Lettered Words in Fan Culture

尚瑞欣

1. Introduction

With the development of international communication， Lettered words have become more and more popular. Lettered words， as the non-Chinese characters， contain at least one Roman letter， such as C位（ C wei， central position）. This paper focuses on the lettered words in fan culture. The purpose of this study is to describe the special way of the creation， evolution and replication of these words and analyze peoples attitude towards lettered words and Chinese character system. With the help of memetics， this paper has discovered the characteristics of five ways of word formation of lettered words in fan culture from the manually collected data in main social media.

2. Theoretical Framework

Memetics is applied to explain the use and evolution of lettered words in fan culture. The essential concept in this theory is imitation. Language is not only the main carrier of information， but also a remarkable cultural phenomenon. And the spread and creation of lettered words are mainly followed the memetic theory. Therefore， we make use of the taxonomy put forward by He Ziran and He Xuelin （2003）—quotation， transplant， grafting， and deformation—to investigate the lettered words commonly used. Quotation refers to the lettered words are directly borrowed from other language without changing its initial meaning and using; transplant refers to the lettered words that keep its initial form but with a new meaning or using; grafting refers to the lettered words which are the abbreviation of the first letter of sentences which keep the original structure but the key elements are replaced with homonyms; deformation refers to the lettered words which are the homophones of original words and retain the original meanings. However， the classification has its own limitation. There are noticeable exceptions due to the peculiar attributes of fan culture. Therefore， we will list out special exceptions as a supplement.

3. Methodology

About 200 lettered words emerging from and concerning with the fan culture in the media and entertainment industry were manually collected， transcribed， translated， interpreted， and categorized from the popular social media platforms in China including Weibo， Douban， Tieba where fan culture originates and prospers.

All the collected lettered words were described by seven perspectives： 1） Chinese meaning; 2） composition （word or sentence）; 3） the part of speech; 4） origin（foreign language or Chinese or both）; 5） formation （letter， number， Chinese character， symbol or any combinations of them）; 6）; memetic classification （quotation， transplant， grafting， and deformation. The exceptions are classified acronyms.1）， 2） and 3） give us a clear picture of each lettered word. 4）， 5） and 6） identify the way the words created， evolved and replicated. Since 1） to 5） has been studied thoroughly in the academic field， this paper mainly focuses on unique characteristics of lettered words in fan culture by using the theory of memetics.

4. Results and Discussion

By using the taxonomy put forward by He Ziran and He Xuelin （2003）， we divide lettered words into four groups： quotation， transplant， grafting and deformation.

Among existing lettered words in fan culture， guotation dominates the way of creation， which means than a large number of lettered words are directly borrowed from other language without changing its initial meaning and using， such as “idol” and “copy”. Deformation comes in second， which refers to the lettered words that are the homophones of original words and retain the original meanings. For example， in the phrase “duck不必” （大可不必，da ke bu bi， unnecessary in most cases）， the Chinese characters “大可” （da ke， in most cases） are replaced by English word “duck”. In transplant， lettered words should keep its initial form but with a new meaning or using， such as “boss” （大明星，da ming xing，celebrity）. The word “boss” has lost its original meaning and gain a new one instead. All above are analyzing the lettered words at the word level. In quotation， fans directly take the foreign words and use them. In deformation， Chinese Characters are replaced homophones in fans expression. In transplant， a new meaning is created from the original word. The way of creating these words is simple and easy to replicate. Thus， they together make up a majority of lettered words.

However， few lettered words use “grafting”， because it takes more steps in the process of creation. Grafting refers to the lettered words which are the abbreviation for the first letter of sentences which keep the original structure but the key elements are replaced with homonyms. This way of formation or creation only occur at the sentence level， that is， some lettered words are equal to the Chinese sentences or phrases. Phrase is belonging to the sentence level in our study.

Among these lettered words， only two words follow the rule of grafting. First， “bbl” keeps the original structure of the sentence “求求了” （qiu qiu le， I beg you） but changes “qiu” into its homophone “ball”， then gets abbreviation of the first letter of the sentence “ball ball le”. Second， “u1s1” keeps the original structure of the sentence “有一說一” （you yi shuo yi， to be honest） but changes “you” into its homophone “u” and“yi” into its homophone “1” ， then gets abbreviation for the first letter of the sentence “u1s1”. This way of creation is difficult to apply to creating the new lettered words; however， it is easy to remember due to the interesting grafting.