The thesis introduces a new approach to studying the word-formation methods of youth sociolect and its network functioning, with justification for such a linguistic formation as an integral and inseparable component of the lexical system of contemporary Japanese language, influencing its innovative processes in word formation and semantics.The dissertation proposes the definition of youth sociolect as a variant of
the colloquial-functional style of the national language that represents the world perception, cultural experience, and models of the communicative behaviour of young people, determined by a set of sociolinguistic variables with the leading parameter being age. The creation of
a youth sociolect is determined by such sociolinguistic parameters as social type, linguistic community, sociolinguistic variables of age, profession, gender, class, status, and affiliation with a particular subculture, which serve as criteria for classifying
the sociolect into stratification groups and subgroups.
Based on derivative analysis and techniques for analyzing abbreviations
and acronyms in conjunction with componential and onomasiological analysis, as well as analysis of immediate constituents, the study identifies the most common methods and models of word formation in Japanese youth sociolects and substantiates their classification.
The research justifies that the most common word-formation methods in Japanese youth sociolects are abbreviation, acronym formation, the grammatical process of reduction of the verbal suffix -RA, suffixation, compounding, creating units of indirect nomination, and derivatives based on the word-formation language game technique.
The study determines that the most common derivation model in youth sociolect, which shapes its distinctive grammar, is the suffixation method using verbal suffixes [ru kotoba], [suru], [zuku]; adjectival suffixes い, ～げ, ～っぽい, including degree suffixes ～フル [furu] and ～レス [resu], as well as state [teru], and "genus-species relationships"「～系; nominal suffixes 〜さ,「～み」 [~mi], honorific politeness suffixes「君」 [kun], 「ちゃん」 [chyan] 「男, which are negative politeness markers in the Japanese politeness system; borrowed English suffixes ~ing, ~ee, ~er, the suffix ～チック [chikku], which corresponds to the Japanese ～的 [teki].
The dissertation proves that, unlike the standard language, where suffixes that create units in all three parts of speech can be both inflectional and derivational, they serve a derivational function in youth sociolects. In terms of Japanese word formation the non-standard derivational models provide the expressive, emotive, and evaluative connotations of derived sociolectisms. The creation of youth sociolects, based on linguistic play techniques, involves the reduplication of onomatopoeic lexemes with the duplication of the root, lexeme, or morpheme, the use of the phenomenon of paronyms, non-standard morpheme rearrangement, puns, contamination with the omission of the end of the first or the beginning of the second lexeme, and means of indirect nomination through metaphorization and metonymization.
Among the unique means of creating network sociolectisms the dissertation identifies the use of both unintentional and intentional improper conversion due to
the similarity of notation of sound hyperpoles. This involves transformation based on the graphemic similarity of hieroglyph characters, substituting derivative symbols with multiple graphemes to expand the semantics of the derivative element, the use of pictograms, symbols, adapted versions of Japanese writing styles, and various alphabets, as well as combining hieroglyph characters with abbreviations and acronyms from English words.
The perspective of the further research is the study of word-formation innovations at the phonetic level, as well as the study of word formation in youth sociolects in comparison with other groups of limited social use vocabulary.
