Acronyms as a non-morphemic word-formation vocabulary enrichment strategy and their lexicalization in English

Abstract

The present research intends to shed light on acronymy as one of word formation strategies used to enrich Present English vocabulary. It focuses on the subject of acronyms lexicalization in English. Consideration in this study is given to the nature of the relation between the acronym and its source from the one hand and that between the acronym and its meaning from the other. This research is interested in the morphological, graphic and semantic changes that an acronym undergoes during its life after it has been formed in English. Another aspect of this study concerns the influence of the graphic form on the lexicalization of an acronym and the factors that favor the entrance of the latter as an independent lexical item in English. In this research, it is hypothesised that the relation between an acronym and its meaning is stronger than the relation between the acronym and its full form. It is also hypothesised that the graphic form of the acronym has an influence on its lexicalization in English. It is as well hypothesised that the use of an acronym frequently, constantly and in the many fields of life helps in its process of lexicalization. The mentioned hypotheses are checked through two tests administered to 3rd year students at the department of English, University of Constantine 1 as well as through a corpus based study using a webcorp concordance program to see how acronyms behave in their natural contexts. The results found confirm the formulated hypotheses. The findings obtained from the tests and the webcorp concordance program indicate that acronyms show a morphological demotivation in English; they become attached to a meaning and lose the relation with their full forms. In addition, it was revealed that acronyms are not just new surface of their sources; they are, in fact, new linguistic signs that can undergo semantic changes with the passage of time. It was also found that acronyms written in their lowercase form like ‘laser’ become so accepted in English; most of the subjects considered them as true words since they ignored that these acronyms are indeed special creations in English standing for longer phrases. The results of the study suggest again that an acronym which is used frequently, constantly and in other domains rather than its domain of specialization will find its way into the lexicon of that language and will be treated as any other lexicalized item