A Comparative Study Of Netspeak Neologisms Between English And Chinese

The development and widespread of Internet generates a new language variety -Netspeak. It attracts lots of attention from the scholars. Based on the theories of word formation, this study attempts to make the analysis of Netspeak neologisms. Two corpora of over 200,000 words are built, and the data are downloaded from the chat rooms of the websites. Besides, many widespread neologisms are collected from other sources: online dictionaries and the published dictionary. With the facility of computer software and programs, several other corpora are also employed to better generalize the features of Netspeak neologisms. On the basis of the former studies, the paper makes a thorough classification of Netspeak neologisms, adding several types of word formation. From the comparison of the top 50 words in the corpora, it's found that Netspeak is more of colloquial style. In the word formation of both general English and Chinese neologisms, compounding plays an important role while in English Netspeak and Chinese Netspeak, shortening trend is conspicuous. Besides, some similarities and differences are found in English Netspeak and Chinese Netspeak. In both English Netspeak and Chinese Netspeak, the principle of economy plays an important role. In combination with the netizens' psychology to seek novelty and distinctness, it gives rise to the neologisms that are peculiar in Computer Mediated Communication (CMC). And this reflects the social and psychological attributes of language. The differences between them result from the language discrepancies, culture background and development phases of Internet technology. The thesis is hopeful of having some practical value and making theoretical contributions to further study of Netspeak.