Hubert Kowalewski & Anna Szkuat

From underground sexuality to speculative fiction. Morphological and semantic changes of the morpheme punk

2nd ELC International Postgraduate Conference on English Linguistics (ELC2), 30-31 October 2009, Vigo (Spain) Outline

1) Punk – semantic changes

● up to 20th century

● up to 1960s

● after 1960s 2) Genres of speculative fiction 3) Motivation for the morpho-semantic change 4) Emergence of a morpho-semantic schema 5) Details of conceptual content (CBT) 6) References Punk – semantic changes up to 20th century

??? ‘passive male homosexual’

1500 1600 1700 1800 1900

‘prostitute’, ‘incompetent’, ‘mistress of a soldier’ ‘petty criminal’, ‘homosexual’ Punk – semantic changes up to 1960s

20th century: ● worthless stuff, rubbish ● worthless person ● badly behaved young man (often associated with crime), hooligan ● obnoxious macho type ● inexperienced person ● prostitute (archaic by 1960s) ● catamite ● (adj.) worthless also ● decayed wood (used as tinder) ● fungus growing on wood Punk – changes after 1960s

New meanings: ● type of music popular since 1970s (loud, violent, fast) associated with protest against conventional attitudes ● a person who likes punk music ● a culture popular among young people, especially in late 1970s, involving opposition to authority expressed through shocking behaviour clothes and hair, and […] [punk] music Subgenres of speculative fiction (by distinguishing attributes)

Historical period: Technology: Other: ● timepunk ● cyberpunk ● elfpunk = punkpunk ● clockpunk ● mythpunk  stonepunk ● steampunk ● splatterpunk  bronzepunk ● dieselpunk ● stitchpunk  ironpunk = petrolpunk ● nazipunk = sandalpunk ≈ teslapunk = blitzpunk = classicpunk ● biopunk ● cattlepunk  candlepunk ● nanopunk ● desertpunk = middlepunk ● atomicpunk ● spacepunk = castlepunk ● transistorpunk ≈ dungeonpunk ≈ weedpunk ≈ plaguepunk ● ? frankenpunk  nowpunk Frequency of occurence (WWW)

World Wide Web retrieved on 10 Oct 2009 100%

90%

80%

70% other clockpunk 60% splatterpunk biopunk 50% dieselpunk steampunk 40% cyberpunk

30%

20%

10%

0% Google Bing Cuil Lycos Motivation for the morpho-semantic change

● cyberpunk – motivated coinage (“countercultural antiheroes trapped in a dehumanized, high-tech future”, after britannica.com) ● metonymic shift in the frame [CYBERPUNK] (PART-FOR-WHOLE):

-punk – ‘counterculture’ → ‘a genre of speculative fiction’

● but only in the specific morphological context: (x)punk Emergence of a morpho-semantic schema

● The suffix -punk appeared only in a specific semantic context, but in many different lexical items. This led to decontextualization (similarities perceived throughout various lexical items are embodied in a morpho-semantic schema (Langacker’s term)). ● The schema restricts morphological distribution on the grounds of semantic criteria ( (x)punk ‘a genre speculative fiction’ but *(x)punk ‘worthless’ ) Other examples

● -ware (IT): hardware → software, freeware, shareware, malware, adware, nagware, abandonware, spyware, beerware, bloatware, etc. ● -core (music): hardcore → jazzcore, electrocore, acidcore, metalcore, breakcore, etc. ● -jazz (music): jazz → jazzrock, acidjazz, ethnojazz, electrojazz, nujazz ● -net (IT) network → internet, intranet, ethernet, botnet, usenet, Arpanet ● -bot (IT): robot → bot, spybot, spambot, googlebot, chatbot, chatterbot, speechbot, msnbot, botnet ● -gate: Watergate → Rywingate, Climategate, Irangate, Katrinagate References

● Hughes, G. (2006) An Encyclopedia of Swearing. London: M.E. Sharpe. ● Langacker, R. W. (1990) Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ● Langacker, R. W. (2008) Cognitive Grammar. A Basic Introduction. Oxford: OUP. ● Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M. (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. ● Taylor, J.R. (1990) Linguistic Categorization. Oxford: OUP. Websites ● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk_derivatives ● http://britannica.com ● http://scifiwire.com/2009/09/guide-to-sci-fi-punks.php ● http://diewachen.com/2007/08/all-sorts-of-punk.html ● http://www.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/2007/03/make_way_for_pl/ ● http://www.benwhite.com/writing/thaumapunk/ ● http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_with_%22-gate%22_suffix References – dictionaries

● Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. (1933) vol. 2. Oxford: Oxford at the Clarendon Press.

● Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language. (1960?) Springfield: G. & C. Merriam Company.

● Oxford Illustrated Dictionary. (1962) Oxford: Oxford at Clarendon Press.

● Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English. (1975) London: OUP.

● Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. (1980) London: OUP.

● Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. (1989) London: OUP.

● Webster's New World Dictionary of American English. (1989) Cleveland & New York: Webster's New World.

● Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (1990) London and Glasgow: Collins.

● Peunguin English Student's Dictionary. (1991) Peunguin Books Ltd.

● Random House Unbridged Dictionary. (1993) 2nd ed. New York: Random House.

● Cambridge International Dictionary of English. (1995) London: CUP.

● Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. (2006) 8th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.