Likes, Tweets and Other “Friends”: Social Media Buzzwords from a Terminology Perspective

Social media have developed at a rapid pace since the beginning of the 21st century and have undoubtedly come to play an integral part in the social and professional life of billions of people worldwide, defining many of our communication habits and affecting the way we talk. As the title suggests, the present paper centers on social media terminology in English and focuses on those social media terms that have become buzzwords - that is, terms which have migrated into general language and which are used in everyday communication. In particular, the aim of this paper is to discuss the status of these widely used linguistic units from a terminology perspective, i.e. whether they are terms or words, and to examine three term-formation patterns characteristic of widely used social media vocabulary: terminologization, conversion and derivation.