suggestions made by readers which are published after being assessed by their lexicographic staff. Only a small number of those contributions are included in the main dictionary, presumably on account of their age or stability, which shows that in terms of their neological process, they are still regarded as an anomaly or perhaps an ephemeral phenomenon.

6 In this work we are not considering collections recording ludic or occasional creations: there are many online, but most of them do not follow lexicographic criteria nor base their contents on accurate linguistic descriptions of the units, both necessary for an accurate description of the new words. Also, we will not consider dictionaries written in the frame of pedagogical activities or resources.

7 Red de Observatorios de Neología del español peninsular, created in 2004, which groups Spanish universities from Alicante, Cádiz, Málaga, Murcia, Basque Country, Salamanca and Valencia.

8 The Antenas Neológicas Network was created in 2003. The Spanish node is the Observatorio de Neología of the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). The Latin American nodes are: Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento (Argentina), Universidad de Concepción and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (Chile), Colegio de México (Mexico), Universidad Autónoma de Manizales (Colombia) and Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón (Peru).

9 For information about the exclusion corpus, see https://www.upf.edu/web/antenas/corpus-lexicografico-de-exclusion.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by AEI/FEDER, UE [grant number FFI2016-79129-P]; Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento [grant number 30/3306]; CONICET (Argentina) [grant number PIP 112 20150100062].