2026/04/01 by Terttu Nevalainen, Tanja Säily · 1 voice
paper · doi:10.1002/9781119898023.wbcdl132
openalex publication_date 2026/04/01 · openalex created_date 2026/04/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
In analyzing lexical variation, a distinction is usually made between two approaches: meaning, or semasiology, and naming, or onomasiology. Semasiology starts with a word and studies its various meanings, whereas onomasiology explores the lexical expressions used to name an entity or a concept. This entry focuses on a subfield of onomasiology called sociolexicology, the choices that speakers make when naming (new) things and concepts. More specifically, it aims to answer questions such as who initiated new words in the past, for what purpose did they do it, and under what circumstances did these words spread? Answers to these questions are provided by analyzing case studies that discuss the sociocultural motivations and outcomes of lexical developments at different levels of specificity, ranging from the language community at large down to the level of the individual. The studies introduce the major social motivation for coining new words that arises from the vernacularization of various domains of language use, illustrated by lexical activities in the early modern periods of English (1500–1700) and Finnish (c. 1810–1880). The role that language contact plays in naming is analyzed by zooming in on code‐switching and borrowing in a multilingual merchant community in Japan in the early seventeenth century. Lastly, the range of lexical innovations and their general and local motivations are discussed from the perspective of individuals and their social backgrounds in the eighteenth century. In conclusion, these naming processes and their outcomes are compared by assessing the claim sometimes made that inventing new words is easy.