Abstract

Metaphorical neologisms had commonly been associated with stylistic function, implying that the occurrence of metaphorical charges would be a strictly “playful” matter of lexical innovation. Such conclusions have been based on findings collected from textual corpora, leaving the presence of cognitive elements in unplanned oral contexts of unexplored enunciation. In order to study the relationship between these elements and the communicative functions, six Chilean podcasts of diverse thematic areas were selected to obtain an oral neological corpus for studying the presence of metaphorical loads, and in turn, to deepen into the functions of the units by adapting the Llopart-Saumell (2016) model. Out of 107 lexical innovations, 42% showed metaphorical meanings. Regarding motivations, 66.6% were in the denominative spectrum, and 28.8% in the stylistic one. Therefore, it is conjectured that the oral neology in Chilean Spanish is strongly influenced by conceptual systems that origi-nate lexical innovations capable of responding basically to denominative needs. © Los autores.