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Patterns of Meaning Change in Words According to the Influx of Media

  • The Sociolinguistic Journal of Korea
  • Abbr : 사회언어학
  • 2011, 19(1), pp.59-82
  • Publisher : The Sociolinguistic Society Of Korea
  • Research Area : Humanities > Linguistics

Dongdeun Park 1

1건국대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to examine the change type and patterns in which a verb acquires a new meaning to indicate the action related to the computer upon the influx of computer media. When new concept arises upon the social and cultural exchanges with other countries, a new word representing the new concept is needed. However, a new word made from borrowing from foreign languages or synthesis or derivation is limited to a noun. But, since a verb is more limited in synthesis or derivation of new word compared to a noun, we usually use the existing verbs to represent the action or the behavior associated to a noun of new media. As it comes to the 21st century, the whole world experienced the rapid change caused by IT (Information Technology) revolution as much as Industrial revolution. As a result, huge amounts of IT-related words from influx of foreign languages have come or lots of new words have been created, respectively. In this process, there are many words different from the existing actions that we have done when using the hardware or software of IT-related equipments. The results brought considerable changes to the existing verbs. Therefore, this study focused on the meaning change patterns of verbs according to the behavior or action associated to the usage of computers representing the IT media. In this study, the patterns of meaning change were largely categorized into three as follows. (1) No meaning change, (2) Keep the selectional restrictions, (3) Break selectional restrictions. (1) This case is that a verb combines with a new noun upon the influx of computers and a situation can be inferred based on the primary meaning of a verb. (2) The action to use the computer is not existed, but a noun associated with it is used metaphorically. So, it seems to keep the selectional restrictions. (3)Since a verb acquires a totally different meaning, it seems to violate the selectional restrictions with noun argument.

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