NEOLOGISMS AND WORD-FORMATION PROCESSES IN CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH (2020–2026): A STUDY OF MORPHOLOGICAL PRODUCTIVITY IN DIGITAL DISCOURSE

This article examines neologisms and dominant word-formation processes in contemporary English during the period 2020–2026. The selected timeframe is linguistically significant due to the rapid expansion of digital communication, the global COVID-19 pandemic, and the technological boom driven by artificial intelligence. These factors created favourable conditions for lexical innovation, resulting in the emergence and widespread diffusion of new lexical units across social media platforms, online journalism, and everyday speech. The study aims to identify the most productive word-formation mechanisms in modern English neologisms and to analyse their sociolinguistic motivations. The data for the study consist of neologisms collected from digital media discourse and recent lexical updates in contemporary dictionaries. The neologisms were classified into major word-formation categories, including compounding, blending, affixation, acronymisation, clipping, conversion, borrowing, and semantic innovation