Neologisms of the COVID-19 Pandemic Period in the Modern British Press

Abstract

This article analyzes the concept of "neologism", determines its linguistic and stylistic function, systematizes and analyzes the features of the use of neologisms of the COVID 19 pandemic period in well-known British periodi-cals on the example of specific articles. Since the media describe phenomena and events that are characteristic of a certain time, the greatest number of neologisms appears in the press. The analysis of neologisms in the framework of this study is based on the classification of L. V. Sheveleva, according to which neologisms are divided into three groups: neologisms proper, lexical neoplasms, semantic neologisms.The relevance of the topic of this study is due to the fact that new words appear in the language constantly, at all stages of its existence, especially during the period of social upheavals, the rapid pace of development of society, and the question of their systematization is of particular importance. The purpose of this study is to identify and ana-lyze new lexical units that emerged in modern English during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to establish their linguistic and stylistic function in the process of forming a new lexical layer of the English language.As a result of the study, the author came to the conclusion that most of the neologisms in the British press of the COVID-19 period are lexical neoplasms. Most of the lexemes that have been analyzed have a nominative func-tion. Only the phrases Corona Mutant and Corona Winter perform an expressive function, and the phrases Booster campaign and The beginning of the pandemic – the function of attracting attention.The methodological basis of this study was the method of semantic analysis, the method of continuous sam-pling, the method of linguistic description (interpretation and generalization of the analyzed material), comparative analysis, linguistic and statistical analysis.The systematized material proposed by the author of the article can be used in pedagogical and scientific activ-ities in the field of such branches of linguistics as neology, linguistic terminology, derivatology.