An Analysis of the Internet Buzzword “Involution” under the Three-Plane Theory

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_55How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Internet Buzzword; Involution; Three Planes

Abstract

With the deepening and development of the research on internet buzzword, network catchwords have become a part that cannot be ignored in the linguistic field. The word "involution", an internet buzzword, is widely used on the Internet. Based on the three-plane theory, this paper analyzes the word "involution" in internet buzzword from the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects. The research finds that "involution" is a semantic relationship of "position + action", and its semantic characteristics are: {+intrasystemic} {+hypercompetitive} {+low-yield} {-specialized-term}. At the syntactic level, it was found that it can be used as a subject, object, predicate, and attributive in sentences. At the pragmatic level, it has the pragmatic characteristics of concise expression, extensive use of context, and sustained instability, as well as the pragmatic value of emotional expression and online communication. This study also reveals the multiple reasons for the popularity of the word "involution": the internal analogy mechanism and metaphorical cognitive style of language provide a formal basis for it, the competitive pressure and public anxiety in the social transformation period constitute the psychological motivation, and the rapid spread of network media accelerates its popularity process. This study not only expands the theoretical analysis framework of internet buzzword, but also provides a linguistic perspective for understanding contemporary social and cultural psychology.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Yu Gu
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/15
TI  - An Analysis of the Internet Buzzword “Involution” under the Three-Plane Theory
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Mental Growth and Human Resilience (MGHR 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 505
EP  - 513
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_55
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-509-6_55
ID  - Gu2025
ER  -