An Anatomy of Chinese Offensive Words: A Lexical and Semantic Analysis

Description

This book offers a precise and rigorous analysis of the meanings of offensive words in Chinese. Adopting a semantic and cultural approach, the authors demonstrate how offensive words can and should be systematically researched, documented and accounted for as a valid aspect of any language. The book will be of interest to academics, practitioners and students of sociolinguistics, language and culture, linguistic taboo, Chinese studies and Chinese linguistics. Foreword Preface Contents About the Authors List of Figures List of Tables 1: What Is All the Fuss About? References 2: An Anatomy of the Chinese Offensive Lexicon 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The Offensive Lexicon 2.3 Profiling Offensive Words Semantically 2.4 Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) 2.5 Dissecting Offensive Words in Chinese 2.6 Recent Research on Chinese Offensive Words (in Chinese) 2.7 Some Semantic Properties of Chinese Offensive Words 2.8 Chinese Scolding Predicates References 3: Collecting and Categorizing Offensive Words in Chinese 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Taking Offence 3.3 Causing Offence 3.4 Cross-linguistic and Cross-cultural Differences 3.5 Researching and Categorizing Chinese Offensive Words 3.5.1 Heaven and Hell 3.5.2 Ghosts and Spirits 3.5.3 Life and Death 3.5.4 Disabilities 3.5.5 Emotional States and Actions 3.5.6 Personal Qualities or Attributes 3.5.7 Dirtiness and Bodily Discharge 3.5.8 Animals 3.5.9 Ancestors and Other Family Members, Hierarchical Status and Lowly Professions 3.5.10 Social Interaction 3.5.11 Newly Emergent Items 3.5.12 Offensive Phrasal Verbs References 4: Four Representative Offensive Items from the Chinese Lexicon 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Jiàn 賤 4.3 Búyào liǎn 不要臉 4.4 Cào/Gàn 操/幹 4.5 Wáng bā/wáng bā dàn 王八/王八蛋 4.6 Conclusion References 5: Offensive Words in Chinese Dialects 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Chinese Dialects and Varieties 5.3 Non-standard Beijing Mandarin 5.4 Cantonese 5.5 Hokkien (Taiwan) 5.6 Hokkien (Singapore) 5.7 Offensive Words Related to Someone’s Heedlessness 5.8 Offensive Words Related to Foreigners 5.9 Offensive Words Related to an Untimely and Uncomfortable Death 5.10 Offensive Words to do with the Demise of the Whole Family 5.11 I-statement Exclamations as Offensive Words 5.11.1 Wa kào 哇靠 (or wo kāo 我尻) 5.11.2 Wa sāi 哇塞 5.11.3 Wa lau 我老 (or 哇老) 5.12 Conclusion References 6: Offensive Words in Chinese Cyberspace 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Public Versus Private Cyberspace 6.3 Policies and Laws Regarding Offensive Language Use Online 6.4 Zhā nán 渣 6.5 Làn rén 爛人 6.6 Conclusion References 7: Offensive Language and First Language Acquisition of Chinese 7.1 Introduction 7.2 The Use of Offensive Language by Children 7.3 Existing Research on Offensive Words Used by Chinese-Speaking Children 7.4 CHILDES Corpus of Mandarin Child Language 7.5 Huài 坏 7.6 Sı̌ 死 7.7 Bèn 笨 7.8 Chòu 臭 7.9 Pì 屁 7.10 Conclusion References 8: Offensive Language and Sociocultural Homogeneity in Singapore: An Ethnolinguistic Perspective 8.1 Introduction 8.2 The Functional and Cultural Reasons Behind Offensive Language 8.3 A Brief Look at Singapore Language and Culture 8.4 Data Collection 8.5 Data Analysis 8.5.1 Kaopeh Kaobu (Lit. ‘cry father, cry mother’) 8.5.2 Cheebye 膣屄 (Lit. ‘cunt’) 8.5.3 Lanjiao/Lancheow 卵鸟 (Lit. ‘bird with eggs’) 8.5.4 Lampah/Lanpah/Lumpah 卵葩 8.6 Concluding Remarks References 9: So, What Was All the Fuss About? References Appendix A: Inventory of Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) Semantic Primes Appendix B: List of Chinese Offensive Words Index