Author: Liu Ling (Associate Professor, Center for Chinese Character Research and Application, East China Normal University).
On December 20, the "Chinese Inventory 2023" announced the words of the year, and "Zhen" and "high-quality development" were selected as the domestic words of the year and the domestic words respectively. At the end of each year, the annual language and writing inventory represented by the "Chinese Inventory" has become a linguistic and cultural event. As a New Year's custom, the folk characteristics of the annual language and writing inventory have stabilized: social attention and public participation are increasing, the release ceremony and selection process are becoming more and more perfect, the inheritance of traditions and updating expressions are gradually stable, and the scope and coverage of the expansion are expanding day by day. This New Year's custom not only serves as a footnote to the times from all angles, but also reflects the strong creativity and self-renewal ability of the Chinese language, and at the same time has a profound impact on the linguistic life of society.
The annual language and writing inventory has become a trend.
Started in 2006, the "Chinese Inventory" activity has expanded from the initial "Word of the Year" selection to the "Three Major Releases": "Top 10 Popular Words", "Top 10 New Words" and "Top 10 Internet Terms". In addition, the "Chinese inventory" has been expanded and generalized to the high attention and extensive participation of various ** institutions in the annual words, buzzwords, and new words, which has become a trend of the times. For example, the "Top Ten Popular Words of the Year" released by "Biting the Text and Chewing Words", the "Top Ten Internet Buzzwords of the Year" released by "Language and Writing Weekly", and the "Top Ten Internet Hot Memes of the Year" released by Sanlian Life Weekly.
Not only that, the "annual inventory" of all walks of life is also presented in various ways such as "hot word list" and "annual Chinese characters", which has become a specific ceremony for the year-end summary of the industry and region, bidding farewell to the old and welcoming the new, such as the annual "Top Ten Science and Technology Terms", etc., which arouses the observation and thinking of relevant groups of people, and leads the trend and development of related industries and regions.
The content of the Chinese inventory is diverse, and the selected words involve various fields such as national policies, science and technology, culture, and people's livelihood. In this year's major rankings, new words in science and technology frequently appear. The rapid development of artificial intelligence is changing our way of production, life and even thinking, and a series of hot words have also emerged, such as "large language model", "generative artificial intelligence", "large-scale deep learning model", etc. In addition, "village super" and "special military tourism" reflect the hot phenomena in social life;The "conspicuous bag" stands out and reflects the positive and optimistic attitude of young people;"Emotional value" reflects a lifestyle that values one's own emotions.
The annual inventory of various languages and texts records the major events and social hotspots of the past year, presents the individual emotions and personal lives of the people, and is an immediate, multi-channel and multi-angle year-end summary of an era, which condenses a large amount of cultural information of the times. Moreover, the language and cultural atmosphere of the same frequency resonance and unprecedented grandeur created by it has created a sufficient interactive communication platform for all walks of life and various fields, and realized the "two-way running" of each other.
The vitality of the written language.
New words, buzzwords, Internet slang, and hot words are the "barometer" that reflects the changes of the times, and are the most dynamic, creative, and fastest-changing parts of the social language, which can record the vivid and changeable language and culture of the times. However, due to its strong semantic tolerance, Chinese characters have a strong generalization and interpretation space in reflecting hot events and public feelings. Therefore, the annual inventory of language and writing can reflect the linguistic life of society really, quickly and comprehensively.
Neologisms and new expressions reflect new things, new phenomena, new concepts, and new thinking in the new era, and the internal causes of their emergence are inseparable from the strong creativity and self-renewal ability of the Chinese language itself. Chinese has abundant morphemes and a variety of word formations, which are important internal reasons for the emergence of neologisms. For example, the construction of "digital China", the research and development of "artificial intelligence models", and the acceleration of the formation of "new quality productivity" are all clear expressions of new policies, new technologies, and new cultures, all of which are compounded by means of syntactic relations between commonly used Chinese words.
The new words and expressions of the year add new forms to the Chinese thesaurus. For example, the term "village super" is the abbreviation of "Hemei Rural Football Super League" in Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province. Netizens refer to the naming conventions such as "Premier League" and "China Super League" and call it "Village Super". This is the creation of new forms of speech through abbreviation and imitation.
The new word of the year adds a new meaning to the old word. For example, the term "conspicuous bag" used to refer to people who are too flamboyant and showy, with a somewhat "disliked" connotation, but now it is a playful reference to people or things with strong personalities, who dare to show themselves, and who can create a joyful atmosphere. This shift in meaning reflects the openness and inclusiveness of Internet culture. In addition, the meaning of "conspicuous bag" is still changing, and in addition to referring to people, it can also refer to those things that stand out from the crowd, such as the vivid and joyful cultural relics in the museum's collection.
The new words and expressions of the year also add new sentence structures to Chinese syntax. For example, "special forces tourism" refers to young people's attempts to challenge the boundary between time and physical strength at the lowest economic cost in exchange for the richest tourism and cultural experience, which is characterized by "short time, many scenic spots, low cost, and high efficiency". Such an imitation of the structure, exaggerated expression, vivid and expressive, conveys the vitality of young people. Once this structure is produced, it has a strong ability to form sentences, such as "special forces-style drama-watching", "special forces-style meetings", "special forces-style lunch breaks", etc., which become a true portrayal of the fast-paced and high-intensity social life.
Language has had a profound impact on the culture of the times.
Linguist Luo Changpei said in "Language and Culture": "The objective social life of an era determines the linguistic content of that era;It can also be said that the content of language is also sufficient to reflect all aspects of social life in a certain era. The phenomena of society, from economic life to all social consciousness, are precipitated in language. ”
Language and human society are developing in tandem, and the current iterative growth rate of buzzwords is a manifestation of the vitality of our society. On the one hand, the annual inventory of language and writing reflects the rich social and linguistic life and the diverse and integrated culture of the times. For example, after "dopamine dressing" became popular, "dopamine nail art", "dopamine hairstyle", "dopamine literature", "dopamine **" and so on appeared. From scientific terms to fashionable life and social generalization, the hot words represented by "dopamine" break the boundaries of regions, industries, disciplines and groups, continuously expand the scope of use, and have multiple generalized meanings, which is a true reflection of the current social and cultural diversity.
On the other hand, language is not only a mirror of the times, but also its influence on society and culture is becoming more and more apparent. From an individual point of view, the language of the Internet is full of vitality, which promotes the public to fully communicate on the public platform, generates emotional resonance and value recognition under the common discourse system, and gradually moves from the Internet to reality. For example, with the popularity of the term "hitchhiking", its connotation and extension have been expanded, driving more young people to try this new social model of "freedom of gathering and dispersion" and "intimacy and intimacy". The inventory of new words and new words gives people the opportunity to contact and understand the unknown territory, broaden their horizons, and break through the "information cocoon". From the perspective of the value of language itself as a cultural resource, the annual inventory of language and writing can also provide objective, sufficient and diverse language samples for the study of language national conditions, the formulation of language policies, and the guidance of language planning.
Bright**" December 24, 2023 05 edition).
*: Guangming Network - "Bright **".