There are three features of “Taobao” register.
The first feature is that it uses the second person and the intimate appellation. “Taobao”
register is the evolution of online transaction’s dialogue, so it keeps the second person and the address form “Qin”, this is one of the outstanding characteristics of “Taobao” register. It reflects the simplicity and flexibility of network style by transferring “Qin ai de” into “Qin”, and makes “Taobao” register warmer.
The second feature is that it is with entertainment and interactivity. Because “Taobao” register is fresh and it can be copied, coupled with the rapid spread of the network, a lot of people use “Taobao” register. But most are created by the funny interaction between net friends, some are sellers’ advertisements.
The third feature is that it is with creativity and fashionability. The development of society will inevitably lead to the change of language, the arrival of the Internet age which reflected in language is a kind of creative psychology (Xie Guangyao, 2011: 147). The emergence and popularity of “Taobao” register reflects the strong innovative awareness of users, such as it changes “Qin ai de” into “Qin” and changes the form of a dialogue into no form and can apply these into real life, these are sufficient to show the creative use of language. At the same time, “Taobao” register also reflects fashionability of language. The fashionability of language is one public language behavior in a certain period (Zeng Yiping, 2002: 46). For these who pursuit fashionability of language, they will show the tendency towards verbal expression as long as they have any chances, and achieve self–satisfied expression effects, so the pursuit of fashion has become a language strategy of them. At present, many netizens use “Taobao” register is the performance of people’s pursuit of language fashion.
One of the obvious features of “Taobao” register is that everyone is called “Qin”( the abbreviation of “Qin ai de”) in chatting, and often with some mood particles such as “Oh”, “Ah” and “Wow” at the end, so it will make people feel closer (Xie Guangyao, 2011: 146). At the beginning, the Taobao register was only used in online shopping, but gradually, its using scope was growing, it slowly penetrated into people’s daily lives.
3. Analysis from Semantic and Pragmatic Approach
3.1 Semantic Approach
I want to analyze “Qin” from two aspects, the first aspect is from semantic extension and the second aspect is from generalization.
Semantics is an open system, it can be extended or narrowed with the change of context. Semantic extension refers to the specific meaning of a word can be extended with the change of the environment in which language is used (Cole and Morgan, 1975: 286).
In ancient times, “Qin” can be used as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs. It has seven meanings: parent, kinsfolk, relative, confidence, intimacy, love, personally. In modern times, the meanings of the word “Qin” can be summed up as the following: the person’s name, such as father, mother, bride etc; people with blood relationship or good relationship, such as brothers, relatives, friends etc, it represents love, affection and intimacy.
The word “Qin” is given a new meaning in the transmission of Internet recently. Although the network is an illusory, wide world, it can gather these who have common features and pursuits, they may choose a more free language expression. These years, with the rapid development of network shopping, a new occupation on the network appeared which dedicated to service network shoppers-net inn customer service. In order to narrow the distance between themselves and the customers, they often call customers “Qin”. Taobao uses “Qin” as a salutation, obviously beyond the traditional meaning of “Qin”. Some people think that “Qin” is an abbreviation of “Qin ai de”, a mutation which belongs to the network language. It is firstly used on women buyers and gradually spread from sellers to buyers. It can be interpreted as “dear”, it can also be interpreted as “friend”. For example: