Diachrony Of Letter-Words And New View Angles Of Letter-Words Research

In recent years, as a new linguistic phenomenon, letter-word has become a hot topic of linguistics research . The study of letter-words will help us solve the problems of language standardization, and it can also benefit the theory of language contact and development by providing a wealth of information.Signs of letter-words in Chinese language can be traced back to ancient Chinese oral and writing language which was alienated by contacting with foreign language. And then, the contact of Chinese and English increased rapidly and letter-words come into the world around "May 4th". With the universality of education, the implementation of Scheme for the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet and other factors including the spread of English education, the need of science and technology development, the need of industrialization, letter-words has become a part of Chinese vocabulary since reform and opening up.In the academic field, the concerning about letter-words was quite early. Letter-word was clearly defined as a term of linguistics in 1994. The first study of the phenomenon of Letter-word focused on the definition itself. After gaining certain consensus, Letter-word study has made fruitful achievements, particularly in statistical research of usage.There are three new research angles about in-depth study of letter-words. First, as a kind of Foreign Words, letter-words can be studied as a special variant of them. Second, putting it into the universal situation of language changes, the study will benefit the theory of language contact and provide a wealth of information for it. Third, making a separate study of letter words on science and technology field and comparing it with popular science field and daily expressions field, we will get some special and meaningful findings.Appearing of letter-words in Chinese is a kind of new linguistic phenomenon simultaneous observed by all linguists in the world. Besides, this is the best opportunity for Chinese linguists to obtain a status in the international linguistic academic exchanges.