Language Change and Morphological Processes in Contemporary Chinese: The Case of 健康码 (Health QR Code)

Abstract

The Chinese language has witnessed remarkable changes in the past several decades, marked by a rapid rise of new words, frequent innovation of pseudo-affixes, and a notable increase in word length. By analyzing the creation, spread, and expansion of the new word 健康码 Jiankang-ma “health QR code”, this study sheds light on how language change takes place and how nonce formation is brought into being. Following the explosion of COVID-19 in China, 健康码 Jiankang-ma “health QR code” was created and promoted by the local and central governments and subsequently generated a large XX-码 XX-ma “XX-code” word family through various morphological processes, such as abbreviation, clipping, derivation, and analogy, where -码 -ma “-code” has acquired some new meaning distinct from its original form as a bound root. Linguistically, 健康码 Jiankang-ma “health QR code” is a three-morpheme word in a 2 + 1 length pattern, which phonologically consists of a single super foot that makes the expression catchy and appealing. The highly productive AB-C internal structure makes -码 -ma “-code”, although not yet a fully grammaticalized affix, a strong pseudo-suffix that has high morphological productivity with a fixed suffix positioning. Given the high frequency of the lexical 码 ma “code” in contemporary Chinese language use, the pseudo-suffix -码 -ma “-code” may, however, not completely replace it in the long run, as principles of grammaticalization theories predict. Instead, it is likely that both the lexical 码ma “code” and the pseudo-suffix -码 -ma “-code” will coexist side by side along split pathways.

Computing psycholinguistic analysis by examining topic modelling and sentiment analysis during COVID-19: changes in wording and emotions for public health

“…It also had an impact on the speech and concepts developed by the local populations in their role as receptive speakers. These linguistic changes are prone to be maintained in the post-pandemic period as a result of the extended self-isolation and limited language use during the period of the health emergency [1,2] (Lwin et al, 2020; Xiao & Ren, 2023). On the one hand, language processing deficits and disturbances in oral production were observed in young children during the pedagogical and development process of learning to read and write, between 2020 and 2022.…”