3pm Journal of Digital research & publishing - artichoke web design

3pm Journal of Digital research & publishing
typical character of anime.
Another word “meng (pronounciation of ‘pin yin’)”, together with the word previously
mentioned “love”, are rooted from the phenomenon of “cute” culture in Japanese anime.
“Meng” is a Chinese character used in Japanese being directly borrowed “back” into
Chinese internet slangs. Its Japanese pronounciation is “mo e”, a litter similar to the
Chinese one “meng”. The traditional Chinese meaning of “meng” as a verb is to “bud or
sprout” or to “begin from the origin” which is a metaphorical use, or it can be used as an
adjective signifying the “beginning state of something”. Being borrowed into Japanese,
the meaning of “meng” changed. It turns to mean “on fire” or “burning” as a verb or an
adjective in traditional Japanese. However, the meaning changed again during the spread
of anime culture. “Meng” is extended to be used as an adjective which means “something
can be described as fascinating and inspiring”, or indicates something is “cute”. Similar to
the adjective use of “love”, “meng” can be used together with adverbs of degree.
The internet usage of “meng” and “love” presents the flexible use of Chinese internet
slangs. Comparing to traditional Chinese, these words have more complex grammatical
functions and the limitations bounding their use is little. This phenomenon is shared by
other ordinary internet slangs as “di” shown in Group 2.3. “Di” as a noun indicating a
status of a human, can attach various adjectives and nouns in order to express a creative
meaning. For example, “beiju (tragedy) di” refers to someone who are “tragedy” or “very
unlucky”, which also contains exaggerate effects.
Conclusions
This report collects examples of internet slangs used by Japanese anime fans in online
communities. Data are categorised and separated into groups according to the language
features. Focus is placed on the expressions relating to Japanese anime and cultures.
Abstract expressions comprised of one or two words are found to convey visual meanings.
The flexible grammatical use of the word “love” suggests a character of casualness in
common internet slangs. The word “love” and “meng” indicate the relationship of slangs
used by anime fans and Japanese anime and its culture. Internet slangs used by these fans
have the ordinary characters of common internet slangs. At the same time, some special
“jargons” they use are specific in anime cultures. Further investigation about this topic can
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