On The Creativity Of Lexical Changes In Present-day English

Languages are constantly changing. English is not exceptional, either. Changes ofevery sort in the present-day English have taken place concomitantly in different aspects,namely in phonetics (phonemics), grammar (morphology and syntax) and lexicon. Lexicon,as the most active element and the mirror of the society and culture, changes most radicallyand constantly. This thesis is attempted to analyze the changes since the20thcentury and atthe same time to summarize its creativity in the lexical field.At the beginning, literature review is presented to introduce the lexical changes inpresent-day English. And the linguistic and non-linguistic factors are discussed one by one.Linguistic factors consist of language mechanism, language representation, language contactand conceptual category. Non-linguistic factors include progress in science and technology,change in political and economic situations and change in people’s life. Besides, two aspectsof creativity in word-formation of lexical changes are analyzed in details. On one hand, thenew words are formed by affixation, compounding, back-formation, analogy, clipping,initialism, acronym, blending, coinage and borrowing. On the other hand, conversion isexplored to study the creativity happened in the existing forms. Moreover, creativity inapplication of lexical changes can’t be ignored in the following three aspects: new meaningin new forms, new meaning in old forms and old meaning in new forms. With thedevelopment of our society, new trends such as more use of short forms and more use ofborrowing are displayed to prove the creativity in lexical changes.Creativity is one of the important features of lexical changes in present-day English.This thesis aims to arouse the English learners’ interest in the field of creativity in lexicalchange; better understand the changes and applications of English lexicons. It is hoped thatsome guidelines will be offered in this thesis for the other researchers to do further study inthe field of creativity in the lexical changes.