Neologistic compounds in online music reviews

The language of the 21st century encompasses a wide array of texts, many of which can be found on the Internet. While the language of Internet blogs, posts and memes has received considerable attention from scholars, the language of online music reviews remains one of the most underresearched Internet genres. Music reviews in the third millennium constitute an integral part of the Internet landscape. One of the music reviewing websites offering lexically creative content is Pitchfork. Authors of the reviews are prolific with regard to the creation of neologistic compounds such as all-proceeds to-charity wine, the last-real-gangsta-standing attitude and smartphone-sucking lives. The aim of this study is to analyse compound occasionalisms and neologisms in Pitchfork music reviews in terms of their meaning, structure and function. The analysis encompasses neologisms obtained from the corpus of music reviews created for the purpose of the study. Particular word forming patterns are identified and elucidated in more detail. Functions such as ludic wordplay as well as achieving humour and irony are elaborated on. The notions of morphological lexical productivity or creativity are discussed with regard to presented examples. The most salient features of the analysed material, i.e., high context-dependence, unpredictability and allusions to pop-culture are presented.