Communications in Humanities Research ISSN: 2753-7072
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Research Article

A Review of Research on Chinese-English Hybrid Internet Buzzword

Qiyue ZhangChangsha Medical University*

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Abstract

This paper reviews 23 studies on Chinese-English hybrid internet buzzwords, a defining feature of contemporary Chinese online discourse shaped by globalisation and digitalisation. Six thematic strands frame the discussion: code-mixing and code-switching, social media contexts, youth and campus practices, memetics, homophonic hybrids, and cross-cultural loanwords. Scholars draw on frameworks such as sociolinguistics, pragmatics, accommodation theory, memetics, cognitive linguistics, and translanguaging to analyse classification, communicative functions, and sociocultural meanings. Findings converge on four roles—identity construction, affective expression, rhetorical innovation, and cross-cultural exchange. Yet the field remains dominated by small-scale data, descriptive methods, and inconsistent classifications. Broader, interdisciplinary, and corpus-based approaches are needed to capture the emergence, diffusion, and social significance of these hybrids online.

Keywords: Chinese-English hybrid language; internet buzzwords; code-mixing; memetics; translanguaging
Published: November 11, 2025
DOI: 10.54254/2753-7064/2025.29550
Volume: CHR Vol.84
pp. 61-66
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