A Study on Meaning Broadening of Network Popular Words as “Tuhao”from Folk Etymology

楊墨馨?王丹

【Abstract】The thesis chooses “Tuhao” “Baobao” and “Xianrou” as objects of study， employing folk etymology to make a fundamental description of meaning broadening process， which found that folk etymology show arbitrariness based on conventions in broadening meaning and inject infinite creative force into our language.

【Key Words】network popular words； meaning broadening； folk etymology； trends

【作者簡介】楊墨馨（1992-），女，山東臨沂人，東北林業(yè)大學(xué)外國語學(xué)院英語語言文學(xué)碩士研究生，研究方向：語用學(xué)，認(rèn)知語言學(xué)；王丹（1967-），女，黑龍江哈爾濱人，東北林業(yè)大學(xué)外國語學(xué)院教授，碩士生導(dǎo)師，研究方向：語用學(xué)，認(rèn)知語言學(xué)。

1. Introduction

The last three decades has witnessed the fast development of many network popular words. A category of them are old words which experienced meaning broadening in varying degree acorss time. “Tuhao” has derogatory sense known as local tyrants and evil gentry originally. Now， it gains commendatory meaning reflecting the changes in peoples social and psychological states.“Tyrant we be friends”“Golden”are famous all over the world. “Baobao” “Xianrou” broaden their meaning in the same way.

2. Folk Etymology

It is due to the popular use of meaning or other part of a word accepted by folks. People know the real etymology of words， but intend to create another different etymology or distort the original fact which is in order to express their own ideas or to achieve some linguistic purposes. It shows the purposeful choice of linguistic units of language speakers.

For instance， an English word sparrow-grass， which is borrowed from French， has its etymology form as asparagus. It means Luwei in Chinese. Later， its phonological form changes into sparagus because of the popular use. Afterwards， people find that its phonological form is very similar with the words sparrow and grass that people frequently use in daily life. Thus， they tend to replace the monosyllable word sparagus with disyllable word sparrow-grass. Then people always cannot stop associating new meanings， judging its etymology and guessing its derivation relations by observing its new form which has undergone phonological and orthographical changes. Thus， folks usually think that the etymology of it is related to sparrow （Maque） and grass （Cao）. And the sparrow-grass （Maquecao） is the one they get by the means of folk etymology （Fan， 1992）.

3. The Original Meaning for Words as “Tuhao”

“Tuhao” appeared in the Northern and Southern dynasties history of Wei Jin at the earliest， which referred to the local rich and powerful family or individuals. Such as the usages in Book of Qi （Ding，2014）：“Bainian，born in Zitong，moved into Huayang，served as Tuhao，and had a good reputation.” Book of Northern Qi （Ding，2014）：“Give orders to send Tujue Horses to Yangzhou， which in order to supply and sale for Tuhao .”“Tuhao” meant some people who were financially successfully， took the dimensions of field， had religious forces to support them， and were very powerful in local areas. It stressed the cadastral attribute and reflected the structure of administration of local governments in traditional society（Cheng， Han，2014）. The managing order was usually held by local tyrants， which contended to some extent against the authority of nation.

Besides， it was also used to refer to persons who were leaders of an area or region. Usually， the leaders had a high prestige with local people and were courageous and skillful in battles. In Comprehensive Mirror to Aid in Government （Ding，2014） ：“At first， Tuhao Yang Xin from a famous and stately family served as feudal provincial under the orders of Zhou Dynasty， and his son Yang Zhongxun succeed to the position after his death.”“Tuhao” referred to a rich and powerful person who resided in borderlands in his lifetime， like the ancestor of Generals of Yang family called Yang Xin. He was a local heroic man who was very brave and adept at riding， shooting and battles. “Tuhao” in this period was a neutral word in biased-positive formation without distinct negative emotional color（Cai， 2015）.

However， the reputation of “Tuhao” had been more and more notorious with social development. According to History of Southern Dynasties·Weiding （Yu &Sun;，2014）：“Tuhao live in states， they are well-dressed， but do things against the law， usually are thieves.” During the late Qing dynasty， “Tuhao” became an absolute derogatory word. It referred to the people who was heartless rich and victimized the village people. In addition， it was endowed with relatively settled political negative meaning after Land Reformation （Ding， 2014）. Thus， nobody will call himself or others “Tuhao”， the word disappeared from publics views gradually.

“Baobao” meant very young children（birth to one year）， referred to those babies who cannot yet walk or talk（Tu， 2016）. “Xianrou” only meant fresh meat originally. They all obtained new meaning through folk etymology.

4. The Folk Etymology of Network Popular Words as “Tuhao”

All of a sudden， many network popular words like “Tuhao” “Baobao” “Xianrou” that drowned out in historical times come back strongly in the most powerful Internet Culture Creater Microblog. It is reported that “Tuhao” “Baobao” “Xianrou” are on the top candidate of any selecting activities about network hot words held by any institution in China. Furthermore， they have been popular overseas. “Tuhao” is listed in a special column and published in New York Times. British Broadcasting Company also makes a special program to introduce the usage of “Tuhao” （Yu， 2014）.

At first， netizen use the word “Tuhao” to describe someone who has blind consumptions in online games. They usually are willing to spend a lot on buying game currency， game coupon and game equipment. At this point， “Tuhao” in most cases implies the power of consumption. Until Sept.2013， there is an episode going like this： In tyrants country，a young man asks the Buddhist monk：“master，I am very rich now，but not happy at all.”Master replies “what is the meaning of rich？” The young man answers：“there are eight-digit number in my bank card，three sets of houses at Wudaokou. Is it rich？”The master gives a hand without speaking. The young man is suddenly enlightened and asks：“Do you mean that I need to learn to be grateful？”The master returns：“No， tyrant， could we be friends？”Then， the sentence “Tuhao， lets make friends” is in the limelight and spread all over the world. So far，people is crazy about the episode connected to “Tuhao”. “Tuhao” stages a comeback successfully once again. The public are even divided into three parts by netizen： “the group of Tuhao”， “group of people who has friend from group of Tuhao” and “group of the poor”.

Also， netizen create the new meaning of “Baobao”. They enlarge the scope of describing objects of “Baobao”. It is no longer a privilege for babies， but also used to refer to the youth.The essence of folk etymology is that netizen overturn the traditional formal structure and usage of words， making the purposeful choice of lexical meaning of linguistic units to achieve their illocutionary acts. The Oxford Dictionary has taken “Tuhao” into consideration， who plan to add a new item for “Tuhao” in their new edition of dictionary（Jiao，2014）.

5. Conclusion

In the dynamic platform of Internet， network popular words spring up like mushrooms after rain. The words as“Tuhao” experience meaning widening in terms of folk etymology.It seems that folk etymology is accidental or coincidental in terms of its generating and progressing. But， the occasionality includes inevitable trends in terms of process of lexical and phonological development （Fan， 1992） It is not ridiculous and preposterous phenomenon， but contains abundant and ample contents about meaning broadening which displays a positive trends of language advancing， which largely meets the needs of lexical development.

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