Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016.
This paper adopts models from epidemiology to account for the development and decline of neologisms based on internet usage. The research design focuses on the issue of whether a host-driven epidemic model is well-suited to explain human behavior regarding neologisms. We extracted the search frequen...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2021-01-01
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| Series: | PLoS ONE |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245984 |
| _version_ | 1818901666223620096 |
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| author | Menghan Jiang Xiang Ying Shen Kathleen Ahrens Chu-Ren Huang |
| author_facet | Menghan Jiang Xiang Ying Shen Kathleen Ahrens Chu-Ren Huang |
| author_sort | Menghan Jiang |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper adopts models from epidemiology to account for the development and decline of neologisms based on internet usage. The research design focuses on the issue of whether a host-driven epidemic model is well-suited to explain human behavior regarding neologisms. We extracted the search frequency data from Google Trends that covers the ninety most influential Chinese neologisms from 2008-2016 and found that the majority of them possess a similar rapidly rising-decaying pattern. The epidemic model is utilized to fit the evolution of these internet-based neologisms. The epidemic model not only has good fitting performance to model the pattern of rapid growth, but also is able to predict the peak point in the neologism's life cycle. This result underlines the role of human agents in the life cycle of neologisms and supports the macro-theory that the evolution of human languages mirrors the biological evolution of human beings. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T20:23:23Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1e1478ece7e9431fbda3a37e24fc93d2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1932-6203 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T20:23:23Z |
| publishDate | 2021-01-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS ONE |
| spelling | doaj.art-1e1478ece7e9431fbda3a37e24fc93d22022-12-21T20:06:54ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032021-01-01162e024598410.1371/journal.pone.0245984Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016.Menghan JiangXiang Ying ShenKathleen AhrensChu-Ren HuangThis paper adopts models from epidemiology to account for the development and decline of neologisms based on internet usage. The research design focuses on the issue of whether a host-driven epidemic model is well-suited to explain human behavior regarding neologisms. We extracted the search frequency data from Google Trends that covers the ninety most influential Chinese neologisms from 2008-2016 and found that the majority of them possess a similar rapidly rising-decaying pattern. The epidemic model is utilized to fit the evolution of these internet-based neologisms. The epidemic model not only has good fitting performance to model the pattern of rapid growth, but also is able to predict the peak point in the neologism's life cycle. This result underlines the role of human agents in the life cycle of neologisms and supports the macro-theory that the evolution of human languages mirrors the biological evolution of human beings.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245984 |
| spellingShingle | Menghan Jiang Xiang Ying Shen Kathleen Ahrens Chu-Ren Huang Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016. PLoS ONE |
| title | Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016. |
| title_full | Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016. |
| title_fullStr | Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016. |
| title_short | Neologisms are epidemic: Modeling the life cycle of neologisms in China 2008-2016. |
| title_sort | neologisms are epidemic modeling the life cycle of neologisms in china 2008 2016 |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245984 |
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