This study analyses some neologisms that were created by some Nigerian users of English
language as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic. The theoretical framework
considered for this study is van Dijk’s Context Models and Lieb’s Process Model of
Words Formation. A corpus of one hundred and ninety-five neologisms were selected
from social media, electronic media, print media, and participants’ observation,
particularly between February and December, 2020. The study identifies six discursive
contexts: context of preventive protocols, context of identifying the condition, context of
treatment, context of enforcement of restriction order, context of supportive measure, and
context of corruption. The findings further reveal that the discursive contexts are indexed
by acronyms, simple words, compound words, blended words, clipped words, unusual
collocations, and phrasal/clausal creations. The creations were meant to describe the
consequential circumstances in the health emergency in the Nigerian sociolinguistic
milieu. The linguistic implications include the fact that the resources of English as Second
Language (ESL) in Nigeria are rich enough to attend to the communication exigencies of
the non-native speakers. The study concludes that the neologisms were devised by the
interlocutors for the purposes of public enlightenment, expression of hope and
collaboration, and to solicit general compliance with the preventive and treatment
protocols in order to flatten the COVID-19 curve.
Keywords: Neologisms, Coronavirus, context, morphological process, Nigeria