An Eco-linguistic Analysis On The English-related Chinese Internet Buzzwords

With the rapid development of Internet in China, a new thriving language comes into being ---Chinese Internet language, which embodies the variety of language by assimilating various languages and regional dialects in China as well as different foreign languages in the world, among which English should have the most powerful impact. Chinese Internet language has dynamic transmission capacity and applicability. It greatly influences mass media and people’s daily conversation. Therefore, it is of practical significance to conduct research on Chinese Internet language. In Internet language, Internet buzzwords enjoy the highest frequency of usage and the widest popularity among netizens. Many linguists have tried to analyze Chinese Internet buzzwords from different perspectives among which eco-linguistics offers us a brand new angle. It reveals the emergence, development and extinction of a language by analyzing its ecological elements. This thesis attempts to apply eco-linguistics to analyze the Chinese Internet buzzwords within the framework of globalization and in particular the influence of English, to explore the background and causes of its emergence as well as the trend of its future development.The data for this research are the Chinese Internet buzzwords from 2005 to 2015, which are more or less related to English, and classified into different categories for systematic analysis. This study reveals that similar to the ecology of the natural world, ERCIB also embodies the diversification and evolution in terms of its vocabulary, in addition. The emergence of ERCIB reflects the socioeconomic and humanistic ecology as well and might lead to excessive imitation and some undesirable phenomena, which should be addressed with an optimistic attitude. This thesis is divided into five chapters:The first chapter introduces the choice of this topic, research background, goal, significance and layout.The second chapter defines Internet buzzwords and presents the characteristics of the English-related Chinese Internet buzzwords. Researches on eco-linguistics will also be introduced in this chapter.The third part reviews the development of eco-linguistics and introduces some relative eco-linguistic theories and concepts.Applying the eco-linguistic theories of language diversity and language evolution, the fourth chapter studies the ecological principles of the English-related Internet buzzwords by discussing its diversity from the perspective of pronunciation, vocabulary, sentence and grammar; and then focuses on the analysis of the buzzwords from the perspectives of society, humanity and natural environment by employing the eco-linguistic theories of language evolution, language ecology and critical eco-linguistics.The fifth chapter summarizes the positive and negative sides of the English-related Internet buzzwords, and explores the influence on and implications for the standardization of language.