A DMC Study On The Chinese Neologism "Wei X" Construction

With the increasing popularity of We Media like microblog and We Chat, the neologism “Wei X” derived from it appears in the public eye constantly and becomes one of the most representative neologisms in recent years. On account of its economy,prevalence and rich meaning, “Wei X” has aroused the concern of many scholars.However, most of their studies are restricted to the static description of its lexical features, semantic features and pragmatic features, while none of them has made an explanation-oriented study of the cognitive mechanism of “Wei X”, let alone a corpus as a basis.From the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics(including Construction Grammar),this thesis attempts to regard “Wei X” as a construction and establishes a DMC model which integrates the Decategorization Theory, Metaphor and Metonymy and Construction Coercion Theory to elaborate the cognitive mechanism of this construction. Meanwhile, after a search of “Wei X” construction from Language Situation in China(2011-2014) and the searching engine Baidu, a total of 270 items of “Wei X” are collected. And the thesis tries to conduct a qualitative and quantitative analysis of them within the DMC framework.The major findings of this thesis are:In the first place, based on the DMC framework, the cognitive mechanism of“Wei X” construction has been explored. In the match of “Wei” and “X”, the meaning of “X” crystallizes the meaning conveyed by “Wei”, which makes “Wei” undergo changes of meaning through the mechanism of metaphor or metaphtonymy. And by this time “X” exerts its metaphorical or metaphtonymic coercion effect on “Wei”. The metaphorical or metaphtonymic meaning that “Wei” obtains after the coercion, in turn,will exert lexical coercion effect on “X”. In other words, some prototypical features of“X” disappear, which will be replaced by the features that “Wei” implies. And therefore “X” shows a tendency towards decategorization, which makes “Wei X”novel and unique. The process is displayed below.Take“微家书”for example.It describes a fact that people write letters for family members on the mircoblog and share them with other people.The meaning of“家书”concretizes the meaning of“微”and“微”refers to microblog.Therefore,“微”undergoes change of meaning by means of metaphtonymy.By this time“家书”has metaphotonymic coercion effect on“微”.In turn,the meaning“微”obtains exerts its lexical coercion effect on“家书”,which makes“家书”far from the prototypical“家书”.“家书”has the feature of microblog and a decategorization trend has occurred from“家书”to“微家书”.In the second place, based on the DMC framework and the data collected, the phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of “Wei X” construction are analyzed in detail. The findings are as follows.(1)At the phonological level, “X” in “Wei X” construction can be monosyllable,disyllable, trisyllable and quadrisyllabl with “X” being disyllable accounting for the largest proportion of 85.2%, which shows the fact that disyllable construction takes the superiority role in Chinese.(2)At the syntactic level, “X” in “Wei X” construction can be nouns, verbs,adjectives and multi-category words, with “X” being nouns making up the largest proportion of 54.8%. “X” has coercion effect on “Wei”, which makes the non-adjective structure that “Wei” derives in “Wei X” has the property of an adjective.In turn, “Wei” exerts its coercion effect on “X” as well, which makes “X” has the property of nouns(when “X” are not nouns). “Wei X” can act as subject or object in sentences.(3)At the semantic level, “Wei” and “X” shows the interaction of bidirectional coercion, which plays a key role in shaping the meaning of “Wei X” construction.Under the metaphorical or metaphtonymic coercion of “X”, “Wei”(the basic meaning being fine and subtle) develops into four kinds of extended meanings:1 small in space(8.1%), short in time(6.3%);2 a small amount of money( 3.0%), small in number(7.8%);3 light in degree(7.4%);4 We Media(microblog(41.5%) and other kinds of We Media(25.9%)).From the basic meaning to its extended meaning, a semantic radiation circle has formed with the basic meaning of “Wei” as the centre. The metaphorical or metaphtonymic meaning that “Wei” obtains exerts its lexical coercion effect on “X”in turn, which makes “X” undergo a trend toward decategorization.(4) At the pragmatic level, “Wei X” displays the features of economy, cultural implication, richness and fashionability, reflecting the fact that in the era of We Media,a life pattern that is short, light and quick is widely pursued.