A Cognitive Approach To Chinese Netspeak Variation

As the development of computers and internet in people's work and daily life since the mid of 1990s, related computer and cyber culture has come into being. The wide application of computers and internet has at the same time brought about huge amount of language phenomonena, and net speak, as a communicative tool on the internet, has been paid great attention to. Net speak is a language variety formed under the circumstance of the internet. It is a new medium with both the characteristics of spoken and written language, as well as electronic features.Chinese Netspeak is distinctively featured by the characteristics of its lexical and syntactic variation. Based on the theoretical frame of cognitive linguistic and directed by the theories of cognitive metaphor, cognitive metonymy, mental spaces and conceptual integration, this dissertation tries to analyze the metaphoric and metonymic way of thought of human reflected by netspeak variation, the dynamic on-line meaning construction and the backstage cognitive motivation, as well as the summation of the characteristics of the lexicon and syntax of netspeak. The author argues that it is the cognitive way of metonymy and metaphor reflected in Chinese netspeak variation. And from the perspective of conceptual integration, the author also investigates the online meaning construction of the "Chinese + English Suffix-ing" structure, and claims that it is an integration based on contiguity.There are basically six chapters in this dissertation. The first chapter makes an introduction to the significance and methodology of this research topic. Then there comes a brief summary of the current research both home and abroad, and also the main content of the domestic research on Chinese netspeak in the second chapter. The following three chapters, the ones that are of the greatest importance, which fall to the investigation of the variable features of the pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax of netspeak, with the interpretation of the cognitive way of thought implied in them, and eventually to the analysis of the dynamic online meaning construction and backstage cognitive mechanism. And the last chapter is the summary and conclusion of the paper as a whole.