Further semantic change of the derogatory sociomorpheme tái in Chinese gender-related Internet neologisms

Internet neologisms provide discursive spaces for grassroots netizens. This study examines a pair of gendered labels gaining popularity in Taiwanese online forums: táinán ‘Tai-man’ and táinǚ ‘Tai-woman’. The quantitative keyword analysis based on a corpus of online data suggests that táinán and táinǚ are pejorative labels. The qualitative discourse analysis of the keywords in context presents gender stereotypes associated with táinán and táinǚ, respectively. Converging evidence for the negative attitudes toward táinán and táinǚ is obtained in a questionnaire survey. The shared morpheme tái inherits localness-related ideologies and interacts with gender ideologies concerning ideal manhood and womanhood, and it has come to index an ideological contrast between favorable foreignness and unfavorable localness. This study contributes to the current literature on Chinese morphological patterns studied in social contexts. Moreover, this study presents evidence that changes in social meanings also follow the dominant trajectories of other semantic changes.