Have you ever brushed a piece of text on Weibo, stared at some letters that do not resemble English words, but could not guess what exactly the pinyin vowel of Chinese abbreviations was; after a while, in some short videos, you watched the protagonist in the picture shouting "Ori give", and wondered when the delicious cookie was renamed? Or, if you haven't surfed the Internet for half a day, you suddenly find that everyone is enthusiastically creating "Versailles literature", "nonsense literature" and "giggling literature". Today, online social media seems to have entered an "era of stemming", half a day without brushing social media, like accidentally dropping the pen during math class, bending down to pick up the pen and not understanding what everyone is saying. It is worth noting that these two-dimensional language expressions have been integrated into the real life of the three-dimensional dimension, and the language and writing ability of modern people is being reshaped, and these Internet buzzwords and meme culture are the cultural symptoms of this era.
First, the lack of expression in the Internet age
On the Internet, contemporary young people are creating new buzzwords every day, people's expression methods are becoming more and more diversified, a prominent phenomenon is the extreme economic pursuit of text expression, network communication often with a variety of memes instead of text output, and language abbreviations are not only "unconscious" "people are difficult to tear down" such as the four-word idioms, have evolved into a large number of pinyin abbreviations, such as "YYSD" means "eternal God" "XSWL" means "laugh at me", The convenience of the Internet makes the inertia of contemporary people not only forget to write, but even no longer follow the basic text use norms in daily expression, so that it is even more difficult to follow the words in written expression, and this language inertia may be a side effect of the vigorous development of visual culture.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Swiss linguist Saussure proposed that language be regarded as a system of symbols, that language is social, homogeneous, and conventional; that language is personal and temporary. The existence of language lies in the connection between the signifier and the signified, the signifier is the acoustic image, the signifier is the concept, and there is an arbitrary binary opposition between the two. In Saussure's view, language is a social system that people have conventionally established, and it is arbitrary for people to choose acoustic images (words) rather than visual images (gestures) as tools of language. In this sense, the development of network technology has made people's language expression more and more open, but the current paradox is that contemporary young people create countless "stems" and strange expressions on the Internet every day, while gradually losing their basic language expression ability in real life, just like the classic "nonsense literature" - "said and did not seem to say", today people's language expression seems to be in this ambiguous embarrassing situation. Behind the dazzling stem is an empty and substanceless shell of content.
On the basis of Saussure's linguistics, the French philosopher Lacan combined Freud's psychoanalytic theory with linguistic symbols, proposing that the subject's speech and behavior reveal the unconscious desires and ideas of the subject all the time, and the act of speaking itself not only conceals the desires of the self, but also reveals the true desires of the subject. The "signifier" in the Sense of Lacan is no longer a simple acoustic image (word), but a constantly emerging desire of the subject. Desire comes from want, and scarcity lies in the absence that the symbol refers to. The subject can only be constantly chased from one signifier to the next, extending endlessly and indefinitely on the signifier chain. In today's online world, contemporary young people continue to create new buzzwords, but they can't say what they want to express, and the seemingly complicated terrier culture just characterizes the lack of the real spiritual world of contemporary young people.
Second, the language of the online world is discussed
An interesting phenomenon is that many of today's Internet buzzwords originated in the subcultural circle, and the powerful communication ability of the Internet spreads these words from a small audience to the entire social network. More and more online black words such as "breaking defense", "wall head", "life", "absolute son" appear, we in turn have also found that in all corners of the online world, there are different circle cultures such as rice circles, two-dimensional circles, game e-sports circles and so on. Today's "black talk" is no longer based on the principle of exclusivity, but more just because we are in different information cocoons and the information is not common. In this sense, the network should form a public opinion space that can be discussed and exchanged with each other continuously.
The biggest charm of the Internet lies in the folding and compression of time and space, shortening the physical distance that should create opportunities for people in different regions to communicate and enjoy the wonderful experience of encountering different groups. As the American pragmatist philosopher Pierce said, all thought is expressed by means of symbols, "symbols are a reproduction of the terms of spiritual interpretation", the essential function of symbols is to make inefficient meaning relations effective, and language symbols should be intermediaries to convey what they think. Symbols are in an unrestrained generation process, because different interpretations of the referential object make the interpretation term constantly become new symbols, so that they continue to infinity, but the referential objects of the symbols are dynamic entities, and their meaning is in constant development and accumulation, and the openness of the generation is maintained while deepening. The use of language is such a dynamic process, a process of mutual consultation within society. Today we still need language to communicate first and foremost, even in cyberspace. As long as communication is maintained, the language must always be in the process of discussion and the flow of generation.
Third, think seriously and speak sincerely
Admittedly, the fact that these buzzwords can be accepted by the public and widely disseminated is precisely the emotional resonance of most young people. The popularity of mobile Internet, the network world has become a relatively low threshold of public opinion space, it seems that everyone can say a mouth, and for most people, the virtual world of the network is a refuge for reality, speaking in the network world is often no longer seriously considered, coupled with the lack of context of face-to-face communication, people often only judge the position of others one-sidedly from their own standpoint, so that emotional catharsis replaces basic communication, in this atmosphere, individuals are easy to blindly follow, wrapped in the desires and expressions of others. What kind of language do we need today? Or maybe there's a deeper question lurking behind this question: We should rethink how contemporary people can face others and themselves more sincerely and without burden. Whether it is the online world or real life, we urgently need a more benign communication environment. After teasing and self-deprecating, can we return to ourselves, think seriously and speak sincerely?
On the other hand, because of the strong communication ability of the network, young people are always drawn to the publication of words that highlight personality, however, the extreme pursuit of differentiated expressions often loses the temperature of language, whether it is video content or articles, today's Internet expression tends to be templated, homogenized, for the innovation speed of fresh buzzwords also makes the language flow on the surface, the so-called "zhihu body" "douban body" is not the network eight strands of this era? Through the mini program, you can generate a piece of Internet black words, accusation copy or emo quotations, and these network terrier cultures are also forming a solidified stereotype. Therefore, today we still need the beauty of language, we need language to convey what we think, real literature should be able to stimulate our sensitivity and imagination, perhaps we should return to our own living life, the pursuit of words with vivid feelings, awaken our instinct to perceive life and feel the world.
WeChat Editor: Lv Yimeng
Second instance: Ren Jingjing
Third trial: Xu Jian
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