Neologisms in Films and Televison Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Neologisms in Films and Televison - Essay Example Formerly the language of high culture, the French language has been unjustifiably and violently reduced to meaningless neologisms. In support of their rather emotive arguments, purists cite passages from a current bestseller among French teenagers. Written entirely in neologisms, the book is replete with sentences such as this one: "6 j t'aspRge d'O 2 kologne histoar 2 partaG le odeurs ke tu me fe subir?" (what if I were to spray you with cologne so I can make you suffer with the smells you make me suffer from). If this is what language has been reduced to, the purists contend, spoken and write language are in crisis. Neologists have largely dismissed the purists’ critique as the â€Å"hyper-ravings of ultra-conservatives.† Were it up to the purists, they claim, populations would be speaking in Biblical tongues and language’s failure to evolve, expressive of its unremitting stance against the very phenomenon of evolution, would have functioned as an obstacle towards scientific and technological progress. The development of language, often spurred by the neological imaginations, or â€Å"hallucinations† as purists would prefer to call it, has long functioned as the primary motivator of technological development and scientific invention. Neologists’ capacity to imagine and name concepts and phenomenon before their actual materialisation has immeasurably contributed to technological evolution. In defence of their seemingly unwarranted claim to contribution to scientific development and technological progress, neologists have presenting rather persuasive evidence. William Gibson, the author of Neuromancer, a science fiction novel written almost entirely in neologism, is a case in point. Gibson's envisioning of cyberspace and virtual reality, his invention of a myriad of concepts to describe them, preceded the popularisation of the internet and the invention of much of that which has accompanied it. While it is difficult to make a case for Gibson's having inspired the development of the internet, there is no doubt that he gave us the language of virtual reality and cyberspace before either were definitive components of civilisation and human life.6 As Fischer recalls, the publication of Neuomancer sent shock waves through the purist ranks. In unison, they accused its publishers of having betrayed the sanctity of language, of being party to Gibson's obvious disrespect for, an d ignorance of, the English language. The coinage of a few terms, only when needed and as long as their semantic roots were accurate, was acceptable but the invention of a virtual dictionary for phenomenon which did not exist, for lifestyles that bore nothing in common with that which was known, and for realities which were non-real, was untenable.7 Interestingly, those very neologisms which Gibson invented two decades ago and was stringently attacked for daring to do so, have been included in English language dictionaries by the purists themselves and are popularly regarded as legitimate English words. These neologisms, cyberspace, cyberpunk, hacking and wired, to name but a few of those contained in Neuromancer, have not only established their legitimate presence in the English language but have been translated into, and embraced by, countless other languages.8 Neologisms, irrespective of the purist perspective, are an evidential reality of any language. Neologisms do