Neologism-formation Methods

Abstract

With the development of society, the language system has always maintained the characteristics of dynamic evolution. With the deepening of reform and opening up and the acceleration of globalization, new things and new technologies are constantly emerging, which promotes the continuous updating of modern Chinese vocabulary system. In recent years, neologisms have shown an explosive growth trend, and their spread speed and influence range have reached an unprecedented level.

Based on Modern Chinese and internet vocabulary database, this study systematically investigates the neologism-formation methods by combining quantitative and qualitative research methods. On the basis of integrating the previous research results, through the analysis of empirical corpus, three core neologism-formation methods are summarized: (1) Syntactic combination methods; (2) Morpheme compound methods; (3) Abbreviated methods. It is found that these neologism-formation methods not only reflect the inherent laws of Chinese vocabulary system, but also reflect the cognitive innovation of language users. It is hoped that this study can contribute to further standardization in the methodology of neologism-formation.