Keywords
Abstract
Neologisms—newly coined words or novel uses of existing terms—serve as vital intersections of linguistic creativity, cultural expression, and ideological meaning-making in literary texts. This study explores the role of neologisms in comparative literature, emphasizing their functions as markers of authorial innovation, tools for worldbuilding, and challenges in translation. Drawing on corpus-based research, cognitive translation theory, and case studies from modernist fiction to contemporary dystopian literature, this article demonstrates how neologisms operate as critical nodes where style, ideology, and cross-cultural reception converge. Integrated methodological approaches combining corpus analysis, conceptual blending frameworks, and reception studies are proposed to advance comparative literary scholarship. Attention to neologisms illuminates broader questions of literary creativity, cultural identity, and the dynamics of power in global literary circulation.
References
López, A. (2025). The translation of fictive neology through the decades: a case study. Estudios de traducción. https://doi.org/10.5209/estr.98213
Moats, M. (2009). Pippi Goes Abroad: A comparative study of the British and American translations of neologisms, nonce words and proper nouns in Pippi Longstocking. https://scispace.com/papers/pippi-goes-abroad
Prinzl, M. G. (2016). Death to Neologisms: Domestication in the English Retranslations of Thomas Mann's Der Tod in Venedig. International Journal of Language and Linguistics, 5(3). https://doi.org/10.15462/IJLL.V5I3.73
Prinzl, M. G. (2016). Same as above.
Lithuanian literature in English: corpus-based approach. https://www.vdu.lt/cris/bitstreams/f96d9ef2-9922-4ce8-9dad-64c45c6f9408/download
López, A. (2025). Same as [1].
Pelin, D. (2022). Translating neologisms in dystopian literature: Lexical innovation in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World and its Croatian rendition. Hieronymus, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.17234/hieronymus.8.3
Translation theory: translator agency and neologia tradutória.
Kristeva, I., & Dobreva, G. (2024). Translating the Neologism: Comparative Study of the Novel Zazie in the Metro by Raymond Queneau and Its Bulgarian Translation. Comparative Cultural Literature, 10, 181-190. https://doi.org/10.60056/ccl.2024.10.181-190
English and Chinese Neologies of the 20th Century. https://doi.org/10.3969/j.issn.1009-4318.2002.01.017
Klitgård, I. (2018). Sailing between 'comprehensible forms': Danish translations of neologisms in Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 17(2). https://doi.org/10.35360/NJES.434
Moats, M. (2009). Same as [2].
Kristeva, I., & Dobreva, G. (2024). Same as [9].
Contemporary digital literature trends
World literature and global circulation studies.