Chinese Neologism Research

杜冰鈺

1. Background

The origin of Chinese neology research formed the first wave in the May Fourth Movement. Unfortunately at that time the research failed to keep pace with its formation. It was in the early 50s of last century that the neologism entered into scholars views again. The famous Chinese linguist WangLi in his work for the first time discussed the new word phenomena. Since the opening up， the third wave of the neology study has surged. This time， much more scholars devote to the neology study， which enormously facilitates the neologism study.

2. Formation

2.1 Compounding

Compouning is an important way of word building. A compound refers to a combination of two or more words which function as a single word. As for Chinese characters， the majority compounds are consisted of disyllabic or polysyllabic compound words. For example： 失業保險unemployment insurance西部大開發Western Region Development食品添加劑food addictive.

2.2 Analogy

Analogy is another way of word building. Analogical words are created in imitation of other words， which is easy to memorize. Such as 熱門sth popular冷門sth not popula大眾mass小眾minority 雙贏win-win多贏 multi-win.

2.3 Transliteration of the loan words

According to the original pronunciation， the foreign vocabulary can be directly translated into Chinese vocabulary， which is called transliteration neology. Such new words are quite a common scene in our daily life： 可口可樂Coca Cola提拉米蘇Tiramisu羅曼蒂克romantic馬拉松marathon維他命vitamin脫口秀talk show.

2.4 Shortenings

Short form extracted from the long form also creats new words， such as 郵編zip code 航母aircraft carrier 外長=外交部長foreign minister 國企SOE

3. Source

（1） science and technology： 航天飛機space shuttle 納米技術Nanotechnology 循環經濟circular economy 轉基因食品Genetically Modified Food 克隆技Clone

（2） politics and laws： 和平崛起peaceful rising 反傾銷anti-dumping 反恐anti-terrorism 問責accountability

（3） social life： 月光族moonlight clan 低頭族phubber 瘦肉精lean meat powder 強迫癥obession 拖延癥procrastination

4. Causes

New social phenomena are the bases for neologism emergence.Human activities and communications are changing all the time， thus the outdated words cannot satisfy the present need and language innovation is needed. Moreover， the pursuit of novelty， refinement and brevity in language also contribute to the neology emergence. There are four specific reasons.Firstly， it is political factors.In the past 20th century， the political situations of most countries experienced great changes after which a number of neologies are generated such as CIS（Commonwealth of Independent States）， Reaganism， Thatcherism， BRICs and those with Chinese characteristics： One Country， Two System， Hope Project， Made in China etc.All these political factors directly coin neologies which are often used in diplomatic conversations.Second is the social factors.The changes of peoples social live also have an influence on neology. Different words are created to discribe different positions such as white collar and blue collar. They were firstly coined to describe the mental workers and manual workers. Today we have gold-collar， grey-collar and pink-collar etc. Thats because nowadays many new jobs emerge and people prefer to use polite elegant words to depict them. Thus we call the bachelors single noble and the office workwoman office lady. Thirdly， Modern people treasure time and value work efficiency， so its preferable for them to pass information in short terms， which encourages the birth of neology， especially the usage of English acronyms： WTO， NATO， CD， NESCO and ATM etc. Its indeed a convenient way for communication although not all know exactly what the acronym means because it doesnt affect the communications.Lastly， the lexical system itself is an open system which has been changing all the time in order to better adapt to the language development. New materials continuously be imported into lexical system and will be internalized and transcribed into new words.

5. Conclusion

The appearance of neology is not only a language phenomenon， but also a product of social cultural transformation. It is a double-edged sword which on one hand can enrich peoples culture life， while on the other hand if used improperly， it will hinder language development. I sincerely suggest that more serious attentions be paid to the neology study. Only in this way can we create a clean health language environment.

References：

[1]George Yule.（2010）The Study of Language（Fourth edition）Cambridge University Press.

[2]Sapir，Edward.（2002）An Introduction to the Study of Speech.Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

[3]楊緒明.當代漢語新詞新語探析.2009.

[4]游玉祥.新詞語的特點分析及其認知解釋.2012.endprint