Neo-bei Constructions And Power Relations

Passive constructions (passives) have long been discussed in both Chinese and English. Among all the discussions, they share one thing in common, that is, the word following "be" in English and "bei" in Chinese should be a transitive verb. However, recently the internet shows a great wave of ungrammatical expressions with forms of passives. These ungrammatical phrases immediately intrigue our attention. In the present study, they are called the neo-bei constructions. It is very interesting for us to find out the reason for their wide spreading. Ungrammatical as they are, they can achieve certain language effects. Meaning is a choice of language and every choice is meaningful. To our interpretation, we hold that neo-bei constructions are grammatical metaphors and the process they involve to make them grammatical metaphors is a special process of transitivization, because the nouns and adjectives are used in passives the same way as transitive verbs.It is worth looking for the reason why they are so widely spread. And we have strong reason to believe that the most likelihood must be the power relation between the participants included. As is known to us. the participants involved in the passives are the actor and the recipient of an action. And so is it in neo-bei constructions. Living in a hierarchical society, no two persons are in an absolute state of equal power. It is this social power difference that explains the motive for the speakers to make a choice of language expressions, which in our case, neo-bei constructions. In doing so, people save themselves a lot of trouble and also maintain the relationship, at least in the perspective of language.