作为流行语的新兴詈语,最主要特点就是“非詈”:要么让詈语在形式上变得“非詈(非詈化詈语)”,要么让詈语在功能上变得“非詈(非詈性詈语)”。本文通过具体语料分析了这两种现象。由于人们表达情绪的需要,作为语言发泄的途径,詈语无非是一种“最终选择”。从语言规范化的角度看,詈语当然肯定是“有害”的,无疑应该采取必要措施加以制止和疏导,不能使其无节制泛滥;但从语言的功能和使用看,也必须承认一部分詈语是“有用”的,至少在表达上的某种作用有时无可取代。因此詈语既不可能自行消亡,也不应一棍子全部打死。
Foul and abusive language (Liyu) in sociolinguistics refers to taboo (“bad language”) that is associated with swearing or crude expressions such as obscenity, profanity, blasphemy or other cursing utterances that strongly offend the prevalent morality in society of the time. This study attempts to evaluate the semantic and pragmatic functions of Chinese Liyu in contemporary soceity. Being rife and ubiquitous in both society and cyberspace, nowadays Liyu is increasingly popular among the teenagers. As a fashionable trend, the distinct feature of Liyu is “neutralization”. Namely, it has to be neutralized either in form or in function when it is actually used. Based on abundance of exemplar expressions obtained from various textual sources, predominantly from the print press and the Internet, this article conducts an in-depth examination of the actual use of Liyu in contemporary Chinese language. Our findings show that, as a means used to indicate a strong emotional expression and moral repugnance, Liyu serves as an ultimate linguistic device for “extreme option”. From the perspective of language standardization, Liyu is defi nitely harmful to language management. In order to prevent it from polluting language, measures should be adopted to ban its unstrained circulation or to provide guidance on its use. On the other hand, we should realize that Liyu is “useful”; its expressive power is unsubstitutional. Therefore, Liyu will not automatically disappear; it would not be eliminated without prudence.