A Pragmatic Study of the Internet Address Term “Love You, Lao Ji”

Abstract

'Love You Lao Ji' emerged at the end of 2025, originating from a creative mishearing and adaptation of the line “Love you, Mom, see you tomorrow” from the game League of Legends.This paper explores the word formation innovation of 'Love You Lao Ji' and the social-psychological motivations behind this expression from a pragmatics perspective. The study finds that, at the lexical-semantic level, “Lao” has been grammaticalized into an emotional marker affix, while 'Ji' retains its semantic meaning; at the pragmatic function level, 'Love You Lao Ji' is interpreted as a self-directed relational management behavior, achieving three pragmatic functions: face management, redistribution of internal rights and obligations, and construction of harmonious self-relationships; at the social-psychological level, the popularity of 'Love You Lao Ji' reflects the safe expression of self-face and the value orientation of 'self-return' in the social environment.