Scholarly record

CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF RUSSIAN WORD-FORMATION SYSTEM

Tatyana Shchuklina, K. Amirkhanova

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the creative potential of the Russian word-formation system. The aim of the research is to determine the functional and pragmatic significance of the word-forming resources of the Russian language by studying word-building neonominations as expressive signs, which are vivid expressive means in advertising texts. The object of this study is word-building occasionalisms as a reflection of creative word-making activity in the communicative space of advertising. The material of the research is the advertising discourse, in which the creative potential of Russian word formation is most clearly realized, due to the relationship "language system" – "language capability". The study was based on the approach of I.A. Baudouin de Courtenay ("language in potentia, and speech in praesentia"), which involves a sequential study of two dialectically related objects – the language system and speaking. In this paper, we also relied on the ideas and methods of word-formation analysis developed in the Kazan Linguistic School by V.M. Markov, G.A. Nikolaev and its other representatives. The research has shown that newly coined words created by usual and non-usual ways are found in Russian advertising discourse. The greatest degree of creativity and expressiveness is possessed by words created by substitutional derivation, contamination, graphical derivation, suffixation with a change in the type of derivational stem, semantic derivation based on metaphoric word relations, affixoid word formation. It is established that these word-forming occasionalisms have a special significance in terms of achieving brightness, extravagance, attractiveness, memorability of the advertisement. They are a text-based stimulant and a catalyst for creating an advertising image in consumers’ minds. By causing bewilderment and, later, – the interest in the recipient, occasional formations are able to effectively attract and most importantly – to keep the attention of the audience, thereby enhancing the economic effectiveness of advertisement. The significance of the study is determined by its contribution into the development of the dynamic description of Russian word formation. The description of nontrivial ways and methods of word formation, functional and pragmatic potential of word-building means could in the long run facilitate predicting the future development of codified word formation. The research work on the topic has good future prospects. Activation of the advertising market in the near future will require further research on the word-forming aspects of advertising, which allow to reveal the functional and pragmatic potential of the word-forming resources of the modern Russian language.

Publication details

Back to publication list