Terminological diachrony in the coronavirus pandemic: neology and linguistic fixation

Abstract

In the year 2020, and as a result of the last coronavirus pandemic, neologisms and lexical constructions were introduced into our everyday vocabulary. This paper aims to question whether the Asturian language was able to absorb and adapt this lexicon and, therefore, whether it can be considered a living language with the capacity to update to new socio-cultural contexts. For this purpose, the specific terminology of the pandemic was extracted from a corpus of journalistic texts from four different Asturian-language media, published between January and December 2020. The article is divided into four main parts. The first one introduces the subject and the methodology that will be followed in the study. The second, which observes the diachronic nature of this neological phenomenon related to the impact of Covid-19, focuses on the terminological analysis of each of the months. Thus, it will be possible to see which words and constructions are repeated and used more throughout the year, or how the themes of the lexicon change according to the socio-cultural and political evolution of the pandemic. The third point develops a discussion of the most problematic aspects -from a lexical perspective-, such as the degree of synonymy with close terms, the traditional references to the words that will be used or the gender marking for the disease caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2. Finally, conclusions are presented, with the intention of answering the research question.