Abstract:

The development of technology has not only changed people’s daily lives but also introduced new vocabulary into their everyday language,including technological letter-words.We conducted a survey among 259 university students on their cognitive status regarding 20 commonly used letter-words.The results fell into four categories:“Unknown”,“Irrelevant”,“Relevant”,and “Consistent”,with average proportions of 13.40%,6.99%,65.03%,and 14.58%,respectively.Analyses of the “Unknown”and “Irrelevant”responses were conducted from four perspectives:transparency,homography,word order,and analogy.The “Relevant”responses were discussed in terms of superordinate and subordinate concepts,related concepts,and the noun’s qualia structure (formal,constitutive,telic,and agentive).The “Consistent”responses were analyzed through typical examples.Finally,relevant discussions were conducted on three aspects:the Chinese translation of foreign terminology,the incorporation of scientific and technological terminology into daily life,and the cognitive construction of letter-words among the general public.

Key words: technological letter-words, daily life, cognitive construction