NEOLOGISMS IN USE: A FUNCTIONALIST ANALYSIS OF BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE DATA IN DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on the process of neologism formation in the Portuguese language from a functionalist perspective, based on the analysis of real language-use data in digital environments. It assumes that lexical creation constitutes a mechanism for expanding and enriching the lexicon and, consequently, the linguistic multisystem. To this end, a literature review was conducted on the concepts of neology, neologism, lexicon, foreignism, and linguistic borrowing, followed by an analysis of data from the AC/DC Project: Brazilian Corpus and posts from the social network Twitter. The corpus analysis focused on the lexical items bora, rebuliço, pistolão, and galinhada, while bolsominion was analyzed based on occurrences on Twitter. For the theoretical foundation of this study, we draw on the following authors: Biderman (1978), Faraco (2001), Contiero and Ferraz (2014), Correia and Almeida (2012), Carvalho (2009), Abreu (2010), Pontes-Ribeiro (2007), Castilho (2003; 2008; 2014), Mendes and Seabra (2006), Ferraz (2006), Souza (2015; 2017) and Souza and Matos (2016; 2019). The analyses considered both the etymological and dictionary meanings of the forms and the semantic changes resulting from their contexts of use. The results reveal different processes of lexical formation and re-signification, particularly grammaticalization and the formation of a formal neologism in bora, as well as the expansion or modification of meanings in items such as rebuliço, pistolão, and galinhada. The findings also indicate that digital environments constitute relevant spaces for the manifestation, circulation, and renewal of the lexicon, making it possible to identify how communicative needs and interactional contexts foster the creation and transformation of lexical units in Brazilian Portuguese.