Markedness Features of Online Chatters’English Nicknames

Deng+Haiying

【Abstract】With the development of internet,the use of chat rooms is one of the most popular cyber communicative activities. As a commnication window, Cyber nicknames are very pivotal to find desirable chatting partners from such a huge populaiton. This paper takes on chatters English cyber nicknames as the main object of study, investigating markedness features and communicative meaning of English cyber nicknames from the perspective of markedness theory.

【Key words】cyber nicknamescyber communicationmarkedness formal markingsemantic marking

1. Introduction

Computerization of society is the hardware basis of cyber nickname production and the forming of internet is the soil to nurture cyber communication., Nowadays, there are millions of people chatting online, and it is very hard to find disirable chatting partners from such a huge population.In English chat room, for example, every chatter has relatively high educational degree. Every one enters the chat room with different purposes, which are more or less implied by nicknames. Therefore, online chatters need to market themsleves to elicit interaction. A widely adpoted self-marketing strategy by online chatters is to create a personal profile that contains a set of dedsirable properties. Usually, online chatting services allow chatters to post their nicknames, avatars, personal ads, and other information on the Web, all of which constitute chatters profiles. Although it is not a formal advertising coampaign, chatters do attempt to present themselves in a manner that best attracts desirable others in their profiles( Li, 2007: 131). This paper only investigates chatters English cyber nicknames. Cyber nicknames derived from BBS, which was born in America in 1970s and has gradually developed in China in the middle of 1990s (Wu, Zhao, 2013: 93).Especially in the English chat room, netizens regard English nicknames as signs of their respective identity and a window of cyber communication. The main objective of this study is to investigate features of English cyber nicknames and communicative significance from the perspective of markedness theory. Markedness theory has been used to discuss language different levels, such as, grammar, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, etc.. while nicknames as signs are seldom discussed from the perspective of markedness.

2. The brief introduction of markedness theory

Markedness is an important concept in linguistics and used to analyze different language levels. In 1921, Jakobson first proposed the oppositional relation of markedness. The terms marked/unmarked was introduced and applied by Niklai Trubetzkoy, representative of the Plague School, in 1931. Trubetzkoy conception of markedness was strictly applied to phonology. For example, /p/, /b/ in phonemes, the former is unmarked, while the latter is marked.Later on, in some of his major works and studies in morphology and semantics, Jakobson combined the principle of general meaning with semantic features, defining them in terms of the marked/ unmarked relationship. ( Jiang, 2003: 1).

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However, American socio-linguist, Scottons markedness theory has a strong influence on the socio-linguistics. He put forward the marked model of the variants of code-explaining choices. He thought that participants in conversation explained all the phenomena of code-choosing by markedness. That is, they judge code-choosing unmarked or marked according to the rules of speech community. (Wang, 2004:448). As we all know, in the virtual cyber community, there is a relatively free and relaxing communicative environment, so their cyber nicknames as the beginning of cyber communication naturally obey a free and relaxing communicative environment. Therefore, during the process of choosing nicknames, most of the netizens endowed cyber names with special meaning to express their feeling, thought, social psychology, aesthetic preference or sense of humor. Such as “321man123”, “classic beauty”, “freeheart”, “aviator”, “honest man”, “$$$$”, “Whynotgoon”,“I am who am I”, and so on. This study classified Nicknames by formal marking and semantic marking put forward by Lyons. Formal marking describes and analyzes language constituents by whether they have some certain outer features or marking; e.g. in the real English environment, comparative degree, “l(fā)arger and bigger” superlative degree “l(fā)argest, biggest”etc.; in the virtual English world, cyber nicknames: “321man123”; semantic marking defines mark/unmarked by semantic features. A marked word usually has more specific meaning. (Wang 2004:431). For example, young and old are specific and general relationship. We can say “ How old are you?”, but “How young are you?” is not reasonable. Old is unmarked and young is marked with more specific meaning than old.

3. Clarification of nickname markedness

Cyber nickname is a virtual coda disgusting netizens real identity. There are two important features: one is “vague information, low resolution.” The other is “rich forms, free contents.” if you want to draw others attention in the cyber space, your nickname must be creative. Therefore, cyber nickname is an innovative and colorful part with a little fantasy, inanition, even nastiness. For example, “Top Chat” and “Big-bad-Egg” are both Chinglish expression but showing humorous sense.

Cyber communication is invisible, so cyber nickname is the pivotal element to show netizens creativeness. In the cyber world, there are many common features, one of which is diversified nicknames. According to analyzingonover 100 nicknames in bliao English chat room, number affixes account for 13%; place affixes 8%; compounds 24%;descriptive nicknames 32%; fauna and flora, color, personality and name, and physical features 23%. The clarification is as follows:

A. formal markedness

1)English word+number

In these nicknames, some numbers express special meaning or show age information, such as, Lucy23, man35. Generally speaking, in the English communicative environment, though some persons intend to improve their English level, they still hope to communicative with the same age group so that they have more topics in common. Therefore they add the age as special marks. Not all the numbers have special meaning only as signs, such as, moon141890, nancy07.

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2) nickname+place

These nicknames reflect geography view of some chatters. For example, USA-MAN and Man in Boston are both Chinese persons in USA. by communicating with them the author heard that they prefer to chat with Chinese people in Chinas English chat room rather than communicate with speaking-English foreigners. Because they feel Chinese human touch in this chat room. Like Man43bj and Chen in Guangzhou are another kind of geography markedness feature. These persons look for their own social net in the virtual cyber world so that they can get the purpose to relax themselves and improve English level.

3) compounds

TopGun, Hellomorning, Man-home, MaleTalker, Eastwind, etc.,these nicknames have no fixed compounding rules and are completely created according to netizens preference. Its incredible for common people to see these free compounds, but for special netizen, they are symbols of their identity. They are not common phrases but signs symbolizing netizens.

B. semantic markedness

Most of Nicknames with semantic markedness are descriptive. For example, “l(fā)onelyman.sh” reflects a mans mental state from Shanghai;“if I could” symbolizes a person who wants to do some certain things; Oceanman may imply a netizens career. If we understand these words in the real language context, they are only some descriptive phrases, but in the virtual cyber room, they act as signs standing for identity of netizen, meanwhile netizens add special markedness meaning to nicknames.

5. Conclusion

Behind the production of cyber nickname markedness, there are deep social and psychological reasons. Every cyber nickname is netizens own choice to embody different understanding and expectation in different aspects, so its meaning is deep and multilevel. Its natural that this endow nickname markedness different from real signs. In the chat room, netizens are also seldom limited on a certain fixed role, but role consciousness is very stronger. while choices of nicknames just embody netizens social consciousness. Therefore, choosing a nickname they will endow nicknames some certain markedness to act as a role that they like. If a nickname is new and strange, it will easily attract others eyesight. Though it only symbolizes virtual persons in the cyber world, it still plays a key role in the process of communication. Whether from the perspective of psychology or aesthetic appreciation, these creative and strange nicknames are endowed with special markedness.

Reference：

[1]Cong Li, Rapid Communication Online ChattersSelf-Marketing in Cyberspace

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[3]Jiang Hezhou.Markedness of Personal Gender Nounsin English and Chinese: A Contrastive Study. Master Dissertation, Shanghai Maritime University. 2003, 1

[4]Wang Mingyu. Language Semantics. Beijing: Higher Education Press.2004,

[5]Wu Quanhui, Zhao Yingfang. the Value of Subconscious Desire Reflected by Cyber Nicknames in Students' Psychological Health Education. Journal of Zaozhuang University: vol. 30 No. 4, Aug, 2013.

[6]Xin Bin, Zhang Xuemei. Characteristics of the English Variety of Internet Language. CAFLE. 2006,2

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