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In January, Douban user "Walnut (bored with learning)" created a Douban group called "Word Aphasia Mutual Aid Alliance", which she initially only "wanted to build a personal play" group because of the "three-minute heat", but since its creation, the group has expanded rapidly, and by August 1, 2021, 127273 "word aphasiars" have gathered here.
Douban screenshot
In modern medicine, pathological aphasia, also known as "acquired language disorder", refers to the damage to the ability to understand and express the ability to understand and express due to the damage of brain tissue related to language function.
Unlike aphasia caused by physiological lesions, the "aphasia" experienced by people with verbal aphasia is more like a social disease. Before the establishment of the "Mutual Aid Alliance for Word Aphasia", this phenomenon had been noticed: in 2019, a survey of 2002 respondents conducted by the Social Survey Center of China Youth Daily showed that 76.5% of respondents felt that their language was becoming poorer and poorer. Respondents believed that language poverty was characterized by a basic inability to speak verses (61.9%) and a lack of use of complex rhetorical techniques (57.6%).
Compared with "quoting verses and using complex rhetoric", the ability of text aphasiars to lose is more basic, and Yang Run, a member of the above-mentioned Douban group, summed this up as - boiling dumplings in a teapot, there are goods that cannot be poured out. The group profile of the Alliance for Mutual Aid of Word Aphasia put it this way: "For a long time, as listeners and bystanders, we have gradually forgotten how to organize the logic of words and how to clearly use words to express our emotions and opinions. ”
Lost
At the beginning of 2021, when encountering incredible things, Zhang Xiaowen will only say "speechless", "outrageous", or "out of the spectrum". She often feels a little uncomfortable when she blurts out these words: "There are many other options, and this should not be the case." ”
She described herself as a "sensual, bullshit-talker" person. In her second year of college, she used to do a public account with a friend: "At that time, it was very prolific, and three articles a week were not a problem. "Writing book reviews and film reviews is what she used to do. However, after only three years, her ability degenerated to the point where she could not hold back a few words after sitting in front of the computer for a long time. Friends said that what she used to write was very readable and asked her why she didn't pick up her pen again. She felt depleted, anxious, miserable.
Unless otherwise noted, the following images are all visual China figures
When looking back, Zhang Xiaowen felt that there were already signs of "aphasia".
Zhang Xiaowen chases the stars, and "Honmei" (idol) is a musician. In the fandom, she is usually the one who writes hot reviews for her idol's new songs. Last year, when the idol's new album was released, she opened the document for editing as usual, but only wrote a few sentences and was completely stuck. At the time, she blamed it on a "lack of empathy" because the song was ambiguous and she was in the midst of a lost relationship.
"Now that I think about it, maybe I can't write it at that moment," she paused, "but it's actually self-abandonment." Can't think of copywriting, and I don't want to think about it. ”
Wang Yi is more troubled by writing because it is her job.
In the fall of 2020, Wang Yi graduated with a bachelor's degree and then worked as a copywriter for a company. Soon after joining the company, she needed to edit Weibo copy for a doctor. The copywriting should have reflected the doctor's calmness in treating difficult patients and his determination to assume the responsibilities of the doctor, but in her hands it became unsatisfactory: "If I don't pick up, only those 'Putian' doctors are willing to take it, and in my case, it is better than falling into their hands..."
The finalized copy was written separately. She felt that the copy was logical and well worded. In contrast, their own copywriting is cumbersome and dry, and there are also auxiliary words such as "indeed" and "actually" in the sentences that are misplaced.
Compared with large paragraphs of text, expressions such as emojis and "stems" are more favored by Wang Yi. Some of the stoicisms hang on her lips – lately she often says "laughing", a word that covers a wide range of words, and laughter is "laughing", and sarcastic sneering is also "laughing". "It used to say 'laughing to death,' which wasn't very auspicious, but now it's changed to 'laughing,'" she added.
However, these simple expressions can have moments of failure. When it comes to expressing her emotions accurately in words, Wang Yi can often only say: "Really... That's the feeling, you know? "What kind of feeling is it? Does the other party know the answer to this question? She wasn't sure.
In the "Word Aphasia Mutual Aid Alliance", many team members want to find a less cookie-cutter way of expression. Courtesy of respondents
Gao Ying, a graduate student in the art department, has similar problems. She envies people who can spread out their emotions and thoughts in large sections, and she can't clearly express her feelings in words: "For example, when I feel uncomfortable, I only know that I am uncomfortable, but I don't know how to describe it." 」 So the part of each emotion that is presented in words is only the "shell": for example, happiness is "happiness", or "happy", and she can't do it to make her use more words to fill the word.
The desire to express sometimes filled her brain, but mostly faded before she could think of how to express it. When it was her turn to really exchange some ideas with her friends, there seemed to be a thick fog curtain between her and the appropriate and rich words, and she often couldn't say what she really wanted to express. In the end she could only throw a few more stems, and then laughed awkwardly and said, "Oh, it's... You know what I mean? ”
Very few people will say that they don't understand, so the dialogue is "confused and ended", and Gao Ying breathes a long sigh of relief.
According to one member of the group, the chart accurately depicts the situation of the members of the group. Courtesy of respondents
Accustomed to laying "stems" intensively in life, there is also Yang Fengyi, who is studying for a medical undergraduate. She described most of her communication with her friends as "constantly throwing and picking up stems." Most of the "terriers" come from social platforms such as B stations, Weibo, and Douban, and are updated at any time, so she feels that the terrier seems to be some kind of "knowledge point reproduction", which is very interesting and fun.
Because the spread and use of "terriers" has a certain range of restrictions, Yang Fengyi believes that this is also a kind of code for people to recognize each other and form circles: "That is, if you don't look at similar things, you won't understand where our 'points' are." ”
However, once outside the "circle layer", Yang Fengyi will become cramped. She went to the internship and felt that the older sisters around her were "very good at talking", and she was often not sure how to accurately convey her meaning to the other party before communicating with colleagues. Sometimes, despite repeated wording in my head beforehand, the words spoken are still unsatisfactory.
When writing a circle of friends, the same troubles will also appear. Yang Fengyi feels that the popular copywriting on the Internet is very "old-fashioned", but he has nothing new. A circle of friends of hundreds of words, she wants to delete and delete for a long time, and the final send out is often only one or two sentences, or even a word, directly replaced by a meme or meme.
Frustrated, she suspects that her habitual play is just to "hide the shallowness of her heart."
Cause-seeking
Judy Vajkman and Nigel Dodd argue in The Sociology of Speed that speed and acceleration have become distinctive features of our time. And this characteristic is projected into social interaction, and the typical performance is the fixation and conciseness of language. In a survey conducted by the China Youth Daily Social Survey Center, 70.9% of the respondents believed that language poverty was due to the internet age's requirement for more direct and concise expression, while 65.4% attributed this to the network atmosphere of homogeneous expression and universal replication. When reflecting on the causes of his aphasia, Yang Fengyi believes that the social atmosphere may indeed be one of the important reasons: the universal pursuit of directness and simplicity will lead to a large number of homogeneous expressions, and homogeneous expressions are often precursors to aphasia. In her view, despite the lack of personal laziness, "homogeneous expression" is sometimes forced to occur.
"Expressions like yyds (eternal gods), srds (though), and jedi, everyone is saying that if you don't know what they mean, or don't use these words, you may not be able to communicate normally with the people around you," her tone became urgent, "so what do you do?" You can only go with the flow. ”
Shi Jingnan, who is also in the "Mutual Aid Alliance for Word Aphasia", also has the feeling of being "wrapped up". As a first-year undergraduate in the history department, she has been in the habit of keeping records since middle school, and she does not find it difficult to express her feelings and opinions in pieces, but is only troubled by how to output longer, more logical long texts.
Because of the persistent pursuit of the sense of authenticity of words, Shi Jingnan resents abbreviated the expression of abbreviations and is also willing to trace the original meaning of words. But this often seems out of place: "For example, the 'inner volume' was originally an academic concept, but now its meaning has been expanded too broadly, and it is 18,000 miles away from its original meaning." At this time, if I always tell my friends, this is not the meaning of this word. That would seem uninteresting and strange. ”
Xu Mofan, associate professor of the Department of Chinese of East China Normal University, once pointed out in an interview with Wen Wei Po: "The connotation of language expression is inversely proportional to the extension, and the more vague and simple the meaning of the word, the greater the scope of its use."
In an age when "all things are absolutely perfect," expression seems to begin to become easy. But this ease has its costs. Shi Jingnan believes that when ready-made expressions are readily available, people may be inclined to "take" without thinking. This will lead to a shrinking of the ability to express: "Use it in and out." ”
Yang Run, a member of the "Word Aphasia Mutual Aid Alliance", once made a general analysis of the aphasia of the members in the group, and she called the "taking" behavior described by Shi Jingnan as "borrowing other people's wine glasses".
At present, there are many "wine glasses" that can be borrowed, from hot stems to memes, from screenshots of film and television works to his humanistic cases, all visible expressions can be borrowed. Yang Run is not opposed to proper quotation, but she always feels that if borrowing becomes a habit, it will become difficult to drink by herself: "If you keep saying other people's words, slowly you will not have your own words." Aphasia is inevitable. ”
Whether it is following the flow of inflated word meaning, or over-quoting to borrow a "wine glass", it is essentially a waste of self-expression. Zhang Xiaowen has a deep understanding of this. In 2019, because of the examination, she interrupted the update of the public account; in 2020, the examination failed to find a job, she did not write much, and the rare output relied on forwarding, with copywriting similar to "Isn't this me" and "hahahahaha".
After nearly two years of abandonment, her writing organization ability ushered in a tragic "Waterloo". Looking back, she feels that laziness and neglect of practice are the most important reasons why she has become a "word aphasia": "At that time, I made excuses for myself, always saying that I did not have a stable job, and it was not too late to start writing after settling down. But in fact, if you don't write for a long time, you won't be able to write. ”
On the other side of "output", the lack of "input" is also considered to be an important cause of aphasia. Gao Ying does not like to read, and the laughs and joys in life are "all given by earthy videos". She felt that this would inevitably lead to the occurrence of aphasia: "I don't know how normal is written, and I certainly won't write it myself." ”
Wang Yi went a step further, proposing the difference between "valid input" and "invalid input". She felt that her aphasia began in her junior year when she interrupted reading due to experimental reports, course papers, and other matters. After that, she also replenished by watching public accounts, storytelling videos, etc., but the effect was not ideal. Therefore, she believes that fragmentary and fragmentary input is not helpful for the cultivation and improvement of writing organization ability.
"Public accounts, Weibo, B station, Zhihu ... There are many places to access knowledge. A very thick book, someone always finishes it with a tweet, a video. Looking at these things, it seems that you can also gain knowledge, but it is very wrong. How to talk about it," Wang Yi pondered for a while, "probably because these things are very fragmented, it is difficult to help people establish a genealogy of ideas, and it is difficult to be used for 're-output'." ”
In another corner of the group, Yang Run also mentioned the connection between "invalid input" and text aphasia. But what kind of reading is invalid? In addition to Wang Yi's discussion of the establishment of systematic reading, she feels that Schopenhauer's questions in his philosophical essay "On Books and Reading" can also be used as a reference: "When reading, our heads become a playground for other people's thoughts. When these things are finally evacuated, what will be left? ”
Rehabilitation
In January 2021, Gao Ying left school to go home, and the time spent with friends to "talk about the stem" was significantly reduced, and her family did not know her "terrier". At one point she felt "like a mute." On the 21st of the same month, she found the "Word Aphasia Mutual Aid Alliance" while surfing the Internet, and after browsing several posts in the group, she quickly felt that she had found a similar kind, and then "joined the organization" and published a short post titled "The 1073rd Day of Aphasia" as a starting point for her text rehabilitation.
Gao Ying posted a short post titled "The 1073rd Day of Aphasia", and after talking to reporters, "1073" called it a joke for her. Courtesy of respondents
What happened 1073 days ago? Gao Ying didn't remember. She didn't know when the word aphasia began to accompany her, and the reason why she made up a precise time was to reflect that she "really cared about the 'word aphasia'", and she even opened two Microblog trumpets to force herself to write a "small essay".
However, this activity lasted less than three months, and it was stranded due to the busyness of study and life, and the "rehabilitation" ended without illness.
Gao Ying felt that the rehabilitation of words was something higher than the level of life, and when she was busy, she was left behind: "I am studying for a master's degree, only two years of reading, in the first half of this year, the tutor let the final thesis choose the topic, and the summer vacation had to be interned." When I get busy, I feel like I just want to be a machine in my life. During the weekend, I just want to lie in bed and watch earthy videos, and I don't care so much about my inner construction. ”
Similar to Gao Ying, Yang Described herself as "occasionally motivated to get back to health." When she first joined the "Word Aphasia Mutual Aid Alliance", she had posted two posts on rehabilitation exercises, but in all kinds of complicated information, the coordinates of this online group were quickly forgotten along with the determination to rehabilitate: "If you had not come to me, I would have forgotten that I had added such a group and had strong rehabilitation ideas." ”
She likes beautiful literary expressions and also has admired "serious writers", such as Wang Zengqi and Shen Congwen. But it is the online novel that is more often read, because it is "completely in line with people's cool points" and is very decompressed; on the other hand, she admits that recording and expressing have its significance, but in her spare time, she still does more to brush videos and talk about stems. "At the moment, it's not about giving up rehabilitation completely, but the motivation that motivated me to rehabilitate is really not as great as the temptation to 'lie flat,'" she concluded. ”
For Wang Yi, the "water temperature" has overheated, and the nature of the work does not allow her to stay where she is. Copywriting requires a rich thesaurus, smooth logic, and a good sense of language. After her copywriting was said to be "untouchable" several times, she began to try to reverse the strong inertia left by her previous expression habits.
The first is to consciously avoid expressing one's own views through the mouth of others, and secondly, to reduce one's dependence on stems and memes, and the third is to read and keep learning. In addition, she also tried to overcome her own psychological obstacles and develop the habit of recording: "I used to write because I thought I was bad at writing. Now convincing yourself that completion is more important than perfection, writing more, practicing more, expressing more, and grasping the inspiration in your head in time, and writing it out in time. ”
After insisting on it for more than half a year, Wang Yi felt that the words she wrote were much better than before, and her latest speech was also recognized by the company's leaders.
Zhang Xiaowen also forced herself to regain her written expression in the form of "instant record". After experiencing the embarrassment of "wanting to write but not being able to write", she went back to look at the reading notes she had written before, and began to read again, doing writing exercises, and trying to make her fragmented words coherent.
"Writing Practice" is divided into two parts: writing and error correction. Zhang Xiaowen records her mood and thoughts on the day almost every day, and when she reads it back and rereads it after writing, she will correct the logical errors and pick out some words with high repetition frequency to replace.
Zhang Xiaowen feels that this practice is effective, because she is not "writing without words" now. The lack of spoken language has also improved — in order to stop the trend of language poverty, she deliberately controls her use of internet buzzwords and forces herself to look for other options.
Reading and thinking are also the two most important rehabilitation measures that Shi Jingnan believes are. In March 2020, she led the establishment of a WeChat group for reading and punching cards. The community atmosphere is very good, and the group members will report on their progress on their reading every day, and also share their reading impressions and book lists in their spare time.
In order to force herself to read, think, and output text, Shi Xiaonan established a WeChat reading community, and she will count the reading of team members in the form of a table every week. Courtesy of respondents
Shi Jingnan feels that this is a multi-pronged thing: not only can collide ideas and exchange views with others, but also force herself to read and urge herself to think. She stresses the importance of reading in particular: "Writing down your impressions after reading a book is of course a kind of rehabilitation exercise. But I think the help of input is not only to complete a 'rehabilitation exercise', it brings people a long-term accumulation, which is very important for cultivating thinking habits and shaping thinking forms. ”
Ask
Since "there is nothing new under the sun", and the predecessors have provided many usable text materials; since there are ready-made templates that are accessible; since memes, "memes" and other seemingly more convenient languages are emerging in an endless stream, what is the need for "word rehabilitation"?
Speaking of this, Yang Fengyi feels that as a means of solving problems, the necessity of "word rehabilitation" first comes from some "very practical and utilitarian" considerations: "Life is inseparable, you need to accurately express your meaning when communicating with people, you need to learn something to improve your conversation when talking to people, work to write copywriting, materials, always can't use memes and stems, right?" ”
Wang Yi gave a similar answer. She acknowledges the significance of stereotyped, minimalist text: "inverted pyramid" news writing has been praised for adapting to wartime needs; and memes are sometimes more intimate and simple than words: "Sometimes I'm busy and can't reply immediately, at this time just replying to 'talk later' will seem a bit rusty, and it will be easier to use some memes." 」 ”
However, there are still some moments in life that need to "speak your own words". Wang Yi feels that those moments that need to be "expressed by themselves" are the meaning of text rehabilitation.
Copywriting is of course one thing, but more embarrassing moments of "unspeakable" also appear in daily communication. She once talked to netizens about the front and back notes of perfume, and the other party can describe the characteristics of perfume in a very scene-based expression: "The smell of iris is the smell of the dancer's makeup powder floating in the room when you suddenly cross into the backstage of a nightclub in Shanghai at night"; when she describes the front and back notes of perfume, the description used is "very good" and "the degree to which grass can be pulled", and when she goes into detail, she can only use a picture of a strong cold iced black tea, an orange-flavored popsicle, and "the taste of Sephora" as an analogy.
She felt that she lacked it, and secretly hated her weak writing skills.
Wang Yi was once a heavy user of memes, and she could even have a conversation with a close friend just by publishing a love pack. But the paradox of the meme is that its meaning seems to be infinitely extended, but it may be misunderstood due to ambiguity.
Most of the understanding errors occur between generations, for example, the "smile" expression in WeChat is a friendly smile in the eyes of middle-aged and elderly people, while in the eyes of young people, it is often "laughing at meat without smiling" and "sneering"; but sometimes misunderstandings also occur between peers: once Wang Yi sent a meme that he felt was "smiling" to a friend, and the other party felt "terrible".
Buzzwords have similar drawbacks – inflation in the sense of the word is bound to be accompanied by the shrinkage of the word itself, and when inflation reaches its extreme, the word is completely shorted. Yang Run put forward his own thoughts on this: "If a word can refer to everything, it just means that it cannot refer to anything." To give a very simple example: I think watermelon is delicious, ice cream is delicious, but these two kinds of delicious food are not the same kind of delicious food. If ice cream is yyds and watermelon is also yyds, then the difference between them is erased. ”
Shi Jingnan, who regards words as "traces of time" and "emotional outlets", believes that fluent text expression is an indispensable ability. She is accustomed to recording various moments in her life, because she feels that her experiences are precious and her memories are limited, and she hopes to "make up for the lack of memory through recording." This also gives her some extra "energy": "Write down the discomfort of this moment, and then turn it back when you are frustrated, I will feel that I have come so hard before, which will bring me some sense of faith." 」 ”
In addition to the record, Shi Jingnan also vaguely felt that the relationship between language and thought is two-way, and the lack of language is likely to be accompanied by the lack of thought. But exactly how the process happened, she didn't want to understand.
George Orwell's words in 1984, borrowing Sam's words, may give her some clues: "You think our main job is to create new words, but they don't have anything to do with it!" We are eliminating words, every day. We've stripped language out of the bones... Don't you see that the only goal of a new word is to narrow the scope of thought?
(In order to protect the privacy of the interviewees, except for Xu Mofan, the characters in the article are pseudonyms)
Editor-in-Charge: Peng Wei
Proofreader: Yijia Xu