LINGUISTIC BREXPANSION
Olga Goncharova
(Kharkiv, Ukraine)
The UK’s 2016 referendum in which the entire country had to make a decision on the withdrawal from the European Union caused the appearance of a multitude of neologisms in English. The recent publications of journalists, researchers and bloggers have already fixed hundreds of new Brexit-induced coinages which have been elicited from a variety of sources such as news media, internet forums, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Brexit and anti-Brexit slogans. Needless to say, that their number is constantly growing as the political and economic crisis conceptualized by Brexit has not overcome yet.
It is a fact that the word Brexit which is a blend of British (or Britain) and exit, probably on the pattern of Grexit (i.e. Greece + exit) [1; 2], fuelled the emergence of other creative coinages “either as a model, a source word, or merely as an inspiration” [4]. The prototypic word-formation pattern ‘name (part) of the country + exit’ burst into numerous “hypothetical scenarios of other countries leaving the EU” (Lalić-Krstin & Silaški):
Auxit = Austria + exit
Bexit = Belgium + exit
Chexit = Czech + exit
Frexit = France + exit
Irelexit / Irexit = Ireland + exit (and other similar examples with Spain, Deutschland, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Luxembourg, Poland etc).
Soon after that the pattern was transformed into ‘any exit by someone / something’, e.g.:
Mexit = Messi + exit (Lionel Messi’s retirement from international football)
Trexit = Trump + exit (from or by Donald Trump)
Texit = Texas + exit (for the Lone Star State)
Crexit = crisis + exit (rescue from crisis)
As a source word, Brexit stimulated creating new blends that is itself a unique linguistic phenomenon. Researchers Lalić-Krstin and Silaški argue that “Blends are rarely used to form other blends as their interpretation would potentially be quite difficult. <…> The fact that brex-/bre-/br- is highly recognizable in blends is further evidence that brexit is firmly established and institutionalized in the English lexicon” [4]. The list of ‘Brexit + something’ portmanteaus is enormous:
Braccident = Brexit + accident
Branalysis = Brexit + analysis
Breferendum = Brexit + referendum
Bregret = Brexit + regret
Brenial = Brexit + denial
Brepression = Brexit + depression
Brethink = Brexit + rethink
Branger = Brexit + anger
Brexperts = Brexit + experts
Brex-Pitt = Brexit + Pitt (‘Brexit’ by Brad Pitt, i.e. his divorce from Angelina Jolie)
Bremaniac = Brexit + maniac
Bremoaner = Brexit + moaner
Brexmas = Brexit + Christmas (Happy Christmas for Brexiteers) etc.
Finally, a large number of new coinages have been created in the process of wordplay inspired by Brexit since observers and residents, as Kelly states, “searched for words and leaned on humor to understand, cope with, celebrate, or try to articulate such a dramatic and chaotic experience. Brexit wordplay was a way to participate in and make sense of this historic moment in real time” [3]. In other words, the neologisms are witty; besides that, they are eye-and-ear-catching due to their novelty, and attractive by their wordplay potential [5]. Among the lexical inventions enthused by Brexit as a political, sociocultural and linguistic trend are the following:
Retireland = retire + land
Quitaly = quit + Italy
Peakxit = peak + Brexit (invented by Kelly [3])
Byegium = bye + Belgium
Caleavefornia = California + leave
Slovakout = Slovakia + out
One of the latest neologisms obtained at the end of December 2018 is Breunion (Britain + union), which is a constituent of a Dutch pop band name. The Breunion Boys, as they call themselves, search to get the United Kingdom back into the European family through the power of music and their hit single Britain Come Back [8].
Indeed, we are only at the halfway point on the road of full acquisition of Brexitsphere; Brexitology and Brexitranslatology (why not?) look forward to their Bresearchers.
References:
1. English Oxford Dictionaries. Accessed at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/brexit.
2. Fontaine, L. (2017) The early semantics of the neologism BREXIT: a lexicogrammatical approach. Functional Linguistics 2017 4:6. Accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40554-017-0040-x.
3. Kelly, J. (2016) Branger. Debression. Oexit. Zumxit. Why Did Brexit Trigger a Brexplosion of Wordplay? Accessed at: https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/06/why-has-brexit-sparked-an-explosion-of-wordplay.html.
4. Lalić-Krstin, G., Silaški, N. (2018) From Brexit to Bregret: An account of some Brexit-induced neologisms in English. English Today, 34(2), 3-8. Cambridge University Press 2018. Accessed at: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0266078417000530.
5. Lehrer A. Understanding trendy neologisms (2003) Rivista di Linguistica, 15.2, 371-384. Accessed at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/9d20/62cbd1538ba2913443201e44767fe4b061da.
6. Miteva D. (2017) Observations of the current Brexplosion: Boom of Brexit-related blendings. Accessed at:
http://journals.mu-varna.bg/index.php/conf/article/download/3885/3430.
7. Neologisms (new words), 2014 onwards (2018). Grant Pearson Brown Consulting Ltd. Accessed at:
https://www.gpb.eu/2018/09/neologisms-new-words.html.