随着社交媒体话语的日常化，网络流行语成为观察当代汉语词义变动与话语功能迁移的重要窗口。近年来，“谷子”在微博、抖音、小红书等平台高频出现：其本源为英文 goods 的音译，最初指二次元周边商品，但在实际使用中已明显溢出一般商品指称，进入情绪叙述与价值评估语境。现有讨论多聚焦“谷子经济”“青年消费”“情绪价值”等社会文化议题，而对“谷子”作为词项的语义扩展路径及其在互动中的稳定语用功能，仍缺乏语言学层面的细描。基于此，本文拟回答三点：其一，“谷子”在网络语境中形成了哪些可分辨的新义类型；其二，这些新义如何在隐喻/转喻/通感等机制与范畴化过程中生成并固化；其三，“谷子”如何在具体话语中获得情绪调节、心理延宕与态度组织等语用功能。

既有研究从不同侧面为本文提供了理论参照：一方面，流行语研究揭示词义常经由隐喻性泛化与动态范畴化而扩展；另一方面，认知路径表明隐喻、转喻与通感可推动“物—情绪/关系”的跨域映射；同时，“情绪价值”等消费研究提示某些名物词在高频情绪结构中可能发生功能转向。本文在吸收上述视角的基础上，采用单词项个案研究方法，以网络自然语料为主要材料，并结合《现代汉语词典》（第7版）释义作为基准参照，沿“词典义—网络指称义—语义扩展—情绪语用功能”的分析链条展开讨论。

With the increasing integration of social media discourse into everyday communication, internet buzzwords have become an important window for observing semantic change and functional shifts in contemporary Chinese. In recent years, the term Guzi has appeared with high frequency on social media platforms. Originally a transliteration of the English word goods, Guzi initially referred to merchandise related to anime, comics, games, and other ACG subcultures. However, in actual usage, its meaning has expanded beyond the designation of commodities and entered contexts of emotional expression and value evaluation. Existing studies have primarily focused on sociocultural issues such as the “Guzi economy,” youth consumption, and emotional value, while relatively little attention has been paid to the semantic extension of Guzi as a lexical item and its emerging pragmatic functions in online interaction. Therefore, this study addresses three questions: (1) What distinguishable new semantic categories of Guzi have emerged in online discourse? (2) Through what mechanisms, including metaphor, metonymy, synesthesia, and categorization, are these meanings generated and conventionalized? (3) How does Guzi acquire pragmatic functions such as emotional regulation, psychological compensation, and attitudinal organization in specific discourse contexts?

Previous research provides important theoretical foundations for this study. Studies on internet buzzwords have shown that lexical meanings often expand through metaphorical generalization and dynamic categorization. Cognitive linguistic approaches suggest that metaphor, metonymy, and synesthesia facilitate cross-domain mappings from objects to emotions and interpersonal relations. Meanwhile, research on emotional value in consumer culture indicates that certain noun expressions may undergo functional shifts when embedded in highly recurrent emotional structures. Building upon these perspectives, this study adopts a lexical case-study approach, using naturally occurring online discourse data as its primary corpus and taking the definitions provided in the seventh edition of Modern Chinese Dictionary as a reference point. The analysis follows the trajectory of “dictionary meaning → online referential meaning → semantic extension → emotional-pragmatic functions” to examine the semantic and pragmatic development of Guzi in contemporary Chinese internet discourse.