The word "琼斯" is formed through a purely phonetic process, specifically the transliteration of foreign sounds into Chinese characters. It is created by selecting two pre-existing characters, "琼" (qióng) and "斯" (sī), whose combined pronunciation closely approximates the sound of a foreign word or name, in this case, the common surname "Jones". The characters are chosen solely for their sound value in Mandarin, with no regard for the original meanings of the characters (which might be "fine jade" and "this" respectively), resulting in a new, fixed unit that functions as a phonetic shell for the imported term.