A Cognitive Study Of Chinese Cyber Appellation

With the continuous and rapid development of internet technologies,the Internet has become an important window for people to know the world.Accordingly,cyber language has also gradually altered and became more widespread in its usage,and increasingly affects the public and the traditional mainstream media.Cyber language is becoming a significant part of people's daily lives.Cyber language has not only become more prevalent in TV series,commercials,the annual Spring Festival Gala,and CCTV news,it has even appeared in festival greeting from national leaders in recent years.With the apparent growth in the number of Internet users,cyber appellation for all kinds of cyber citizens has begun to flourish,and it penetrates real life with its usage during day to day interactions outside of the internet.While,at present,the study of cyber appellation mostly focuses on the analysis of the origin,structure and classification.The cognitive study of cyber appellation is still rather limited.This paper collected 180 of the hottest "cyber appellation" as the core of the research;focusing on the cognitive analysis of the structure mode and language usage characteristics.The study reveals,(1)from the formation point of view,netizens make new cyber appellations mainly through 6 ways: creating new appellations in different fields;adding new meaning to words;making homophonic words of Chinese Pinyin,dialects and foreign languages;the plot or name of the literary works or film and TV;the famous social events,and abbreviations of words.And the cyber appellations are formed mainly with compounding and abbreviation.(2)Nearly all of the cyber appellations collected in this paper could be explained under the theory of Conceptual Metaphors or Metonymy.The Conceptual Metaphor of cyber appellations are mostly based on PEOPLE ARE ANIMALS,PEOPLE ARE PLANTS,PEOPLE ARE COLORS,and PEOPLE ARE HOMONYM,etc;the Conceptual Metonymy are mainly concerning PART OF BODY FOR PERSON,PROPERTY FOR PERSON,ACTION FOR PERSON,BELONGING FOR PERSON,INITIALISM FOR PERSON,MOVIE CHARACTERS FOR PERSON;and cyber appellations concerning both Conceptual Metonymy and Metaphor.(3)There are 111 cyber appellations out of 180 formed under the effect of Conceptual Metonymy,and 61 of them are formed under the effect of Conceptual Metaphor,8 of them are formed under the effect of Conceptual Metonymy and Metaphor.The study of "cyber appellation" from the cognitive perspective helps people to reveal the way of formation of cyber appellation from many perspectives and learn more about the cultural characteristics of the internet and gain a further understanding of the psychological characteristics of citizens,such as the pursuit of briefness and convenience;the pursuit of fun,humor and pressure-relief;innovation;imitation and conformist mentality;and their envy and hatred towards the rich and officers.But because of the fast developing and updating of the internet,as well as limited time and energy,not all of the cyber appellations could be collected in this paper,and not all of the cyber appellations could be analyzed one by one.Only the representative ones were analyzed.