At the end of the year, the release of the "Buzzword of the Year" came as scheduled. Depending on the publisher, the way in which "popular" is measured is different. On the basis of comprehensive consideration of the value of the times, social value and language value, the magazine "Bite the Text and Chew the Words" released the "2023 Top Ten Popular Words". The National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center has monitored different forms of language resources such as barrage and online news, and the corpus size analyzed exceeds 8 billion characters, so the list is more detailed, including "Top Ten Internet Terms", "Top Ten Popular Words", "Top Ten New Words" and "Words of the Year". The release of the "Top 10 Internet Buzzwords" of the "Language Weekly" has gone through three stages: reader recommendation, online audition and expert review. Next, major platforms will also release their own words of the year, "Huh?".With more than 13.2 million times sent throughout the year, it was elected as the annual barrage of station B in 2023.
Compared with the early years of "Don't be obsessed with brother, brother is just a legend" and "gods and horses are floating clouds", today's annual buzzwords are more positive and diverse. Some words that were originally born out of the online subculture by colliding with the mainstream discourse system have also been quickly incorporated and combined into a new system by the mainstream. The buzzwords of the year 2023 can be divided into several categories:
New development categories: new quality productivity, artificial intelligence model, generative artificial intelligence, digital intelligent life, far ahead, 100 model war, Mozi Sky Survey.
Lifestyle: village super, special forces tourism, dopamine xx, two-way running, emotional value.
Characters: conspicuous bags, pick-ups, new professionals, i people and e people.
Communication: questioning, understanding, becoming a princess and prince, please, people are still strange (嘞).
The buzzword of the year sparked a lively discussion as soon as it was released, and the discussion was common in the following ways:
How many have you used?Do you often say that?”
Which hit you?”
What do buzzwords show us?”
Let's see if you're a 'trendy old man'”
These discussions correspond to the different functions that the buzzwords of the year undertake. First of all, the buzzwords of the year record the social hotspots and public memories of the year, such as the successful holding of the Hangzhou Asian Games, which created the popularity of "Aida Future", and the "Village Super" set off a boom in national fitness, and also showed the great practice of rural revitalizationSecondly, the buzzword of the year shows the new lifestyles that have emerged in the past year, such as "special forces tourism" and "hitchhiking" for young people, the former is for young people to challenge the boundaries of time and physical strength with the lowest economic cost in exchange for the richest tourism and cultural experience, and the latter is for young people with the same interests and hobbies to "ride" together to spend a satisfying and comfortable timeThe buzzword will name new people, and the original meaning of "conspicuous bag" is to refer to people or things who have strong personalities, dare to express themselves, and can create a joyful atmosphere;The buzzword of the year also assumes the function of a material library, which will be frequently mentioned in daily communication, online posting, and Spring Festival party, and may also become the object of linguistic researchThe buzzword of the year has witnessed the development of China's times, and "new quality productivity" and "artificial intelligence model" are the profound footprints left on the road to Chinese-style modernization.
But the release of the buzzword of the year also raises some problems. When a person is confronted with the buzzword of the year, he hopes that his memory will be awakened, and he will connect his personal memory with his public memory, but he will find that many words are unfamiliar and exclusive to a specific group, so he can't help but feel a kind of anxiety: Why don't I know?Am I falling behind?What have I done this year?I wonder if these words can still communicate with people
The buzzword of the year has the potential to create a kind of generational anxiety. Many words were born and popular among young people, and became their exclusive password, when the way of talking changed to "Let's see if you are a 'trendy old man'?"It reflects the hymune that has created a generational distinction. These words are neither known nor used by middle-aged and older people, who are labelled as "outdated" because of their lack of mastery of buzzwords. Even among younger people, people who surf the web 24 hours a day are not as familiar with buzzwords as those who spend all their time at work and family. Someone left a message: "Seeing this year's buzzwords, I feel that I may be a little out of step with the times, and second, I feel that my language function has degraded a little, and my rhetoric has become scarce." In fact, it is not that he can't keep up with the times, nor is it that there is a lack of rhetoric, but the buzzword of the year, which should have condensed more emotional resonance, has become a carnival for young people, creating a communication gap between different generations, and even narrowing the distance between people, and this stems from the contradiction contained in the buzzword itself: while breaking barriers, while creating barriers.
The release of the buzzword of the year has also reduced the public space where people of different identities, ages, and regions can speak out, as if there is only one voice and one way of life. Different age groups use different software, viewing content and discourse methods, even if they all look short**, the elderly will not know what the young people's "gears of fate begin to turn", "Hakimi" and "dig dig" refer to, they are more immersed in those who can give emotional comfort **, the language they use is old, sincere, but it has caused young people to look at and ridicule. In real life, workers, farmers, couriers, food delivery boys, urban unemployed middle-aged people, rural unemployed youth, civil servants, entrepreneurs, and online car-hailing drivers have no time to think about "dopamine outfits" and "special forces trips". Over-exaggerating the "new" and "popular" will make those who adhere to the conservative and traditional people perceive as "out of place", and will also obscure those ordinary, day-to-day lives. Some buzzwords seem to be colorful, but in fact, they have not succeeded in opening up the circle, but are getting farther and farther away from the daily life of ordinary people.
Therefore, on the basis of the annual buzzwords released by the first class, everyone may wish to sort out, process, and summarize their own annual buzzwords. If the buzzword of the year is to narrow the distance between each other by "seeking common ground", then the private buzzword can "keep differences" and integrate their own unique life perceptions. Some netizens said that his annual buzzword is "go home", and there must be a moving story behind the simple words. Some people also say that the hottest words in 2023 are still "roll" and "lay", but the two diametrically opposed words are perfectly blended together, shouting to lie down, but in fact they are constantly rolling, which is the real state of people's lives. While paying attention to China's annual buzzwords, you may also wish to refer to the buzzwords of different countries and regions in the world to see what issues are of common concern to the world and connect China and the world.
The buzzword of the year is characterized by "new", which not only reflects the new changes in people's lives and the birth of "new people", but also shows people's strong language innovation ability, and expresses people's desire for a new life. But in the process of chasing the new, we must not forget the "old" - those traditional and ordinary life, those neat and precise Chinese expressions. The popularity of the term "fireworks" is not only a yearning for the future life, but also a nostalgia for the good past, which not only preserves the beauty of the Chinese language but also can be accepted by a wide range of people, achieving the connection between the "new" and the "old". We don't have to change the pace of our lives in order to chase the trend, the buzzword of the year just shows more possibilities in life, what we need to do is still to appreciate the complex reality and live each day seriously.
The author, Huo Yan, is a young writer and a young scholar of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences).