A Cognitive Study Of Eggcorns

As a new kind of language phenomenon emerging in recent years, eggcorn is attracting increasing attention. It is a language error with creativity, a substitution of a word or phrase based on sound similarity or semantic similarity, caused by mishearing or misinterpretation, but makes sense in the same context. The typical feature of eggcorn is to substitute a rare, archaic, or otherwise opaque word with a commonly used one which makes sense in the same context based on phonetic or semantic similarity. Such as, old timers'disease replaces Alzheimer's disease, etc.Since its appearance, eggcorn has been widely and in-depth studied from various aspects by current linguistic scholars, such as its meanings, etymology, cognition and so on. However, eggcorn is a new kind of language phenomenon, so studies on it are still far from complete and perfect, and most of the studies just focus on its description and prescription, while its production mechanism is seldom looked into. Therefore, in the paper, we try to analyze eggcorns within the theoretical framework of Xu Shenghuan's Inheritance of Denotation/Connotation Theory to explore the underlying production mechanism of eggcorns, and thus elbow a new way for the future study of eggcorns.As a matter of fact, the relation between original words and eggcorns can be condensed as one word—substitution, which is an important means to make eggcorns. The substitution relation can be abstracted as"A is B, and it can be realized through the inheritance of denotations and connotations. In fact, the substitution between the original words and eggcorns lies in the inheritance of denotations and connotations between two categories/concepts in our mental models.The paper can be divided into five parts: Chapter One mainly focuses on the general introduction of the thesis, including the topic of the paper, significance of key research questions, methodology applied in this thesis, data collection, and organization of the paper.Chapter Two is devoted to reviewing related studies of eggcorns from different aspects and makes summary and comments on them. On the basis of previous studies, we find deficiency and limitations of their researches, and point out the significant and innovative points of the present study.Chapter Three focuses on the theoretical framework we have set for the present study. This paper attempt to form a unified framework to analyze and discuss eggcorns based on Xu Shenghuan's Inheritance of Denotation/ Connotation Theory. However, Xu Shenghuan's Inheritance of Denotation/ Connotation Theory itself can't provide an adequate theoretical explanation. In consequence, Type Hierarchy Structure, and Stereotypical Relation will be useful complements for further discussions and researches.Chapter Four concentrates on the classifications of eggcorns. Some online dictionaries and linguists have provided various definitions on eggcorns, based on which, a few linguists have already come up with different classifications together with their own research approaches. For the sake of further studies, we will reclassify eggcorns on the basis of previous researches.Chapter Five is the core of our paper. As the core of the present paper, chapter five mainly emphasizes on the demonstration of eggcorn phenomenon: 1. Why is it possible for eggcorns to substitute the original words? 2. What is the production mechanism of eggcorns? Xu Shenghuan's Inheritance of Denotation/Connotation Theory and other relevant theories will offer a theoretical support for the explanation of emergence as well as the production mechanism of eggcorns.Chapter Six is the conclusion that the substitution between eggcorns and the original words is possible, logical, and reasonable due to the inheritance of denotations and connotations of the original words to eggcorns. Apart from this, we also talk about the limitations of the paper and thus give some feasible suggestions for further study.