Functional Perspectives On The Survival Of Loanwords

A by-product of the globalization and China's economy development is the emergence of a large number of loanwords in modern Chinese in the past 20 years, especially the letter words, which are alien from the traditional Chinese pictographic characters. Should we start a campaign to purify Chinese? What will be the right attitude toward loanwords? Will loanwords affect Chinese to the extent that Chinese is not Chinese any more? The considerations of language policies, the calls of the society and the worries of patriotic linguists arouse our interest to make a general survey on loanwords.The present study builds a corpus of loanwords in Chinese by picking up 1,735 loanwords from the 65,000 entries in the 5th edition of The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary. For every loanword we labeled its part of speech, donor language, type and the subject matter it belongs to. From the statistics and analysis of the information in this corpus we have focused our attention on the following aspects.First, we set up a model to provide a new way of classification on different kinds of loanwords in Chinese, which falls in three groups and ten kinds based on the manner of borrowing, that is, the phonetic, semantic or graphic element(s) a loanword borrowed. Then we are able to redefine loanwords as"a lexical item taken in by one language from another phonetically, semantically, or graphically". This definition helps to clarify the long existing dispute over the recognition of semantically adopted loanwords in Chinese. What's more, this new way of classification contributes to unifying the still confusing terminology concerning loanwords which paves the way for further study.Second, the present study pays enough attention to graphic loan, the long neglected form of borrowing and regards it as a prominent feature in language innovation. Our small scale survey on letter words proves that most of our subjects are familiar with a certain number of letter words and are happy to use them in their communications.Third, we have made a pilot study in taking a functional perspective to construct the survival model of loanwords and to explain and predict the survival law of loanwords from the three overt linguistic functions loanwords carrying out. The referential, interpersonal and metalingual functions of loanwords are realized through the three components of register—field, tenor and mode of discourse.In the field of discourse, we discuss the referential function of loanwords through an examination of the asymmetry between loanwords in English and Chinese in the different fields of lexical gaps, the number of the donor languages and the percentage of loanwords in the total vocabulary. To fulfill the referential function, loanwords have to survive people's preferential selections. And loanwords that can go from the technical field into the common core of vocabulary become one important survival symbol.In the tenor of discourse we discuss the interpersonal function of loanwords which provides ample evidences to demonstrate how loanwords are chosen to construct identity, to indicate social status, to show variety, to satisfy vanity and to reinforce power and solidarity.In the mode of discourse we introduce a new medium of communication between written and spoken, the cyber language and how the loanwords used in this medium affect the other two. Our empirical research in letter words proves that Chinese has adopted the Latin letters into its pictograph writing system. Our detail discussion on the assimilation process of loanwords on Chinese proves the metalingual function of loanwords and singles out three other important survival symbols of loanwords, the borrowing of affixes, the morphemic processes and the conversions of loanwords.Our research leads to the discovery that loanwords survive because they shoulder the functions of language and because they adapt themselves so well to the recipient language that they can influence it to some degree. Such influence is due to people's preferential selections and the natural development of language which defies any"good"will to hold it back.The present study gives loanwords a close look from the viewpoints of general linguistics and sociolinguistics and aims at enriching the theories of general linguistics.