摘 要
英语缩略词在我们的日常生活中扮演着十分重要的角色。通过总结前人对英语缩略语的研究以及作者自己的探索，本文着重介绍英语缩略词的四大语用功能以及英语缩略词对汉语的全方位渗透及其在汉语中的误用和滥用,目的是使读者意识到,处理好英语缩略词的借用并纯洁我们本民族的语言。
关键词：英语缩略词；语用功能；汉语；渗透
II
吉林建筑大学外国语学院毕业论文 I. INTRODUCTION
The English abbreviation is a common linguistic phenomenon and it is one of the important areas of linguistic research. And in Chinese has also aroused more and more attention in China and has been the hot topic in the research area of language contact. It appears a large number of abbreviations in the English vocabulary in lately 20 years. With the development of economy, the leap of science and technology and the change of social life, quick and concise language are necessary for our daily life. As to achieve saving time, improving work efficiency, using acronyms to replace the original word is relatively common, and it is very necessary. The use of abbreviations is focused and save space, so that the limited space contains a large amount of information, thus disseminating the information effectively. So the study of abbreviation is very meaningful and necessary.
Many scholars studied English abbreviation in the past few years, and they got some search findings. Some of the references studied on English abbreviation and its development. Wang rongpei think that abbreviation is syllable of the word to be omitted or simplified to produce words. According to the searching by Saussure, an acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as WAC for Women’s Army Corps, or by combining initial letters or parts of a series of words, such as radar for radio detecting and ranging. Xie advocated that the constitution of the English abbreviation include: Acronym, Clipping, and Blending. Yu Fulin indicated before the 1940s, the number of English abbreviation only a little, but with the birth of the first all-electronic digital computer English abbreviation increases.
There are some researches on function of English abbreviation and its influence. Shen interprets from three aspects the expressible function of abbreviations: simplicity, fashion, vivid. Wang Lu and Wang Peng observed some pragmatic functions about the phenomenon: concise, vivid, descriptive, rhetoric and extensive in usage. These characteristics of acronyms in Chinese are also agreed with by Lin Qing and Yang Feng. We can see that making discourse concise, novel and euphemistic is pragmatic function of acronyms unanimously recognized by many researchers.
And some other references research on their infiltration on Chinese. Saussure put forward English abbreviation is a mirror of west social language development. Chen Xiaoning mentioned “the infiltration of English abbreviation on Chinese everywhere, for example SARS, e-mail, ATM.” In order to make full use of English abbreviations and enrich our Chinese, in the article Pragmatic Advantages of Acronyms in Chinese Magazines. Lin Qing points out that English abbreviation used in newspaper and magazine widely, just like CEO.
1
吉林建筑大学外国语学院毕业论文 But these results of the searching have limitation. It is only the part of the English abbreviation. As all these references are stated above, the writer introduces the four main pragmatic functions of English abbreviation including: Succinctness, Eye-catching, Highly descriptive and Rhetorical function. Also, on the basis of these references, the author summarized the infiltration of English abbreviation on Chinese divided four types: Pure English abbreviation type, Transliteration in English abbreviation type, Chinese and English mixed abbreviation type, Pure Pinyin abbreviated type.
2
吉林建筑大学外国语学院毕业论文 II. LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, writer will introduce the origin of English abbreviations and the constitution of English abbreviation. These are basics of the English abbreviations.
2.1 The Origin of the English Abbreviations
Abbreviated words appeared early in the ancient Greek, and at that time, they
were often used on coins, bandages and steles. But it is in recent years that the abbreviated words developed and accumulated. Acronyms in English firstly appeared in 1943 and later increased at such an amazingly high speed that only in the short space of the years from 1943 to 1965, more than 45,000,000 new abbreviated words emerged. In 1972, E.T. Crowley and his collaborators compiled “Acronyms and Initializes Dictionary” This dictionary has a total collection of 80,000 abbreviated words, and soon added up to 120,000 words. At present, the largest collection of abbreviation came up to 260,000words. Before the 1940s, the number of English abbreviation only a little, but with the birth of the first all-electronic digital computer at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States, English abbreviation increases[1]. Abbreviation is a common linguistic phenomenon in the world today. But the abbreviation of English is in a marginal position in foreign country for a long time, which is not commensurate with the rapid development of the abbreviations. In the late twentieth century, western scholars began to use cognitive linguistics, computer linguistics and psychological linguistics on the English abbreviations in-depth study, and prove the abbreviation to the value of linguistics research.Especially in recent 20 years is the fastest 20 years of English abbreviation growing. The main causes of English contractions are the following:
2.1.1 The Objective World Factors
With the fast development of national economies, the rapid progress of science and technology, and the rapid changes in the social life, all require fast, simple language to reflect the complexity of new things and social phenomena. Abbreviation appears more and more in all areas of human life, because abbreviations can be used less information and space to express the original meaning of the words. Social development, especially the rapid development of science and technology on the widespread application of abbreviations has been the extremely vital role.
3
吉林建筑大学外国语学院毕业论文 2.1.2 The Subjective World Factors
With psychology of people who ask briefness, Anderson, Cognitive psychologist, thinks information processing ability of people is limited. In order to effectively deal with complex communication, people need to have some abilities to show the subject initiative, such as, summary and simplification of the information, organization of the strategy. The communication of modern social information are more and more frequent, so that this requires more and more economic information carrier which can use the most succinct information symbol transfer as much information as possible. The rich meaning of letters abbreviation just meet the people’s need for briefness psychology.
With people’s new psychological and the arrival of the economic society, in order to adapt yourself to the competitive society, people began to consciously care what happened around the world and to absorb new information initiatively. English abbreviations represent new things, new honored, new information of letters abbreviations, such as PK (play kill, against / challenge), ATM (automatic teller machine, automatic teller machines), etc. It is easy to be accepted and used by people.
2.1.3 Language World Factors
Various elements in the language, vocabulary is the most volatile factor in the language, which is liquid rather than solid. The development of modern English vocabulary, on the one hand, is a big increase in the number of new words, on the other hand is increasingly cohesive simplified. The French linguists A.Martinet had also proposed “language economic” principle. He points out that the communication and expressions are always in the dynamic changing, and more, newer, more characteristics of the language units will emerge. But as the people whose performances show inertia in all aspects of daily life, it requires us to minimize consumption in speech, and use the abbreviation with the habits we familiar and a small amount of language unit.
2.2 The Constitution of the English Abbreviations
English is alphabetic writing and its abbreviation is mainly composed by letters, so there is to study the structure mode of modern English abbreviations.
4