Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Motivation and Significance of the Study
Cyber expressions can be seen almost in every corner of our life: journalists are passionate about using cyber neologisms as headlines; youngsters are enthusiastic about cyber neologisms and students even apply these newly-coined expressions into their composition; the application of Cyber neologisms in advertising is also not uncommon.
Some cyber neologisms such as “chi huo” (in Chinese characters: 吃货), “ge choude bushi yan, shi jimo” (in Chinese characters: 哥抽的不是烟，是寂寞), “you yizhong youqing jiao He Jiong Xie Na” (in Chinese characters: 有一种友情叫何炅谢娜”) and “shenghuo suiyi, hunyin buyi, qie xing qie zhenxi” (in Chinese characters: 生活虽易，婚姻不易，且行且珍惜) enjoy higher popularity. They are so frequently used and imitated by netizens and other expressions are created and further promote their popularity, for example, “e’huo” (in Chinese characters: 饿货), “lanhuo” (in Chinese characters: 懒货), “ge dade bushi youxi, shi jimo” (in Chinese characters: 哥打的不是游戏，是寂寞), “ge kande bushi dianying, shi jimo” (in Chinese characters: 哥看的不是电影，是寂寞), “you yizhong zhihui jiao didiao” (in Chinese characters: 有一种智慧叫低调), “you yizhong ji jiao dai ruo mu ji” (in Chinese characters: 有一种鸡叫呆若木鸡), “jiaban suiyi, jiaxin buyi, qie xing qie zhenxi” (in Chinese characters: 加班虽易，加薪不易，且行且珍惜), “biye suiyi, qiuzhi buyi, qie xing qie zhenxi” (in Chinese characters: 毕业虽易，求职不易，且行且珍惜) and so on. With the popularity of these expressions, people begin to abstract certain frames from them and produce more similar expressions following the frames, though in most cases the process is subconscious. Structures like “X Huo” (in Chinese characters: X货), “ge X de bu shi Y, shi ji mo” (in Chinese characters: 哥X的不是Y，是寂寞), “you yi zhong X jiao Y” (in Chinese characters: 有一种X叫Y) and “A sui yi, B bu yi, qie X qie Y” (in Chinese characters: A虽易，B不易，且X且Y) are thus formed. However, at first glance, these expressions seem to be contradictory and perplexing, which may lead to people’s incomprehension. How to explain these weird phenomena is the initial motivation of this paper.
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1.2 Objectives of the Study
In the research, 278 items of data have been collected from all levels of language and analyzed on the basis of Construction Grammar. According to Goldberg’s description of construction, this thesis regards cyber neologisms as constructions for they are partially filled and completely unpredictable. The working definition will be detailedly introduced in Chapter 2.1. On the basis of Construction Grammar theory especially coercion theory and Leech’s language deviation theory, this thesis attempts to establish Multiple Coercion Model (MC model) and DCG Model (DCG model) of CnC. The two models are expected to be remedies to Construction Grammar theory to achieve the following research questions:
1) What are the different types of the deviation forms of CnC?
2) What are the syllabic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of CnC?
3) How is CnC produced?
4) How to explain the cognitive mechanism of CnC by the establishment of MC Model and DCG model?
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Chapter Two Literature Review
2.1 Definition of Cyber-neologism Constructions
Originally, construction refers to “the arrangement of two or more forms in a grammatical unit. Constructions involving bound forms are often called morphological, as the bound forms fif- and -teen. Those involving only free forms are often called syntactic, as the good man, in the house” (http://www.dictionary.com/ browse/construction?s=t). With the emergence and development of Construction Grammar, the conceptual meaning of construction has new connotations. The word “construction” keeps its original meaning, scilicet, the language structure which is bound to be the combination of more than two components.
Although not being stated directly, the concept “Grammatical Construction” Lakoff proposed in the late 1980s could be regarded as the start of construction grammar. And his definition of grammatical construction has already embodied the idea that construction is the pairing of form and meaning, which is so close to Goldberg’s (Goldberg, 1995, p. 4) classical definition. In this paper, we adopt Goldberg’s definition. On one hand, she is one of the most influential and representative linguists in the research of Construction Grammar and her definition is the most widely accepted one so far, but more importantly, because her theory best fits the arguments in this paper. Goldberg’s definition of construction in 1995 embodies two key arguments, first construction is a pairing of form and meaning and second we cannot predict the constructional meaning just according to its components. Later Goldberg redefined it in 2006.
“....any linguistic pattern can be recognized as a construction as long as some aspects of its form or function is not strictly predictable from its component parts or from other constructions recognized to exist. In addition, patterns are stored as constructions even if they are fully predictable as long as they occur with sufficient frequency...”
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2.2 Previous Studies on Cyber Neologisms
The high productivity and popularity of cyber neologism have aroused concerns of some linguists in past years. Those previous researches on cyber neologisms fall into threeparts: studies on cyber neologisms at lexical level, studies on cyber neologisms syntactic level and studies on cyber neologisms discourse level. Most studies focus on their structural, semantic and pragmatic features. However, we find that much of the previous work emphasizes on single cyber neologism such as “X men” (in Chinese characters: “X门”), “bei X” (in Chinese characters: “被X”), “chuixiang X de jijiehao” (in Chinese characters: “吹响X的集结号”), “taobao ti” (in Chinese characters: “淘宝体”), etc, rather than do comparative studies on multiple cyber neologisms. Some representative and authoritative literature will be introduced thereinafter in detail.
2.2.1 Studies on Cyber Neologisms at Lexical Level
As for research on cyber neologism constructions at lexical level, the achievements are much more abundant.
The lexicological approach studies of cyber neologisms at lexical level often emphasize the description and explanation of the cyber neologism itself including its definition, formation mechanism, classification and the analyses of its components are indispensable as well. Zhang, Y. S. (2007) studies the popular expression “X men” (in Chinese characters: “X门”). He investigates the syllable features and the parts of speech of “X” as well as the syntactic function of “X men”. He finds that it derives from the transliteration of English word “gate” and it is a three-syllable noun which is frequently used as apposition, modifier and object of expressions like “xianru” (in Chinese characters: 陷入; in English: trap) and “yinru” (in Chinese characters: 引出; in English: elicite). He also points out that “X men” has become something with negative connotations related to scandal, accident, suspicion and so on. “X men” has also been studied by some other scholars such as Zhou, R.A., & Shao, J.M. (2007), Xu, F. K. (2007), Liu, Y. (2008), Zhou, S. H. (2008), You, Y.X. (2011), Liu, Y.Q. (2008) and Guo, J.F. (2013).
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3.1 Linguistic Deviation ................. 16
3.1.1 Definition Given by Leech ............................ 16
3.1.2 Deviation Patterns of Leech ................................... 17
Chapter Four Deviation Forms of Cyber-neologism Constructions and Their Characteristics ................................... 29
4.1 The Deviation Forms of CnCs ............................... 29
4.1.1 Deviation Forms at Lexical Level .............................. 30
4.1.2 Deviation Forms at Syntactic Level ................. 37
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion .............................. 49
5.1 Cognitive Analysis of CnC at Lexical Level .......................... 49
5.2 Cognitive Analysis of CnC at Syntactic Level ....................... 53
5.3 Cognitive Analysis of CnC at Discourse Level ...................... 58
Chapter Five Data Analysis and Discussion
5.1 Cognitive Analysis of CnC at Lexical Level
In this section, constructions at lexical level are analyzed by “MC model” by citing “xue X” (“学X”) as an example. “xue X” is composed of two parts: X is the autonomous component and “xue” is the dependent component of the construction. In the following Table 5.1, we list several examples of “xue X”.
On one hand, In the non-contextual aspect, the formation of the phonological, semantic and syntactic characteristics of “xue X” is not self-generated, but under the influence of the multiple coercion as well as the inheritance of its dominating constructions on each level.
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Chapter Six Conclusion
6.1 Major Contributions and Findings
This study has given a detailed description of the deviation mechanism, syllable features, semantic bleaching as well as pragmatic functions of CnCs, and explored their generation and cognition mechanism at each level. The main findings and contributions are as follows:
To begin with, a self-built CnC corpus with 278 constructions at lexical, syntactic and discourse level is established aming to provide a more comprehensive and convincing statistic support for the current researches. The comparative study among them finds that great imbalance exists in the construction productivity of CnCs at different levels. The numbers of CnCs at each level are perse. There are 100 CnCs at lexical level, 158 at discourse level and only 20 at syntactic level. The development imbalance not only exists among different language levels but also exists at the same level. The productivity ability of different CnCs at the same level also varies form one another. For example, “X di” derives more family members than “xue X”. Their development imbalance is also reflected in popularity of the family members of the same CnC. For example, it is obvious that “fang nu” enjoys higher popularity than “xue nu” in terms of “X nu” construction.
Secondly, the deviation mechanisms of CnC at each level present various features. CnCs at lexical level show a trend of categorization. Among the 56 front-empty constructions, nominalized ones take the largest proportion of 51%, verbalization accounts for 3.6%, and adjectivalization accounts for 5.4%. Among the 40 post-placed constructions, nominalization continues to take the largest proportion of 47.5%, verbalization accounts for 35%, adjectivalization accounts for 7.5% and multifunction ones only account for 1%. The deviation of register at syntactic level is dominant which accounts for 82.6%. Thesame characteristic is showed at discourse level and the deviation of discourse is generally caused by the deviation of field, tenor and mode.
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