A Pragmatic Analysis Of Letter Words In Modern Chinese

Language lexis, an evolving dynamic system, is not only the most sensitive and active part in the language system, but also closely related to social development. Since the Reform and Opening-up policy has been implemented, more and more letter words from western language have been pouring into Chinese system and at the same time, Chinese itself also created some local letter words. Under the influence of economic globalization, the communication between different countries and cultures become more frequent. It has to be acknowledged that more and more Chinese people prefer to utilize letter words and communicate with each other in their daily life. And now letter words have been one indispensable part of modern Chinese vocabulary, appealing to close attention from academic circle as well as common people.The paper makes full use of network resources and chooses the representative Xiaoxiang Morning Herald as the source of language data in the study. Based on the language data in Xiaoxiang Morning Herald from May,2009 to April,2010, the paper, from the pragmatic view, mainly intends to reveal the nature of the phenomenon through the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis of the pragmatic functions of letter words in modern Chinese. The main emphasis is principally put on the functions which letter words act as in modern Chinese such as the referential function, euphemistic function, humor-creating function, fashion promotive function, and gap-filling function. Letter words can achieve the functions which can not be fulfilled by Chinese characters in some cases.