A Cognitive Study Of Netspeak On BBS

The past few decades have witnessed the development and popularity of BBS (Bulletin Board System) forum. Netspeak on BBS has now become a vital network communication method for netizens. There have been numerous studies dedicated to Netspeak, but most of them are general discussions on Netspeak’s morphology, word-formation, rhetorical features, syntactic features and the like. There is very limited research work done systematically on Netspeak from the dimensions of phonetics, lexicon and grammar, and even less on Netspeak, especially Netspeak on BBS from a cognitive semantic perspective.This thesis adopts Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Conceptual Blending Theory as its theoretical background and investigates the multiple dimensions of Netspeak on BBS using a qualitative analysis. The thesis also adopts Conceptual Blending Theory to analyze dynamic online meaning construction and cognitive mechanism of Netspeak on BBS, attempting to reveal the similarities and differences between the two language variants and promote the public’s understanding of Netspeak formation.Through the research, this thesis concludes that Netspeak on BBS has the following characteristics:with regards to phonetics, there are six phonetic categories in Netspeak on BBS such as onomatopoeia, homophony and reduplication, etc. The homophony can be used to express particular interesting sound and reduplication can be used to express intimate and nifty tone, and in most cases onomatopoeia can be used to convey implicit and concise semantic meaning. As for word, Chinese Netspeak on BBS is seriously influenced by English Netspeak, and there is not a big gap between the word formation of Chinese and English Netspeak. Emoticons and marks are widely used in network communication. Grammatically, there are frequent uses of special structures, independent morphemes and many novel modal particles, etc.Through multi-dimensional cognitive analysis of Netspeak on BBS, this thesis argues that conceptual metaphor in human thinking is the cognitive motivation of the emergence of Netspeak on BBS. In network context, netizens actively endeavor to seek the cognitive similarities between network communication environment and real-life scenes, creatively carrying out semantic mapping across contexts, and hence arrive at a rich array of Netspeak. The Netspeak’s characteristics in phonetics, lexicon as well as grammar all demonstrate the unique cognitive mechanism of human minds. Conceptual Blending Theory can further explain the dynamic online meaning construction of Netspeak on BBS.This thesis examines Netspeak on BBS from different dimensions, which is conductive to calling more attention to Netspeak on BBS, a most active language variant. Meanwhile, it enriches ontological study on language and enhances people’s understanding of Netspeak on BBS, thus helping people to carry out network communication more efficiently. It also helps with English and Chinese language teaching by dealing with diverse linguistic facts in Netspeak. As an emerging language variant, Netspeak on BBS is in its initial stage and its relevant issues are worthy of further study.