Analysis of the use of self-neologisms in English literature on the example of "Harry Potter" book series

Acronyms formation is just one of the abbreviation, or shortening, processes that are increasingly common in American society (and perhaps internationally) as a means of word formation.

Pseudo- neologisms - Pseudo-neologism is “a generic word stands in for a specific word, e.g. longitudinaux (restarts longitudinaux) - 'longitudinal springs'; humerale - 'humeral artery'; la Charrue - 'The Plough and the Stars'; la Trilateral - a private political commission with representatives from the USA, Western Europe and Japan.” (Newmark 1988: 148).

Internationalisms - borrowed by several languages words that convey concepts, which play crucial role in our communication. International words can be found in such fields as science names (e.g. philosophy, biology, mathematics, medicine, lexicology); art (e.g. theatre, music, drama, artist, primadonna); politics (e.g. politics, revolution, communism, progress); technology (e.g. atomic, antibiotic, radio, computer) and so on (Antrushina 1999).

Furthermore, neologisms are classified by their stability:

Unstable - extremely new word that are known and used only by a particular subculture. Protologism [Greek protos, first + Greek logos, word; cf. prototype, neologism] is a new word created by Mikhail Epstein.

Diffused - words that reached a high level of spreading and already known to many people, but they are not still accepted (e.g., jargon or lingo). Stable - words that are recognised, known and accepted by people for a long period of time. (e.g., words which have recently been added to print dictionaries, including popular slang dictionaries).

1.6 Where are Neologisms Used?

Neologisms are extensively used in various fields such as: social network, technology, sport, music, medicine, culture, business, literature and many others.

Examples of neologisms connected with sport: word bouncebackability was formed from phrasal verb bounce back, meaning 'the ability to recover quickly after a failure' and was created by former Crystal Palace manager Iain Dowie; monster verb (often passive) in rugby, to defeat another team convincingly; doosra noun in cricket, a ball bowled in such a way that it spins away from right-handed batsmen. This word is derived from the Hindi/Urdu what means 'second, another'; groundshare noun the activity or principle of two local sports teams sharing a stadium and an activity noun groundsharing is also quite common; bench player noun a player who does not regularly play for the first team, but shows good form and potential (Maxwell 2006).

Some examples of new coined words connected with music (Popular new rap neologisms 2010): dougie (verb) - to swagger. Also: to dance in a Bollywood-inspired way. Can also be used as a noun, as in “All the ladies love my Dougie” or an adjective, as in: “Before we go out I need to get Dougie”; hashtag rap (noun) - a phrase use to describe a style of rapping used by the Young Money crew, such as Drake, Lil Wayne, and Nicki Minaj; scurt (adj. or interjection) - an onomatopoeic description for the sound of brakes. The term is mostly favored by southern rappers; trap music (noun) - a phrase for “drug-dealing music” or “music for drug dealers.” As in: “Put on that trap music, we about to grind”. (Eby 2010).

Examples of Social Networking and Technology Neologisms: google- to use an online search engine as the basis for looking up information on the World Wide Web; 404- someone who's clueless. From the World Wide Web error message 404 Not Found, meaning that the requested document could not be located; crowdsourcing- the activity of getting a large group of people to contribute resource to project, especially by using a website where people can make contributions; spam- flooding the Internet with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it; geobragging- repeated status updates noting your location in an attempt to get attention or make other people jealous; app- software application for a smartphone or tablet computer; noob- someone who is new to an online community or game; troll- an individual who posts inflammatory, rude, and obnoxious comments to an online community (54 Great Examples of Modern-Day Neologisms, 2012).

Examples of Popular Culture Neologisms: brangelina- used to refer to supercouple Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie; metrosexual- a man who dedicates a great deal of time and money to his appearance; muffin top- this refers to the (often unsightly) roll of fat that appears on top of trousers that feature a low waist; BFF stands for best friends forever; chilax- to calm down or relax, it is a slang term used when someone is starting to get uptight about something that is happening; staycation a vacation at home or in the immediate local area (54 Great Examples of Modern-Day Neologisms, 2012). Examples of medical neologisms: Air sacs or Alveoli - the air cells of the lungs which exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide with the blood. Bronchial Tubes - the two branches of the trachea which go to the lungs. Diaphragm - a large muscle that separates the abdomen from the chest cavity. Epiglottis - a cartilage that covers the windpipe (trachea) when food is swallowed to prevent choking. Larynx - the enlarged part of the trachea often called the voice box. Medulla - the part of the brain that controls the breathing. Trachea - the windpipe which divides into two branches at its lower ends. The words that were borrowed from Latin and Greek languages need a peculiar approach due to their specific pronunciation and spelling issues (Andreescu 2012).

2. Self-neologisms analysis based on Harry Potter book series

Concerning the modern literature, many contemporary writings also contribute to the increase in the number of neologisms in the English language. An example of that can be “Harry Potter” books series. These book series consist of seven books. There are also three additional books about the same Harry Potter universe “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” “Quidditch Through the Ages” and “The Tales of Beedle the Bard.” However, as these books do not deal with the main plot, they will not be studied in this paper. Harry Potter series relate to the fantastic books genre. And this genre is important factor for analysis of neologisms. In general, the writers of fantastic works and fantasy usually think up many new words. Not all of them, however go into common use and become neologisms. Harry Potter series is a bit of exception here.

These book series were chosen as a main focus of analysis due to several reasons. First of all, it is its popularity that in turn caused higher spread of the neologism among people. According to Marina Martínez Carbajal, the number of sold books in 2008 was 400 million. Secondly, it is the number of “words that have appeared in a language in connection with new phenomena, new concepts” invented by Rowling, which is very high. It can be seen from the tables 1, 2 and 3. The first table provides information on the whole number of words in all seven novels.

Table 1

The second table shows the number of neologisms in the 1st book and the third table illustrates the number of frequency of use of neologisms in the 7th book.

Table 2

The table 1 deals with number of words, however the tables 2 and 3 use number of tokens, which, according to the Oxford Dictionary can be defined as “the smallest meaningful unit of information in a sequence of data for a compiler.” To count these words and tokens a special machine was used. The columns “COCA” and “BNC” stand for Corpus of Contemporary American English and British National Corpus respectively. Both of them are ones of the biggest and the most important online corpus databases of English language. The “COCA” database consists of 450 million of words and the BNC includes about 100 million words. These columns are included in the table to show which neologisms were invented by the writer, so to say, from the scratch in contrast to the words that had already existed in English and to which the JK. Rowing gave another shade of meaning. The former ones form the group of the morphological neologisms and the latter ones relate to the semantic category of neologisms.

The pic. 1 shows the graph that provides the information on number of morphological and semantic neologisms in all seven novels in the book series and compares the figures.

Picture 1

The tables 2 and 3 show that, first of all, the use of neologisms in the “Harry Potter” book series was quite extensive. For example, in some cases the number of neologisms used in a book exceeded one hundred. Secondly, it also shows that if in the earlier books the quantity of neologisms was relatively small; it significantly increased closer to the final books of the series. Both frequency of use of neologisms and number of new neologisms increased.

The picture 2 gives information on the use of neologisms throughout the whole book series.

Picture 2

Representation of the most frequent neologisms in the saga/

So all these diagrams show that the use of neologisms in the “Harry Potter” series is quite extensive. Another interesting point about the neologisms in the novels is that they are composed not only from the English language but from other languages, such as French, German and Latin. So in order to understand the origins and way of formation of J.K. Rowling's neologisms it can be necessary to work not only with English language, but with other languages as well. That would also mean a great deal of exploration and thoughtful insight into relations between English language and the other languages.

Finally, what interested me most in these book series is the nature of the neologisms in “Harry Potter”. Although mainly people tend to associate the word “neologism” with some new inventions or technological discoveries, particularly in this book the “new phenomena and concepts” with which the emergence of neologisms is connected to is not about emergence of new real phenomena, but rather invention of new concepts not in the reality but in the fantasy of the author. For example, what is meant here, is that such things as “snitch” or “galleons” or “quidditch” were existing only in the Rowling's mind when she was writing this book. However, after its publishing people started to produce real “snitches”, sell “galleons” and play “quidditch.” This shows an interesting phenomenon connected with neologism when first, this new word is invented and only after it comes to common use, the subject for which it stands for appears in its physical form. This is another function of neologisms. And in this paper I would like to explore more on it. Another point about popularity of the “Harry Potter” book series and the use of neologisms can be illustrated by the fact that now real matches of qudditch are conducted, for example the recent one happened inTexas.

2.1 Degree of recognition of the meanings of neologisms in the “Harry Potter” book series

As it was mentioned before, there are many different types of neologisms used in the “Harry Potter” book series. And a study has been conducted to actually investigate to what extent the general public whose first language is not English can comprehend and recognize the neologisms. This study was conducted among Chezkh - speaking pupils.

The results of the study can be summarized in the following diagram.

Picture 3

The results depicted in the bar chart above show that the knowledge was not very high. During the study bother active and passive knowledge of the neologisms used in the “Harry Potter” book series was examined. The active knowledge implied knowing and ability to explain meaning of a certain word, meanwhile passive knowledge implied that they knew that a certain word existed, they somehow somewhere had an experience of hearing it, however they were not sure about the definite meaning of the word.

These results were obtained in the following way. Each participant was presented with a table in which fifty sentences were listed and there was one neologism in each of them. Then the instructor said to the participants of the study to mark the “YES” if it was a word they were somehow familiar with, which was testing for the passive knowledge. Then the active knowledge of a neologisms was checked by asking the participants to provide definition for the neologism. The authors of the study used sentences, written by the J.K Rowling in order to recreate the context of the book for easier understanding.

The results for the passive knowledge were fairly low (only three expressions were marked by more than 50% , and additional three by more than 40% of the participants). So the least recognizable neologisms were “Curse of the Bogies (5.9%), Puking Pastilles (7.9%), Floo powder (8.9%), and bluebell flames (9.9%)”. Meanwhile the neologisms that were the easiest to recognize included “You-Know-Who (74.3%), Chocolate frogs (57.4%), Keeper (54.5%), Invisibility Cloak (43.6%), Seeker (43.6%) and sweetums (41,6%)”. Those are the results for passive knowledge of neologisms by the participants people who participated in the given study. The results of examining active knowledge of neologisms were similar to those for passive knowledge (only two expressions were marked by more than 50%, and additional two by more than 40% of the participants). The least recognizable neologisms in the “Harry Potter” book series included the following expressions: spokesgoblin (2%), Beater (3%), Curse of the Bogies (3%), Devil's Snare (3%), bounds corridor (3%), Floo powder (3%), while the easiest to recognize were again You-Know-Who (62.4%), Chocolate frogs (53.5%), Keeper (41.6%), and Invisibility Cloak (40.6%). Analysis of comparing the results about active and passive knowledge shows that sometimes there was a certain correspondence between the neologisms that the participants knew both actively and passively. For example, the overlapping of the words that participants had low both active and passive knowledge include Curse of the Bogies, and the Floo powder.. Meanwhile the “You Know Who” is example of neologisms that the participants knew quite well, they heard it and could provide its correct definition Finally, the examples low correspondence between active and passive knowledge of the neologisms used in the “Harry Potter” book series are : flyingkey room (31.7%), Puking Pastilles (7.9% passive knowledge and 6.9% active knowledge), Invisibility Cloak (43.6% passive knowledge and 40.6% active knowledge), Nimbus Two Thousand (38.6% passive knowledge and 35.6% active knowledge), and Curse of the Bogies (5.9% passive knowledge and 2% active knowledge).

2.2 The aims with which J. K. Rowling used neologisms in her Harry Potter book series

J.K. Rowling invented and used various types of neologisms in the “Harry Potte” book series for different purposes. The use of neologisms made the language of her style more vivid and bright. It also helped her to create the special atmosphere of the magic world that she has invented. It made it seem more real. And, finally, it attracted greater attention of the audience.

The main purposes with which J.K Rowling was using neologisms in her “Harry Potter” book series can be summarized and classified in the following way:

for charming spells; in general the majority of the neologisms that are met in “Harry Potter” book series are different types of curses, charms, spells, etc. The examples can be “Expelliarmus”, “Crucio”, “Stuperfy,” etc.

for describing the magical sport game - quidditch. The neologisms in this sphere included names of the posptions of players, names of balls and etc. For instance, “seeker” or “snitch” or the word “quidditch” itself for magical money; she thought uo special shapes and spacial words for the currency in the magical world, those included “Knuts ”, “galleons” and “ Sickle”.

for description of the school. It included the name of the school itself and the names of the faculties as well as the titles of the subjects that were taught in Hogwarts. For instance “Gryffindor”, “Ravenclaw.” In the fourth book the “Durmstrang” and “Beauxbatons ” are also mentioned which are names of other magical schools/

for some proper names, for example some surnames of professors or other main characters, example can be “Draco Malfoy”, “Neville Longbottom”/

for naming various magical creatures and plants, example of which can be mythical creatures known in several cultures, such as werewolf, cockatrice, and sphinx; or animals that do not exist but the origins and meaning of them are pretty obvious like in Fire Crab, or Common Welsh Green.

For naming various magical objects, such as for example, “Omniocculars”, a special type of binoculars that work as a recorder and enable the owner to forward and rewind the image or names of some broomsticks that the wizards use as a mean of transportation and example of it can be Firebolt, the name of the fastest broom.

So, in general, J.K. Rowling used the neologisms for creating the reality of her magical world for adding, so to say, more colors to the picture that she draws in such a talented way. And for this purpose J.K. Rowling used different types of neologisms which will be discussed in the next section about classification of neologisms.

2.3 The classification of neologisms in Harry Potter book series

Classification of the neologisms according to the origins of the words.

According to Marusic J.K. Rowling's could speak several languages. In addition to her native language she also studied in her university and spoke such ancient languages as Latin and Greek and also French. Thus, undoubtedly had a certain influence on her writing and found a certain reflection in her style as an author. For example, it allowed her to implement particular play with words and those languages. Such mastering and a talented play with several languages can be seen as another reason for the popularity of her books.

This also had a certain effect on her use and her creation of the neologism. Speaking several languages provided her with greater amount of linguistic material with which she could work. This is why in the Harry Potter book series it is possible to find the neologisms that have the roots coming from the words in Latin, or French, not only English. This also shows Rowling's creativity as an author. It also exemplifies the fact that formation of neologism s is very interesting and at the same time complex process as it often includes mixing several languages. And the Harry Potter book series can be an example of this.

Göbel (2002) provides several examples of how J. K. Rowling's played with the languages, the words, and their meanings. As it has been mentioned above, she had a lot of material to work with. First of all, it was her native language - English. She, for example worked with the existing words, changing their meanings or giving them absolutely another meaning. Examples can be “Stuperfy” that means perplex someone in its usual use. In the Harry Potter series books it, however, gets another shade of meaning and becomes a curse which freezes moving objects, animals or even people. These both meaning are somehow similar, still they have a bit different shades. Or the word quidditch is an example that she has thought up absolutely from a scratch.

J.K.Rowling's use of English language as a material for creating neologisms can also be further divided in several categories. For example, in the case of the charming spell “Point me” which acts like a compass and can show a necessary direction, she changed the meaning of a whole phrase and created a certain collocation of it. Meanwhile in the case of stuperfy, or another word - impedimenta, which exists in English language but with different meaning - , as Oxford Dictionary defines it it means baggage or equipment, but in the Harry Potter series books it stands for charm that slows things down, she worked with and changed meaning of the whole word. In another cases she worked with just stems of the words, adding them together. Example of it can be “parseltongue” which in the Harry Potter series books means language in which snakes and some rare wizards speak. Actually this word includes two words: parcel which comes from the verb parcel and has meaning “to divide” and “tongue”. So as a whole it means “divided tongue” and it has a direct reference to physiology of the snakes here.

Another method was about changing meaning of the words that already exist in English language by adding letters to them. For instance, a good example can be the word “muggle.” It is used by the wizards for identifying the people who do not have any magic power. The origin of this word comes from the term mug, which is an informal word for idiot.

Finally, sometimes she just used a technique of turning the existing Engiish words around. Example of it can be “Mirror of Erised” which in the Harry Potter series books is a special mirror that can show the most sacred desires of a person who looks into it. The word “Erised” is actually formed by reading the English word “Desire” backwards.

Finally she also plays with the separate letters of a certain English word. Example can be the anagram of Tom Riddle, Voldemort's real name: Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort.

In addition to different spells J.K. Rowling also played with words and created neologisms when she was thinking up names for the main characters. For instance, in addition to the example Tom Riddle, Voldemort's real name which was used above, another example can be Snape, which is actually a name for a place in England. Meanwhile, another play with words is exemplified by the name of the Hogwarts' principle - Dumbledore which originates from an old English dialect in which he means “bumblebee”. The reason for this choice of surname was that “he is a musical person. And I imagine him humming to himself all the time” according to J.K Rowling herself. Nicolas Flamel is an example of another real person whose name the author used in her book. Sirius Black, Harry's godfather who is anumagus which means that he can turn himself into an animal, in his case it is a big black hound. The name Sirius comes from the name of the main star Sirius in the constellation “Great Dog.” And “black” is color. Another example of play with English words is” Newt Scamander” who is the author of the schoolbook “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. His name includes title of “small animal with short legs and a long tail that can live in water or on land” - Newt and Scamander which is probably a wordplay with title of another mystical animal - salamander. Finally, Hagrid is also an old English word and Hedwig was a name of a medieval saint. These examples show that the author used not only modern words of English language, but the ancient ones as well.

Another language that the writer actively used is French. She sometimes combines rootes of English words with those of French origin. Example of this can be the spell “wingardium leviosa” which makes different objects fly. The two words are formed by combining three roots of three different words coming from three different languages: wing which is a usual English word, plus the French verb garder which can be translated as to guard. And, finally she also adds the stem of a Latin word levis which means “light”.

Concerning Latin language, another spell - the expecto patronum - that protects wizards from the dementors is of Latin origins completely and it can be literally translated as “I expect the protector.” And again, the name Draco Malfoy includes mixture of French and Latin languages as Draco in Latin means a dragon or a snake or devil, meanwhile mal is French word for bad and, finally, foi can be translated from French into English as faith. And this mix of the words aso transfers the main characteristics of this character as he is portrayed as opponent of Harry Potter, he serves the Dark Lord and, in general, he is negative character.

Finally, the author also mixes up different words like in Durmstrang which is a magical school situated in the Eastern Europe. The origins of the name are probably of German language, in particular, the words “Sturm” and “Drang” which refer to “a late 18th century German literary movement characterized by works containing rousing action and high emotionalism that often deal with the individual's revolt against society” according to the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary). And again it is connected with the plot of the “Harry Potter” book stories in which it is the school in which the dark magic is taught to its pupils exclusively.

So, according to Pulford (2011) who pointed out in his article Harry Potter and the Linguistic Innovator that “the use of a dead language, which is for the most part unknown by the general public, makes her world appear more realistic; the language does exist but remains hidden through its lack of use in modern society”.

Classification of neologisms according to the word formation processes.

According to Emma Prene, the word formation processes can be divided into eleven categories. The author writes that those include compound, abbreviations, loan word, affixation, neo-classical compound, blending, analogy, abbreviation, truncation, meaning extension, and reduplicative compound. According to her statistic in general she counted total number of words of 154. If we look at them category by category we may see that the method of word formation that is used most often is Compound 30%, it is followed by Loan word 21%, Affixation, 10% Neo-classical compound, 8% Blending 7% Analogy 6% Abbrevation 3% Truncation 2% Meaning extension 1% Reduplicative compound 1%.

The chart above visually demonstrates division of the formation processes of the neologisms by different categories.

This data contradicts a bit the Bauer's (1994) claim that, “affixation is the most frequent word formation process in general in the English language” , The same is with compounds as by frequency he places them on the first place but here they are on the first place.

So, concerning compounds which predominate the formation process of neologisms, they are also can be put into different categories according to their , compositions.

The graph above visually illustrates the categories into which the compound word formation process of neologisms can be divided. The most often is certainly the noun plus noun type. The least frequent is reduplicative compound. There are eleven adjective plus noun compounds, four verb plus noun compounds, twelve neoclassical compounds.

Below you may see the examples of the types of compounds discussed above:

“We are pleased to inform you that you have a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry”:

“Nearly all of the programs are following You-Know-Who's line, all except Potterwatch…”.

The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London.

Naturally, with the Elder Wand as his weapon, he could not fail to win the duel that followed.

“`OY!' Ron roared, seizing his bag, as Crookshanks sank four sets of claws deeply into it, and began tearing ferociously”.

“The Hippogriff is native to Europe, though now found worldwide. It has the head of a giant eagle and the body of a horse.

In these examples Hogwarts is the name of magical school where main characters study. Potterwatch is example of a n+n compound, although it is worth noticing that first noun is a proper noun. Potterwatch is a special hidden program on the radio which the opponents against Lord Voldemort use.

Grimmauld Place I s the place where the opponents of the Dark Lord hide, live and work (The Order of the Pheonix) and itis the only adjective+adjective compound. Grimm means `cruel' and auld is the Scottish spelling of old so it is used for describing the house as grim, old place.

The Elder Wand is neologism belonging to the adjective+noun compound category where elder is adjective and wand is the noun.

Crookshanks is a name of Hermione's cat belongs to the category of adj+n compound could just be a way to describe the how cat looks as it has a deformed shape and actually portrayed as ugly. So in this word rook stands for to the curved shape and shanks to `the lower part of the leg”. And indeed the cat had bowed legs.

The creature Hippogriff is a mix of an eagle front and a horse behind. Hippo means in Latin horse, while griffin is the mythological creature of a hybrid between an eagle head and a lion. So Hippogriff is another compound, however, it includes other plays with words.

The neo-classical compounds are represented in the following examples:

“[…] Fooled the Dark Lord, the greatest wizard, the most accomplished Legilimens the world has ever seen?”

“Occlumency, Potter. The magical defense of the mind against external penetration. An obscure branch of magic, but a highly useful one.”

The neo-classical compounds in these examples are Legilimency which is defined as “the art of reading people's minds”. The first part of the word originates from from the Latin language the word legere - `reading', while the second root stads for `mind' in also in the Latin language. Legilimens is a person who possesses this ability and this word also means the spell itself.

Meanwhile the neologism that originates from this neologism is occlumency, which is an art of protecting one's own mind when someone tries to use the legilimency spell on you. Its first root comes from Latin's occludere, which stands for `to occlude' or `to stop' in English. So this is the neo-classical compound neologism.

Example of one reduplicative compound is in the sentence:

“You must've heard of Babbitty Rabbitty”

“Bbbitty Rabbitty” is a title one of the fairy tales in fairy tales collection called The Tales of Beedle the Bard. These Tales of Beedle the Bard were actually published as a real book real world including the tale “Babbitty Rabbitty”. Babbity here is the original word, the reduplicative is the Babbity. The meaning is that Babbity could turn herself into rabbit.

Concerning the loan words, it is the third most frequently used type of formation of neologisms. The examples of those are

1. “They must go to Beauxbatons,” said Hermione. “You know…Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.…I read about it in An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe .”

“Draco Malfoy,” Harry explained. “He hates me.” “Draco Malfoy?” said George, turning around. “Not Lucius Malfoy's son?”.

.“Why should `e complain?” burst out Fleur Delacour, stamping her foot. “'E `as ze chance to compete, `asn't `e? […]”.

The Beauxbatons,'beautiful sticks' comes from French so it is a loan word. The nam of Harry Potter's main opponent Draco Malfoy , whose family name also has French roots and means the bad faith. Meanwhile Lusius and Draco are the loan words from Latin language, where Draco stands for dragon and Lucius has the meaning of the devil.

Another example is the name of one of the French girls who also participates in the contest - Fleur Delacour and its word by word translation is `flower of the court'.

Other examples of words borrowed from Latin are use in the following examples:

“Lumos,” Dumbledore said, lighting his wand and holding it up.

“Sonorus,” and his magically magnified voice echoed into the stands.

Bauer (1998) in his essay also underline the fact that French and Latinwere the most frequent languages from which JK Rowling used to form the loan neologisms category. This preference was explained by herself in one of her interviews in which she stated that she imagine how magical people liked to use dead languages.

Lumos is a special spell used for producing light and the translation of this word.

The spell Sonorus is used «to amplify someone's voice when talking to an audience for example». From the Latin language it directly means `loud'.

There is also a loan word from Hebrew:

“Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it's easy enough […]”.

The definition of “sickle” is “the name of the silver coins of the wizard currency”. The origins of this word is “shekel” which is a currency in Israel, the pronunciation may have old French and German origins: sicle and sickel.

Another method of formation of neologisms is “affixation and blending”

The examples of those are

It's very hard to catch because it's so fast and difficult to see. It's the Seeker's job to catch it.

“Snatchers,” said Ron. “They're everywhere -- gangs trying to earn gold by rounding up Muggle-borns and blood traitors, there's a reward from the Ministry for everyone captured.

“The Quibbler!” she said, cackling. “You think people will take him seriously if he's published in The Quibbler!”.

They suck the happiness out of a place, Dementors.

The main method of affixation used is suffixation. The suffix - er is also one of the most frequent one, it can be seen in the example of seeker and snatcher. This makes verbs will make it into a noun, i.e., into the “name the agent of the action.” Seeker is a position of the player in the qudditch whose duty is to look for snitch. Snatch stands for grabbing someone unexpectedly and it also corresponds to the position of the player.

Another example is “Quibbler ” The meaning of “quibble or to quibble” is a play on words, or play with words”. So quibbler is the performer of this action.

In the case of “Dementor” the root is dement which comes from Latin language, but its suffix is English; the meaning of the word is a terrible creature who feeds on people's positive emotions and can take away their souls.

In the sentence:

“Damn them!” he said, looking quite distracted, and without another word, he Disapparated with a small pop!”

Dissapparated is the example of use of prefixes. It means fast moving, ability to appear in absolutely another place after just a second. This is why this negative prefix :dis” like in case of usual words: “appear” vs “dis-appear

Another method is blending and it can be found in the following examples:

“It's a Remembrall!” he explained. “Gran knows I forget things -- this tells you if there's something you've forgotten to do. […]”

“You just need to touch the Portkey, that's all, a finger will do-” (GoF:69) (23) Dumbledore tipped the silvery contents of the bottle into the Pensieve, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas.

In the first example the neologism formed by blending is the “Remembrall”. It consists of Remember plus all which are connected together and mean a ball used for remembering important things.

Portkey in the second examples stands for magical objects which can open portals, that is why “key”.

Pensieve is another instance of blending but it contains borrowing from another language as well, for example, penser means `to think' in French. The word means a dish in which a person can put his thought and them live them again.

Examples of abbreviations other methods of formation of neologisms can be seen in the following examples:

“He's not himself. His exam results came the day before you did; twelve O.W.L.s and he hardly gloated at all.”

Percy was getting ready to sit his NEWTs (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests), the highest qualification Hogwarts offered.

“Not spew,” said Hermione impatiently. “It's S-P-E-W. Stands for the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare.”

The first two instances are the titles of the special types of examinations that are used in Hogwarts: OWL and NEWT. OWL is decoded as Ordinary Wizarding Level. And NEWT is Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests. They imply play with words as they are names of animals. They can be compared with such British exams as the O-levels and the GSCE in the United Kingdom (Britannica 2012).

Another abbreviation - SPEW stands Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare, and also includes playing with words.

Another method is truncation and it is exemplified in the following sentences: neologism language affixation morpheme

Harry, Ron, and Hermione would press their ears to the door to check that Fluffy was still growling inside.

“Merlin's beard, Harry, you made me jump”

The addition of -y implies something kind and positive and in the example of Fluffy it is used for humor because it is name of a gigantic three-headed dog,

Merlin's beard is a kind of curse used in the magic world.

The final method is analogy. Example of those is Lupin whose name, Remus comes from ancient roman myth according to which it was the name of the brother of Romulus and they both were brought up by a wolf. (Britannica 2012) Meanwhile lupus stands for wolf in Latin.

Another example can be “naga” is “a kind of half-snake from Hinduism and Buddhism” and it gave the Voldermort's snake its name Nagini. (Britannica 2012).

Classification of neologisms according to change that happens to a word.

According to the classification suggested by Marina Martínez Carbajal, the neologisms in the “Harry Potter” book series can be divided into 3 types, such as semantic, syntactic and morphological. Semantic implies change in the meaning, syntactic is about change in the part of speech to which a word belongs and morphological is an absolutely new word.

If this criterion for classification is used, the analysis of the “Harry Potter” book series shows that there is a small number of examples of syntactic neologisms in the novels. Meanwhile it is the morphological and semantic ones that are predominant in JK Rowling's writing. Both of them are usually encountered in description of qudditch or the charming spells.

The examples of syntactic neologisms can be “Point Me.” According to the book this spell acts like a compass, so it helps to determine the sides of the world, find necessary direction and so on. But it is also a usual English phrase with an independent meaning. The author just turned it into a spell by changing its meaning. Another example can be the word seeker, which again has a direct meaning in the common English but gets another meaning in the book.

Meanwhile the examples of the morphological neologisms can be “impedimenta” spell. Its effect is freezing an object or a person. However, this word exists in usual English language and according to the Oxford dictionary it can be defined as “Equipment for an activity or expedition, especially when considered as bulky or an encumbrance.” So the word changes its meaning completely.

Finally, the examples of semantic neologisms is qudditch which the author thought up out of the air by just experimenting with different words which start from the letter “q” according to the writer herself.

Classification of neologism according to the part of speech

Concerning classification of neologisms according to the part of speech to which they belong, the table 2 and 3 which have been provided above show that majority of the neologisms used in the “Harry Potter” series are mostly exclusively nouns. The only exception is the spelling charms used in the book. For example, the spell “Stupefy” can be regarded as a neologism, in particular, the semantic neologism as this verb does exist in English language. According to the Oxford Dictionary its definition is “to make (someone) unable to think or feel properly” or “astonish and shock.” Meanwhile in the book series it is the spell that prevents people from moving. Thus, it is not about absence of not mental, but physical activity. Another, similar example is another very famous charm from the book series, which “Accio.” The origin of this word is Latin language, so it may not be clear from the first sight; however, it is also the verb. Its infinitive in Latin is “accîìre.” And literal translation into English of this word “Accio” would be “I call, summon, send for, invite,” so in the book series it is used in the form of singular first person. Respectively, in the book this spell is used for summoning things from different distances.

Therefore, JK Rowling used mostly English and Latin languages for forming neologisms. As it has been mentioned before and as it can be seen from the tables 2 and 3 most of the neologisms are nouns and they are semantic neologisms. Also most of them relate to the special magical game - quidditch, which is another neologism. Meanwhile the verbs that had been discussed above are mostly related to various charming spells invented by the author. Example of semantic noun neologism can be the word “seeker.” It is not by any means a new word in the English language. It has various meanings, which can be summarized in such definition as “person who is attempting to find or obtain something.” In the “Harry Potter” book series, however, this word gets another meaning. In the context of the Harry Potter universe it stands for a player in the quidditch whose aim in the game is to find and catch the snitch, which another neologism, meaning one of the balls used in the game. The choice of naming this player as seeker is understandable as his main function in the game is to seek the snitch. Still in this use this word has a different shade of meaning than in the definition provided in the Oxford Dictionary, so it is a neologism.

Classification of neologisms by the word- structure.

Concerning the word-structure all the neologisms in the book can be divided into such the words formed consisting of one stem, two stems connected together by the method of compounding and a phrase consisting of two different words.

Concerning the classification of neologisms according to word formation, as it was mentioned before, JK Rowling used the stems of both English and Latin words to create new neologisms. Sometimes she used a method of giving a new meaning to existing English or Latin word like in example with “Accio” or “Stuperfy”. Sometimes, however she used compounding approach. For instance “Augumenty” One more point can be made about formation of the neologisms in the sphere of the spelling charms. If “Accio” and “Stuperfy” are real verbs with a certain literal meaning, some of the spells in the “Harry Potter” book series were invented in a bit different way. Sometimes JK Rowling used mixing of two different words for thinking up a spell. Example of it can be “Aguamenti.” There are suggestions that this word was created by adding two different Latin words : “aqua” which is translated as water and “mentis” which stands for "mind." If we use terminology from the theoretical part of this paper, such method of formation neologisms is called compounding. It includes some elements of the borrowing from foreign language, in particular, in this case, from Latin.

Meanwhile the word “langlock” includes the stems of two English words `langue“and “lock.” And it does correspond to the meaning of the spell which is making aperson temporary mute. Another example is the name of magical school “Durmstrang” which was discussed before and which consists of stems of two German words. It is also worth noticing that sometimes the author used two different words and just wrote them together, like in the case “Ravenclaw”, which is the name of one of schools in the Hogwarts. Meanwhile, in the previous case of langlock” J.K. Rowling shortened the first word.

Another example of adding two words together is Expecto Patronum. The stems of the words that lie in the foundation of the charming spell are of Latin origin. Literally it can be translated as “I wait for a patron” or “I hope for a patron”. So “Expecto” is a form of the first person singular of Latin verb “exspectâìre” which has a similar meaning to the English verb “expect.” Patronum can be translated as patron and more directly means “an influential person who has undertaken the protection of another”.

The choice of the “Harry Potter” book series as the main object of study contributed to making more interesting and thoughtful exercises. It was useful because of the popularity of “Harry Potter” book series. The fact that this book is so famous allowed to make an assumption that majority of the audience will be relatively more or less acquainted to the material that will be provided to it.

Moreover, this choice allowed getting pupils more involved. So instead of working with, for example some difficult neologisms from a complicated and not so interesting technological sphere the pupils will have to work with a piece of literature, which is recognized as a masterpiece worldwide. Therefore, the interest during lessons will be increased.

The exercises included such tasks as finding neologisms in a text, classifying them by various criteria, which were described above and in the theoretical part of this paper. Also there were tasks at guessing the origin and meaning of some neologisms.

Some tasks could be implemented immediately during class time. Others demanded use of internet and a certain independent research. Example of the latter exercises can be task to determine origins of neologisms or origins of the stems of neologisms. As it was mentioned before, J.K Rowling knew not only English, but French, Latin and Greek as well. So pupils were asked to work with dictionaries to work out from which language exactly a certain neologism originated.

There were also some pictures, tables and schemes used while making the exercises, not only text. It was made with the aim to again attract more attention from the pupils and get them more involved as it is known that use of visual aids stimulates more interest and more involvement.

Conclusion

As our world changes, the changes happen in the language as well - through inventions, discoveries, revolution, evolution or personal transformation.

No new science is possible without neologisms, new words or new interpretations of old words to describe and explain reality in new ways. How could Aristotle have developed the logic of syllogisms or Newton the theory of dynamics without new vocabularies and definitions? They were neologists, and everybody who wants to contribute new knowledge must be. For new knowledge, there is no way around the creation of new terms and concepts. To reject neologisms, often despicably, is to reject scientific development. No sign of scientific conservatism is so telling as the rejection of all but the established concepts of a school of thought.

As a general rule, self-neologisms rarely go beyond the limits of context, do not receive wide distribution as a rule remain affiliation of individual style, so that their novelty and strangeness persist.

However, there are cases when certain authors create such neologisms that become part of the lexicon of common people. An example for European languages can be "utopia" (T. Moore, 16 in.), "Robot" (K. Capek, 20 in.).

In addition, famous Harry Potter book series have many neologisms mentioned above, which are recognized and, in some cases, used by English language speakers.

After constructing a list of research techniques to obtain and study existed information and present it in this paper, to develop appropriate exercises we achieved the aim of this work outlined before.

The following tasks have been solved in the qualification paper:

1. To reveal historical background of neologisms.

2. To study different types of word-formation.

3. To outline types of neologisms by various authors.

4. To classify Joan Rowling's self-neologisms according to the origin, word formation processes, parts of speech, word-structure etc.

5. To design exercises based on neologisms from Harry Potter books.

Throughout the paper the concept of neologisms, their types and the ways of forming were studied and analyzed. To achieve a better comprehension tables and graphics were used according to the information given.

In second chapter, for linguistic analysis, well-known Harry Potter book series for readers of all ages were examined for self-neologisms and their structure. Thus, all theoretical part of the paper was then applied to the real example of a piece of literature. The theories of different linguistic scholars were used for analysis of the neologisms in the “Harry Potter” book series. The degree of recognition of the meaning of neologisms among students and pupils were surveyed and outlined. Furthermore, classifications of neologisms according to their origin, word-formation ways, the part of speech etc. were developed. A number of exercises were designed on the base of analyzed data for in-class English language lessons. The aim of them is to provide the pupils with opportunity to practice their theoretical knowledge about neologisms.

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