A Study of Chinese Internet Homophones from the Systemic Functional Perspective by Qian Tang A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of East Asian Studies University of Alberta © Qian Tang, 2014 Abstract This thesis explores the phonetic features, morphological classification, and discourse function of Chinese Internet homophones based on the Leiden Weibo Corpus (a corpus of Chinese micro- blogging). The analyses show that more than half of the Chinese Internet homophones in the data retain the same pronunciation as their base words, while the rest differ in initials, finals, or tones. Based on their morphological structure, Chinese Internet homophones are categorized into Chinese character homophones, alphabet homophones, numeric letter homophones, and blending homophones. An examination of the data shows that Chinese character homophones and alphabet homophones are used much more frequently than numeric letter homophones and blending homophones. This study also explores the discourse function of Chinese Internet homophones from the perspective of systemic functional grammar. Chinese Internet homophones are used to achieve grammatical cohesion (conjunction, reference, ellipsis, and substitution) and lexical cohesion (repetition, synonymy/antonymy, hyponymy/meronymy, and collocation) in micro-blogging. Finally, the motivations for the use of Chinese Internet homophones are discussed. This study contributes to our understanding of the dynamic development and functions of homophonic puns in Chinese Internet language. Key words: Chinese Internet homophones, cohesion, phonetic features, morphological classification, mirco-blogging/Weibo ii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... ii List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. v Chapter 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Computer-Mediated Communication .............................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Internet Language and Weibo ............................................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Chinese Internet Homophones ............................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter 2 Theoretical and Methodological Background of the Study .................................... 9 2.1 Theoretical Background ...................................................................................................................................... 9 2.1.1 Systemic Functional Grammar .................................................................................................................... 9 2.1.2 Cohesion Theory ........................................................................................................................................ 11 2.2 Methodological Background ............................................................................................................................. 20 2.3 Previous Studies of Chinese Homophones ........................................................................................................ 22 Chapter 3 Classification of Chinese Internet Homophones .................................................... 26 3.1 An Overview of the Use of Chinese Internet Homophones and Their Base Words in the Data ........................ 26 3.2 Phonetic Features of Different Types of Chinese Internet Homophones .......................................................... 29 3.2.1 Types of Chinese Internet Homophones Based on Their Phonetic Features ............................................. 30 3.2.2 Narrow-Homophones ................................................................................................................................ 31 3.2.3 Broad-homophones .................................................................................................................................... 34 3.2.4 Interim Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 44 3.3 Morphological Features of Different Types of Chinese Internet Homophones ................................................. 44 3.3.1 Types of Chinese Internet Homophones Based on Their Morphological Features .................................... 45 3.3.2 Chinese Character Homophones ................................................................................................................ 46 3.3.3 Alphabet Homophones .............................................................................................................................. 51 3.3.4 Numeric Letter Homophones ..................................................................................................................... 53 3.3.5 Blending Homophones .............................................................................................................................. 54 3.3.6 Interim Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 56 3.4 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 56 Chapter 4 The Discourse Function of Chinese Internet Homophones .................................. 58 4. 1 Grammatical Cohesion .................................................................................................................................... 59 4.2.1 Reference ................................................................................................................................................... 60 4.2.2 Ellipsis ....................................................................................................................................................... 65 4.2.3 Substitution ................................................................................................................................................ 71 4.2.4 Conjunction ............................................................................................................................................... 74 iii 4.3 Lexical Cohesion ............................................................................................................................................... 76 4.3.1 Repetition .................................................................................................................................................. 77 4.3.2 Synonymy/Antonymy ................................................................................................................................ 82 4.3.3 Hyponymy/Meronymy .............................................................................................................................. 88 4.3.4 Collocation ................................................................................................................................................ 95 4.3 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 97 Chapter 5 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 98 5.1 Summary of Findings ........................................................................................................................................ 98 5.2 Discussion ....................................................................................................................................................... 101 5.2.1 Phonology of Mandarin Chinese ............................................................................................................. 102 5.2.2 Typing Method ........................................................................................................................................ 102 5.2.3 The Influence of Chinese Dialects ........................................................................................................... 103 5.2.4 Internet Censorship by the Chinese Government ..................................................................................... 104 5.3 Limitations of the Study ................................................................................................................................... 105 5.4 Implications of the Study ................................................................................................................................. 105 Reference ................................................................................................................................... 107 Appendix .................................................................................................................................... 118 iv List of Tables Table 3.1.1 Overview of the Top 10 Most Frequently Used Homophones and Their Base Words in the Data………………………....………………………...................27 Table 3.2.1 The Four Basic Tones In The Scale Of Five Pitch Levels ……………………….....29 Table 3.2.2 Overview of Two