| Semantically, the word Ba(霸) in Chinese language has two basic meanings. One functions as a noun, referring to a person who is the king, the lord or the leader in a specific circle or a region, for example,"chunqiuwuba"—five overlords of the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.) in Chinese Zhou Dynasty. The other is used as a verb through verbalization, denoting"to forcibly occupy or to seize by right and power", for example,"bazhan","bachi", etc. As time goes on, Ba-words have gotten new pragmatic meanings in Chinese society especially since 1980s. In fast food, there are"mianba","weiba"and"juwuba"; in household life, we have"caiba","yuba","nuanba", and"liangba"; in job interviews, a number of college students are called"boba","touba","tingba","biba","mianba"and"juwuba"; in sports games,"chaoba","quanwangzhengba"and other contests come one after another; in business, brands of athletic suits like"pinba","zuba","yuanba"and"xiuxianba"come to the market; in scientific field,"duba","shengba","souba"and"tingba"compete with each other for leadership; in medical market,"feiba","shiba","chaoba"and"E-ba"show their special power; even the"coveting"Chinese government, not to be outdone, calls to severely punish"louba","shaba","xueba","banba"and so on so forth. Ba-words and Ba-phrases are flooding the overall Chinese society. They seem to have already formed a Ba-culture phenomenon in China.Aiming at such a phenomenon, the paper is based on a large number of popular Ba-words and Ba-phrases to discuss the linguistic principles and cultural connotations of Ba phenomenon in Chinese society. This is the first attempt in linguistic research, which is also the innovation of the dissertation.The paper consists of five parts.Part I is introduction. It not only presents background, purpose and significance of the research, but also draws the outline of the paper.Part II firstly gives the interpretation of cognitive schema theory by few famous linguists or psychologists, then reviews the previous researches on Ba-words and phrases, and finally, specifies the focus of the paper on functional and practical values of language, which is totally different from that of earlier studies.Part III reveals new development of letter structure, pragmatic meaning, emotional coloring and part of speech of Ba-words, explores that of syllable, formation and grammatical structure of Ba-phrases, and analyzes their cultural schemata.Part IV traces the causes of production of new Ba-phrases.Part V adventures few opinions about translation strategies of common Ba-phrases.Part VI is conclusion, summarizing the main parts of the paper. Besides, it points out the limitation of the present study and offers some suggestions for future research.The paper reveals the new practical meanings of Ba-words and new structures of Ba-phrases. Furthermore, it explores the root causes of such a language phenomenon as well as its translation principles with the help of cognitive schema theory, put forward by German Philosopher Immanuel Kant. Finally, an attempt is made to establish language schemata and cultural schemata of Ba language. Findings of the research are to help people decode and encode Ba-words, Ba-phrases and even Ba-sentences, and therefore, to facilitate cultural exchanges in language communication. |
PDF Full Text Request