Lexical coinages in Mandarin Chinese and the problem of classification

Authors

  • Angela Elizabeth Cook Griffith University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v9i2.141

Keywords:

neologisms, lexical change, language change, Mandarin, Chinese

Abstract

Many linguists have tried to classify Chinese lexical coinages before. However, previous researchers have often focussed only on a small subset of all such neologisms. Even where an attempt has been made to present an overview of lexical change in Mandarin Chinese, the resulting system of categorisation has frequently been incomplete, internally inconsistent or poorly structured. This has frustrated the efforts of linguists to draw any meaningful comparisons between lexical change in Mandarin Chinese and other languages. This paper represents a fresh attempt to present an overarching classification of the assortment of new expressions that have been coined in written and spoken Mandarin over the past three decades. Careful crosslinguistic comparison reveals that native speakers of English and Mandarin employ a similar number of distinct strategies to coin new words; however, owing to various phonological, morphological, orthographic and other factors, the precise range of options available to speakers of the two languages is somewhat different. Overall, this paper presents a picture of Mandarin Chinese speakers as cultivating an innovative and playful approach to their use of language. An unexpected secondary finding is that there are indications that the Chinese writing system may be in the initial stages of tentative development from a morphologographic to a phonetic writing system.

Author Biography

  • Angela Elizabeth Cook, Griffith University

    Angela Cook is based at Griffith University, where she recently submitted her PhD thesis entitled ‘A linguistic analysis of selected morpho-syntactic features of spoken Mandarin’. 2011 and 2012 saw the publication of two academic journal articles: ‘Recent developments in the use of the plural marker men in Modern Standard Chinese in Taiwan’, which appeared in Chinese Language and Discourse, and subsequently ‘Why should men break all the rules? A new approach to the analysis of the plural marker men in Mandarin Chinese’, in Linguistics and the Human Sciences. Angela completed her master’s thesis entitled ‘Neueste Einflüsse des Englischen auf das Hochchinesische in taiwanischen Unterhaltungsshows’ (‘Recent influences of English on Modern Standard Chinese in Taiwanese variety shows’) at Tübingen University in Germany in 2004. She has NAATI translating and interpreting qualifications, as well as a diploma in translation (German ↔ Chinese) from the Munich Institute of Languages and Interpreting. Angela has spent much of her adult life living, travelling, studying and working abroad, mostly in mainland China, Taiwan and Germany. She now lives in Brisbane with her husband and two young children. In her spare time she plays bassoon in Brisbane Symphony Orchestra.

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Published

2014-04-18

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Cook, A. (2014). Lexical coinages in Mandarin Chinese and the problem of classification. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 9(2), 141-175. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.v9i2.141