Date of Award

7-1-2023

Thesis Type

masters

Document Type

Thesis (Restricted Access)

Divisions

language

Department

Department of Asian and European Languages

Institution

Universiti Malaya

Abstract

All the languages in the world are the necessary tools for people's activities in their language community, and these languages constantly update themselves with the changes of the world or the development of the society in which they live, while COVID-19, as the first major health and safety event in history, has further promoted the speed of language changes in all aspects, especially vocabulary. China, as the first country widely affected by the novel COVID-19, has witnessed many events and discoveries related to the virus have occurred, which has brought a lot of neologisms to the Chinese vocabulary system, and at the same time, from a deep perspective, it may even affect the operation rule of the Chinese vocabulary system in the process of creating neologisms. Therefore, this study collected 90 Chinese neologisms from 2018 to 2020, and through the analysis of the word-formation of Chinese neologisms, tried to understand the influence of COVID-19 on the word-formation distribution of Chinese neologisms, and revealed the changes brought by this virus to every word-formation type in Chinese neologisms by a mixed research method. Meanwhile, in this research process, the meanings of some new Chinese words and the events behind them will be revealed. As for research significance, the research results will provide some inspiration for the study of the connection between some major events and language changes, and it is also expected to give some support to educators and learners in Chinese teaching and Chinese learning under the background of COVID-19.

Note

Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, 2023.

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