Neologisms and Mass Media

Presentation on theme: "Neologisms and Mass Media"— Presentation transcript:

1 Neologisms and Mass Media
Wu Hongyun, Liu Xuemei School of Foreign Languages, Renmin University of China

2 1. Definition of Neologism 2. Research Design
3. Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms 4. Conclusion and Suggestions

3 A “difficult” composition
“昨晚，偶GG带着他滴GF到偶家来7饭，那个MM在吃饭时一直向偶妈妈PMP，那样子真是好BT，实在是让偶粉寒，偶粉8稀饭她的话……” 偶：我 GG：哥哥 GF：girlfriend 7饭：吃饭 MM：美眉 PMP：拍马屁 BT：变态 粉寒：很汗，感到汗颜 8稀饭：不喜欢 Introduction

4 3rd peak with 1,000 neologisms created every year
New Media Era 3rd peak with 1,000 neologisms created every year Foundation of New China May 4th Movement Introduction

5 Definition of Neologism
“Neologism first appeared in 1800 as a neologism itself to describe a recently coined word or the act of inventing a word or phrase. Additionally it can imply the use of old words in a new sense such as giving new meanings to existing words or phrases.[1]” [1]

6 Data Collection Newspapers: People’s Daily, Wen Hui Po.
Websites: Radio Program: Sound of China. TV Programs: Chaoji Nvsheng (Super Girl), Kanxi Laile (“Kangxi” Come). Dictionary of Contemporary New Chinese Words: P

7 Selecting Neologisms According to the definition of neologism;
Words that have been listed in Dictionary of Contemporary New Chinese Words (2004), but not in the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (1997)..

8 Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms
As a promoter before neologisms come into being; As a propagator after their coinage; As a percolator for neologisms.

9 As a Promoter before neologisms come into being I
Tend to be creative and humorous by creating some new words and expressions or by using an old phrase in quite a different way. Take 脱口秀 for example. Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms

10 As a Promoter before neologisms come into being II
脱口秀: talk show, a television/radio program； First talk show: Tonight Show, American TV program (1954); First talk show in China: Oriental Studio (Dongfang Zhiboshi, forty years later); Talk it as it is (Shihua Shishuo), The life of Art (Yishu Rensheng) etc.. (within ten years) 走秀, 真人秀, 时装秀, 宝贝秀, 创业秀, 图铃秀, 主页秀 秀包包, 秀身材, 秀手机, 秀房子, 秀车

11 As a Promoter before Neologisms come into being III
“media content is learnt and becomes the basis for knowledge, attitude, and actions” (Perse 2001: 147); “shape the public opinion” (Perse 2001: 83). Promote the production of neologisms through changing people’s concepts. Neologisms patterning as “绿色X”: 绿色住房，绿色奥运，绿色人士，绿色化学… Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms

12 As a propagator after their coinage I
Speed Coverage Mass Media Frequency Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms

13 Coverage of the mass media
2000: 264,000 Chinese web sites registered, more than 200 newspaper went online and started releasing news 2001: 20 million internet users. 2002: 2,137 Chinese newspapers with 36.8 billion copies; 9,029 kinds of magazines with a total of 2.95 billion copies. 2003: 304 broadcasting stations (93.34%) and 363 TV stations (94.62%)

14 Rapidity of the mass media I
tiren (体认, abbreviation of 体察认识, to mean ‘to realize’) and yuanjing (愿景, an expected outlook ) ; April 29, 2005: CPC General Secretary Hu Jintao & KMT Chairman Lian Zhan; Next day, Xinhua news agency delivered the Press Communiqué of talks and two neologisms; May 2, 2005: listed in the fifth edition of Contemporary Chinese Dictionary.

15 Frequency of Neologisms in the Mass Media I
Table 3.2 Neologisms on the homepage of sina (March 29, 2006). Category Examples Politics 亮相, 海选 Economics 积分, 黄页, 热销, 粥吧, 准现房, 企业黄页, 旺销, 车虫, 热买, 超值, 尾房 Technology 首页, 短信, 彩信, 博客, IT, 数码, 彩铃, 下载, 网通, MP3, CDMA, 在线, DV, 网信, 波霸, 升级, UC Culture & Education 动漫, 陪聊, 韩流, 双性恋, 比拼, IQ, 白银时代, 准专业 Sports & Military F1赛车, 瑜伽, 亚奥, 下课 Entertainment 裸奔, UC聊天, 绝对现场, 互动视频, 走秀, 走光, 菜鸟, U币, 宝贝秀, MM 52 Neologisms with a total of 99 times Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms

16 Table 3.3 Neologisms in other media
Sources of Data Number Example Sohu (homepage) March 26, 2006 7o 亮相，创业秀, 热销, 火热登场, 热播.，说吧，超女， 真人秀 Super Girl (15') July 15, 2005 18 PK，超女，海选，短信，打造，粉丝，玉米，K歌 Kangxi Laile (40') January 24, 2005 22 封杀，ABC, 草莓族, 槟榔西施, 抓狂, 惹毛，放空，撞衫 People’s Daily (p2) March 29, 2006 29 纳米技术, 数码, 信息化, 绿色建筑，节能建筑，节地，节林，托留，返贫, 减贫，禽流感 Wen Hui Po(p9) 17 登陆, 拍品, 夺人眼球，艺术沙龙，亮点，时尚脱口秀 Sound of China (35') 11 点击，短信，彩铃，打造，亲密接触，球探.

17 As a percolator for neologisms (Printing Media)
90.13% of the neologisms collected every year have vanished. (10:1) (Tang Zhiyang 2003: 3). Mass Media Percolator Updated & Standard Updated & Standard Outdated & Ungrammatical

18 As a percolator for neologisms: updated & outdated
Sustain a persistent contact with the whole society; Use, even coin some neologisms, and eliminate some outdated ones in reporting those changes. 阶级斗争、知青、下乡 家庭联产承包、科教兴国、三个代表 数码、主页、偶像、粉丝 Impacts of the Mass Media on Neologisms

19 As a percolator for neologisms: standard & Ungrammatical
Play an important role in standardizing the language (Li Yuming 2005: 219) Provide linguists with a corpus: Citations in the Dictionary of Contemporary New Chinese Words (333 neologisms) 205 citations from newspapers, 45 from magazines 38 from books. About 89.5% of them were based on the print mass media. 恐龙 (丑女), 青蛙（丑男）, 菜鸟（新手）, 大虾（高手）, CU (See you), OIC (Oh, I see), and VG (Very good).

20 Conclusion The mass media will influence neologisms during their whole life circle: promote their production; introduce them to the public; Percolate and decide which should be enter into the general vocabulary.

21 Suggestions A larger number of samples should be selected
Certain neologism identification software should also be utilized to collect and process new words and expressions.

22 Thank You!

23 Why are so many neologisms created?
The great changes undergoing in the society took the most responsibility for this (Yang Hua 2002: 6). Mass media have also influenced neologisms to some extent for the following reasons: Varieties: newspapers, magazines, TV/Radio, the Internet… Rapidity in spreading information Introduction

24 Rapidity of the mass media II
“9.11事件” 20: 46 (Beijing time) on Sep. 11, 2001; within 9 minutes: the news started to spread on the Internet , then CCTV, People’s Daily and other media reported the tragedy; One of the most popular words of the year.