A Multi-angle Study On Chinese Lettered Workds

This study, based on a corpus which is built on a lot of authentic language materials, aims at have a multi-angle research on Chinese lettered words in economic newspapers by making use of theories of sociology and linguistics. Quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, descriptive and interpretive method are adopted in this research.The rise of Chinese lettered words is influenced by social factors as well as language rules among which the advantages of Chinese lettered words play an important role.Chinese lettered words have been largely used in our economic life. The distribution of Chinese lettered words is affected by economic development and the nature of the newspapers. Many lettered words appear only once, and many are far from repeated use. The system of lettered words is unstable. Most of the lettered words are limited to certain fields. However, a few lettered words are so frequently used that they have become a part of the Chinese language.Chinese lettered words are mainly uesd for terminology and appellation. Lettered words used as code names are becoming more and more important. Criteria and units are another two important usages of lettered words. A few lettered words can be used to form new words together with other components.From the external form, the times which "pure" lettered words are employed occupies over 50% of the frequency of all forms of lettered words. According to the positions of characters and letters, lettered words with Chinese characters can be divided into three categories: "letters+ characters" words, "characters+ letters" words, and "characters+letters+ characters" words, among which "letters+ characters" words (usually 1 to 2 words) are most important. Lettered words with numbers are fewer than the other two types and they are often used as code names; generally speaking, one can judge the usage of this type of lettered words by the position of the numbers.Sometimes it is necessary to get an explanation part for a lettered word. The explanation part which has the same meaning of the word itself can help people understand the lettered word. Now people often put the lettered part in the parentheses as an explanation the word as a whole and this kind of explanation can be encouraged and popularized.The use of lettered words is a fact. As long as we guide them to be normative in an adapting manner, the lettered words will become part of the Chinese vocabulary and promote the development of the Chinese language.