安徽工业大学英语
词汇学论文
Language and social culture interaction: a case study of “x-gate” words
专 业 英语083
姓 名 陈婧 学 号 089134074
Contents
Abstract…………………………………………………….………………………..1 1 Introduction………………… ……………………….……………………………1 2 The origin of the “X-gate” words………………….………………………………2 3 The derivation mechanism of “X-gate” words…………….……………………3 4 conclusion …………………………………………………………………………3 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………4
Language and social culture interaction: a case study of “x-gate” words
Abstract: From the historical development of language we see that any language reflects the culture of a society in a particular period. Therefore language is a mirror reflecting the culture of a society. Since the world-shaking "Watergate Scandal", the "X-gate" words have become a new powerful word group in cyber space by the spread of the Internet. Through the exploitation of the origin and meaning of the word of "gate", the derivation mechanism and the social and cultural psychology reflected by the "X-gate" words are discussed.
Key words :language , “x-gate” suffix, social culture
摘要：从语言的历史发展来看任何语言都反映了某特定时期的社会文化。自从震惊世界的“水门事件”以来，“门族”新词借着互联网的传播优势，成为又一颇具影响力的网络新词。在探求门源及门义的过程中我们可以得知门族网络新词的衍生机制和所反映的社会心理。
关键词：语言，“门”族新词，社会文化
1 Introduction
It has been long recognized that language is an essential and important part of a given culture and that the impact of culture is something intrinsic and indispensible. Language is an indispensible carrier of culture. Culture finds a better representation through language use. Since the world-shaking "Watergate Scandal", the "X-gate" words have become a new powerful word group in cyber space by the spread of the Internet. Now we are going to have a case study of the “x-gate” words to explore the the derivation mechanism of the “x-gate” words.
2 The origin of the “X-gate” words
Language is closely linked to our social relationships and is the medium through which we participate in a variety of social activities .From the historical development of language we see that any language reflects the culture of a society in a particular period. Therefore language is a mirror reflecting the culture of a society. We can not find any modern words, such as television , moonman ,minibus ,etc. in old English. This proves that language changes with the development of a society. With the development of Internet and other kind of media, a large number of new words have come into language. For example the words with the suffix “-gate”. Since the world-shaking "Watergate Scandal", the "X-gate" words have become a new powerful word group in cyber space by the spread of the Internet. Through the exploitation of the origin and meaning of the word of "gate", the derivation mechanism and the social and cultural psychology reflected by the "X-gate" words are discussed.
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C. Effects of the scandal ultimately led to the resignation of the President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Shortly after the incident ,the word “gate” has evolved into a new English root which means “scandal” from its original meaning “door”. For the next thirty years, people have created many words with the suffix “gate” to refer to great incidents, such as “Iran
gate" "file gate" "zipper gate" "intelligence gate" and so on.
3 The derivation mechanism of “X-gate” words
Now ,the words with the suffix “-gate” not only refer to the political scandal but also refer to other kind of incidents. So now let us look at the derivation mechanism. First ,we look at the framework principles. In order to understand the meaning of a word , there should exits a concept framework. Since the “Watergate” has great influence on Amercian society, people are quite familiar with it. And there builds a concept framework between “-gate” and scandal. So it will be quite easy for them to Economic mechanisms. Since not all the big events are not the same in essence, so people need new words to describe events which are not related with political. In order to describe events clearly and specificly people borrow the “x-gate” structure to creat new words such as “Iran gate" "file gate" "zipper gate" "intelligence gate". Then the last we have to discuss is the media mechanism. The media has a great influence in the creating of “-gate” words which can not be ignored. With the help of the Internet and other kind of media ,a large number of people have known the “Watergate” scandal and started to use the “x-gate” words. And it seems to be a fad to use it. So the media really has a great impact on pushing forward the creating and using of the “x-gate” words.
4 Conclusion
Through the exploitation of the origin and meaning of the word of "gate", we can come to an undoubted conclusion that the society is certain to have an influence on language and the language is the mirror reflecting the culture of a society. We can also see that language is directly connected with man’s productive activity. It grows and develops with the growth and development of the society.
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