The Study Of Words In Criminal Argot

Argot is a language variety of common languages, prevailing in a special social group and reflecting the psychological emotion of it. Just like common language of a society, it changes with times, both of them interact with each other. Criminal argot is a major component of argots. Therefore, as an objective language phenomenon, it is very necessary to study the words in argot of crime systematically from the perspective of linguistics.Based on the development and study of argots in Han nationality in China, this paper systematically states the features of syllables, internal structures, methods of formulation, cultural significances and semantic meanings of argots by approaches of comparative, quantitative and qualitative analysis, and it compares the similarities and dis-similarities of common languages or slangs, with the reference to the corpus of criminal argot in the Dictionary of Chinese Itinerant Insinuations.Through the comprehensive analysis of criminal argot words, this paper points out: in the respect of syllables, the number of two-syllable words are the same as that of three-syllable ones, and four-syllable words are more than monosyllable words. Comparative speaking, common language concentrates on two-syllable words, and three-syllable words are less than two-syllable words.Second, in respect of rhetorical word-formation, metonymy, metaphor, and euphemism are the main figures of speech.Third, to the structure of words, there are lots of composed-words and single words are less, which conform to features of common languages. In composed-words, there are many verb-object words, which are different from slangs that have many formal words. Words formulated by overlapped approach appeared by the form of AA and ABB. Criminal argot has its own unique style suffix, which is related to the dialects of criminal regions. In addition, words composed by"zhe ,le ,guo"occupied a great place in criminal argot.Forth, in respect of semantics, there are lots of single meaning words in criminal argot.Fifth, with regard to the cultural connotation, criminal argot reflects the animal complex; tactful words reflect the psychology of evading taboos of people, which is as the same as common languages.Based on the sufficient data, the paper divides criminal argot from argots to wholly describe its words system, which is the deep analysis of argots study. It will be help for the further study on argots and it will be a special tool for people to understand criminals.