English Neologisms in modern Spanish: An analysys of new media influence on lexical changes

Abstract

The research aims at studying the use of neologisms in a new web genre known as blogs. Blogs are nowadays the latest form of communication to express opinions about current topics. However, this new format can be considered permeable since everyone can update information of a concrete subject. The task here consists on the analysis of blogs providing to the study a real use of anglicisms, when people express themselves without any formal evaluation. This format is highly used to communicate the feelings and opinions of a particular subject or even used as a personal diary, depending on the author. However, it is obvious that the use of English words would be more repetitive in some contexts due to the new inventions or direct influence of English culture in that field. The topics of the blogs have been selected taking into account these two reasons: (1) the frequency of neologisms in relation to age of users and context; and (2) semantic classification in order to make visible the study. Although the research focalizes on the lexical changes, other factors such us pronunciation are going to be taken into consideration in the analysis. The upper use of English words in Spanish culture makes evidence the necessity to analyze why this situation is taking place in this particular moment of the language history.