Speaker
Description
The appealing and comprehensive documentation of neologisms and the associated data represents a challenge in lexicography in many respects. Concerning dictionaries of German neologisms, special attention has frequently been paid to the linguistic information of new expressions, while less attention has been paid to discourse-related, i.e., lexical-field-related information. In the first German corpus-based online dictionary (cf. Neologism Dictionary 2006ff.), some of the headwords can be displayed according to broad thematic fields/ domains (e.g., media, communication) and sorted by decade, but the overview is limited to a list-like enumeration. No additional information is provided about the individual keywords or the semantic-lexical connection, although this often says a lot about the characteristics of a neologism and its appearance in (linguistic) reality. New trends are responsible for the creation of a bunch of new lexical items at once; as a result, words enter a language as part of a lexical-semantic group. In such a case, the inclusion of semantically neighboring units is particularly relevant for the description of the single expression. My talk deals with the description of such a group and its lexicographical representation. It intends to show that it can offer added value to build a bridge between the consideration of individual entries of headwords and the consideration of clusters of items forming a lexicalsemantic field. I will present a proposal for the visualization of related keywords taken from the future online resource for German neologisms (IDS Neo 2020+), which is currently being developed. With the increase in the use of dating platforms, the need for exchange and the lexical inventory required for this also grew: from the mid-2010s, a ‘boom’ in expressions from the world of online dating can be documented in German. From Breadcrumbing and Benching to Caspering, Exting, Ghosting, Lovebombing, Haunting, Hoovering, Orbiting, Roaching, Sneating, Stashing and Submarining – the borrowed Anglicisms (cf. Eisenberg, 2020, p. 31) linguistically cover any 36typical social behavior that is repetitively observable. At the beginning of their word careers, these expressions mostly appear in close proximity to each other. They especially occur in glossary-like lists, where the semantic concepts usually are explained. Semantically, the units of this lexical group differ from each other, sometimes substantially, sometimes only in light facets and small details, resulting in overlaps and synonymous usages. Looking at factors such as time of vocabulary entry, frequency, distribution and contextual use, the expressions form quite a heterogeneous group. When designing the new online resource IDS Neo 2020+, we set ourselves the goal of creating an interactive and dynamic presentation area in addition to the ‘classic’ dictionary, which combines semasiological and onomasiological approaches (Haß-Zumkehr, 2001; Reichmann, 1990). This concept makes it possible to go beyond the information in the individual word entries and offers space for the collective presentation of subject areas and thematic fields. In some cases, not all lexemes of a subject area can be included as headwords in the dictionary (e.g., due to insufficient evidence), but interact with the potential keywords to form a lexical-semantic network. This applies to the abovementioned group of dating terms, as some of them have quite a high distribution and frequency level (e.g., Breadcrumbing, Ghosting, Lovebombing), while others remain contextually close to their lexical peers and are less frequently used (e.g., Caspering, Gatsbying, Submarining). As the question of differentiation arises here, in particular due to the semantic proximity, we consider it to be important to include both cases in a joint presentation. Therefore, our Online Resource offers the opportunity to add even less common lexemes with concise information (e.g., paraphrase, vocabulary entry, usage examples), to get a quick overview of the whole semantic group. In addition to the lexicographic information, the group-specific characteristics will be particularly highlighted. This includes semantic intersections / distinguishing features (e.g., Is the action in question only carried out online, or is it linked to a real-life relationship? Does it take place during the relationship, afterward, or with the aim of ending it? Are two people involved or more?), positive/negative connotation, and chronological development. To let the users decide which information they want to see, the displayed content can be arranged dynamically and variably on demand. Each click generates new views, without having to leave the overview by being redirected to another page. These features are common for all presented thematic fields in IDS Neo 2020+.
