Chinese Lettered Words: Barbarism or Assimilated Borrowing?

Abstract

Since the beginning of the period of reforms and openness, which began in the 1980s, intensified the process of the natural evolution of oral and written Chinese language. Active international contacts inevitably led to changes in the Chinese language itself, it started to appear neologisms and foreign borrowings. One of these linguistic phenomena are the lettered words, which history in China has been recited for more than 100 years. Their number is constantly growing, analyzing the “Dictionary of Modern Chinese Language” (现代汉语词典), it is possible to admit the following dynamics: 1996 — 39 words, 2002 — 142 words, 2005 — 182 words, 2012 — 239 words and so on. Investigating the historiography of the issue, the authors of the article concluded that mainly Chinese researchers, for example, Liu Yongquan, Shen Mengyin, Li Xiaohua, Yu Fulin, Dong Min, Zou Yuhua, Zhang Yichun and others, were engaged in the research of the lettered words. This topic became popular in China at the beginning 2000s. Existing studies of Western and Russian scientists are mostly descriptive in nature and do not analyze the causes of the appearance and formation of lettered words. This article is devoted to the evolution of the definition of lettered words, the reasons for appearance and analysis of the characteristics of their use by native speakers in oral and written communication. The authors conducted a survey in Chinese in electronic form for native Chinese speakers living both in the territory of the PRC and abroad, dedicated to lettered words and their use. The survey results showed an interesting fact: 30,4 % of respondents deny the use of lettered words in oral speech, but when choosing between a lettered word and the Chinese equivalent, the number of those who chose the Chinese equivalent was less than 30 %. The survey data helped to find out the main motives for the use of alphabetic words by modern Chinese speakers: saving time, desire to give their speech a more professional tone, foreign language practice, the lack of a suitable equivalent in Chinese, a desire to follow fashion trends, the use of alphabetic words as euphemisms.