Cognitive Sociolinguistic Perspective on the Semantic Construction and Deconstruction of Tangping

Internet buzzwords, on the one hand, embody a new demand for language expression with the change of China’s online media, and on the other hand reflect the history of social transformation in China. Studies on buzzwords can not only trace the changes and development of language itself, but also perceive social life and the representation of the mindsets of large numbers of netizens behind language phenomena. From a cognitive sociolinguistic perspective, the study draws on a corpus-based qualitative approach using online and media discourse from 2021 to 2024, and, by integrating conceptual metaphor theory, frame semantics, and conceptual blending theory in cognitive linguistics, as well as applying ideology and discourse analysis, reveals the dynamic mechanism underlying the semantic formation of Tangping (lying flat; 躺平). The research finds that the semantic meaning of Tangping evolves through a metaphorical change from body posture to social attitude, forming a multi-tiered meaning network in concrete social contexts. Rather than emerging by chance, Tangping developed through the interaction of structural social pressures, pre-existing discursive resources, and accumulated affect, eventually taking shape around a core meaning of cognitive resistance. Under the circumstances of semantic deconstruction by mainstream media and the acceleration of online environments, Tangping ultimately forms a semantic compound with inner tension, and its meaning varies with the speaker’s stance and contextual changes.