The Research Of The Structure&Function Of Word "Hehe" In Internet Conversation

This dissertation provides a comprehensive research on a popular web word "hehe" from many aspects,especially on its function of constructing the web conversation structure and its various pracgmatic meaning, on the basis of the Conversation Analysis theory, Relevance Theory and Halliday’s Systemic Functional Theory,as well as the analysis of authentic corpus.Many words may chang its meaning when coming into the web, such as a lot of buzzwords in the internet. But people prefer to pay their attention to those notional words, instead of the empty one. Such as "hehe"、"haha",which have unique pragmatic funtions and conversational functions. This following paper explores the grammar forms and functions of the net buzzword "hehe", the reasons for the popularity of the words like "hehe" in the contemporary net chatroon from the sociolinguistic and sociological point of view, as well as the evolution of them in the dialogue. Being a sociolinguistic phenomenon, the understanding of these words was deeply influenced by social factors and pragmatic reasons, which have been reflected in the varities of the internet dialogue and distinct word’s usage.Firstly, the following research introduces the traditional grammar features and functions of "hehe"in modern Chinese. We have two distinguished parts of traditional "hehe", one is in the written language, and other one is in the spoken language. Though their functions are different, both of them are Onomatopoeia. The former one is always in the sentences while the latter one standing alone, funtioning as the smiling in the conversation. However,"hehe" alternates to get both functions of the Onomatopoeias and Interjections in the network speech community. We define it as a Analog Symbol during the internet dialogues.Secondly, the internet popular word "hehe"exists in certain context in the conversation with written Chinese. We also research the varieties of the internet conversation, as well as how do the conversations undergo in the chatbox. Before all others, the number of topics and their sequences which mostly influences the pattens of internet dialogue can be divided into several types. Then we can get our regular pair parties, which can also be separated to at least five kinds. Despite of the complexity of these parts, the word "hehe" is used obeying its own law. Such as its position-it can be put head of the turn, or at the end, or in the middle, or just be one word sentence.Thirdly, the function of "hehe" in the net dialogue is constructed of three dimensions as follow:drawing the turn, accomplish the pair parties and temporarily accomplish it. one word to say,"hehe" is used to construct the conversational structure. In the meanwhile, it can also represent many mutual mood of the talkers, such as saying hello to the other party, or expressing the happy mood or on the contrary, totally rejecting attitude to each other. All these conclusions are based on the Turn-taking System and the Next-turn Proving Procedures theories in the discourse, as well as the Relevance Theory. When "hehe" was put in the first pair-part, its major function is to snatch the turn or make greetings to the other party. When it appears in the middle of the adjacent turn pairs, it may remind that turn-taking will happen. When it is in the second pair-part, it functions as a feedback, or as an item of the feedback. As a word in the second pair-part to complete the adjacent turns,"hehe" means non-supportiveness of the speaker or just relief at the end of one sentence. As a word to temporality complete the adjacent turns,"hehe" reperesents supportiveness or pause to the discourse or it can also function as a discourse marker.At the end of this paper in chapter four is the discussion about the social and pragmatic reasons for the diversification of the meaning and function of Chinese word "hehe"in the dialogue in the internet. The social factor is about the network media technology, which remains the structure of our daily discourse to the most extent, on the other hand, it also changed some forms of our manners of speaking. That is the soil for the new "hehe" to grow. The second factor is Pragmatic Politeness Strategies and Interactive Subjectivity, which influenced our usage of "hehe" as a greeting word or as a rejection word to avoid direct conflicts between the two parties.In summary, this dissertation provides a comprehensive investigation on a popular web word "hehe" from various aspects. I begin with conversation analysis and discourse analysis, followed by an intensive characterization of its function and pragmatic meaning in the construction of internet conversational structure, and then by validation of its function using "Next-turn Proving Procedures". This research is a contribution to the promotion of the researchof Chinese words and their functions and the research of conversational discourse too.