A Study Of Vogue Vocabulary Used By Middle School Students

Variety is a popular field in linguistic study. Many branches of linguistics such as Discourse Analysis, Sociolinguistics, and Pragmatics analyze variety from different perspectives. Since 1960, the study of variety abroad has been spreading like wildfire; nevertheless, the study at home reflects two opposite trends. On the one hand, many scholars fire concerned with the introduction of the relevant foreign research findings; on the other hand, scholars ignore the variety study of our mother tongue, although it is rich in varieties. This thesis aims to analyze a kind of Chinese variety-middle school students vogue vocabulary, from the perspective of speech community.Middle school students' speech is endowed with distinctive features, which are mainly reflected in vogue vocabulary. At present, vogue vocabulary is penetrating into every aspect of social life, and the linguistic circle is beginning to pay much attention to it. However, the research of vogue vocabulary based on a given speech community is rarely discussed. This study attempts to answer a number of questions. What is middle school students vogue vocabulary? How can we interpret their vogue vocabulary by means of the current linguistic theories? What are the linguistic features and developing tendency of their vogue vocabulary? What does this vogue vocabulary reveal the subculture of middle school students speech community?The analysis is based on an accumulative corpus of the students vogue vocabulary. In order to reflect students vogue vocabulary objectively as well as scientifically, the author has confined her investigation among middle school students living in Wuhan. A collection of 517 vogue words and phrases is obtained by means of questionnaire, interview, and casual discussions among 360 middle school students.The collected corpus is treated from three aspects. Firstly, based on thegrammatical function, the author makes a descriptive classification of the voguevocabulary, and conducts a comparison in terms of differences between the vogue vocabularies used by middle school students, and those used by college students and adults. It is found that the major word classes in middle school students vogue vocabulary are adjectives (29.4%), verbs (23.6%), and nouns (19.4%). With the prosperous of adjectives, middle school students vogue vocabulary deviates markedly from those used by general public. This distinctive feature of the students vogue vocabulary is indispensable from their hot topics, such as fashion, appearance, individuality, and pop stars. Secondly, their vogue vocabulary will be approached from the angle of word formation. The development of middle school students vogue vocabulary is in accordance with the traditional modes, namely, creation, borrowing, and semantic change. Thirdly, the author summarizes the major social functions of students vogue vocabulary, i.e. marking identity, strengthening solidarity, facilitating interaction, promoting prestige.Relying on the qualitative analysis of middle school students vogue vocabulary, the author highlights the general features of the students vogue vocabulary and predicts its developing tendency. The subculture of middle school students is explored under the guidance of speech community concept in sociolinguistics and subculture hi sociology.In general, the study proves that both middle school students vogue vocabulary and speech community are far more interesting and worth discussing than have been perceived. It is hoped that this preliminary study will generate more in-depth researches. . .