USING CORPORA TO STUDY NEOLOGISMS AND LEXICAL INNOVATION

Abstract

The study of neologisms—newly coined words and expressions—has long fascinated linguists for its reflection of cultural, technological, and social change. In recent decades, the emergence of corpus linguistics has revolutionized the way neologisms and lexical innovation are identified, analyzed, and interpreted. This paper explores how corpus-based methodologies facilitate the systematic study of new words, tracing their frequency, distribution, and semantic evolution across authentic language data. By employing corpora such as the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the Oxford English Corpus (OEC), and specialized social media datasets, researchers can uncover linguistic creativity in real time. This paper reviews key theoretical perspectives on lexical innovation, outlines corpus-based tools and methods used for neologism detection, and discusses major findings from applied studies. Results indicate that corpora provide a robust empirical framework for studying neologisms, offering insights into linguistic productivity, sociocultural trends, and the dynamic relationship between technology and language. Ultimately, corpus analysis transforms the study of neology from anecdotal observation into a systematic, data-driven scientific discipline.