FEATURES OF THE FUNCTIONING OF NEOLOGISMS IN THE CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH-LANGUAGE PRESS

The article examines the peculiarities of neologism functioning in contemporary English-language press. The relevance of the study is determined by the rapid renewal of English vocabulary under the influence of digitalization, social media development, artificial intelligence technologies, transformations in labor relations, economic changes, and emerging socio-cultural phenomena. The aim of the research is to identify the main characteristics of neologism usage in contemporary English-language newspapers and to determine their communicative functions. The research corpus consists of 200 neological units selected from leading English-language publications, including The Economist, The Guardian, Financial Times, and The Washington Post. The findings reveal that the most productive thematic groups of neologisms are related to social media and internet culture, economics and employment, as well as artificial intelligence and digital technologies. Less numerous but still significant are neologisms associated with environmental issues, psychology, culture, lifestyle, and politics. The word-formation analysis demonstrates the predominance of phrase neologisms and compounds, while blending, semantic derivation, affixation, clipping, and abbreviation also contribute to vocabulary expansion. Particular attention is paid to the functional potential of neologisms in media discourse. The analysis shows that, alongside their nominative function, neologisms actively perform evaluative, expressive, identificational, humorous, and language-economy functions. They not only name new realities but also convey attitudes, express emotions, shape social identities, and enhance the pragmatic impact of media texts. The prevalence of evaluative and expressive neologisms reflects the tendency of contemporary journalism to interpret social phenomena rather than merely describe them. The study confirms that neological vocabulary serves as an important linguistic tool for representing and interpreting current social, technological, economic, and cultural developments.