Covid-19 lexical innovation and morphological processes in the Jordanian context: Investigating the influence of English on neologism formation

Abstract

This article examines neologisms infiltrating into the lexicon of Arabic after the outbreak of the Covid‑19 pandemic. The data was based on four main resources: three Covid-19 discussion programmes broadcast by public and private TV stations in Jordan; the Jordan Ministry of Health’s daily Covid-19 statistical reports; local news reports; and linguistic landscape items on the Covid-19 pandemic. The unit of analysis was defined as every Covid-19-related coinage used after the pandemic. The study results show that a wide range of calque, adapted and non-adapted loanwords, and interlingual hybrids were used to create new COVID-19 vocabulary. The study concludes that English is not o nly used for reasons of social prestige in Jordanian social settings, but it is also perceived as a utilitarian tool, as evidenced in the current study wherein English was used in a variety of word -formation mechanisms to express novel concepts and items d ue to the Covid-19 pandemic.