Hot words of the year, vividly record social life

A number of institutions release 2022 words, buzzwords, new words——

Hot words of the year, vividly record social life

"Stable" and "20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China" have respectively become domestic characters and domestic words in the "Chinese Inventory 2022"; "Vigorous and courageous forward", "Chinese-style modernization" and "new track" led the ten popular words of 2022 released by the editorial board of "Biting Words and Chewing Words"; "Elegance" becomes the annual barrage; "Bolt Q (I really will thank you)" and "Bing Dun Dun (Winter Olympics)" are ranked first among the "Top Ten Internet Buzzwords" and "Top Ten Internet Hot Words" released by the editorial board of Language and Writing Weekly... Recently, a number of annual lists of hot words and buzzwords have been "released".

Language is the most important communication tool and information carrier of human society, and is the basic element and distinctive symbol of culture. As a "recorder" and "microscope" of social change, the hot words and buzzwords of the year vividly outline the picture of people's language life in the past year, and contain rational thinking about their own lives, social changes and human development. Experts believe that the constantly updated buzzwords prove that the Chinese language has vigorous vitality and is a vivid practice of innovatively displaying the Chinese language and writing and creatively promoting Chinese culture.

The feeling of home and country has become a bright background

If you were to describe the 2022 just passed in one word, one word, what would be the word of the year in your mind?

"Stability" and "The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China" - Not long ago, the "Chinese Inventory 2022" jointly sponsored by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center, the Commercial Press and Guangming Network announced the annual domestic characters and domestic words in Beijing.

Looking back at the annual words in recent years, the word "stable" has been elected as the domestic word of the year more than once. The economy should seek progress in a stable manner, the society should be stable for a long time, reform should be carried out at a rapid pace, and employment and people's livelihood should be stable... The word "stability" summarizes the general trend of China's economic development and pins people's beautiful vision of life. The annual domestic phrase "20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China" stems from a far-reaching congress successfully held in China last year, sounding the clarion call for a big party, a country and a nation to march firmly forward towards the future.

"The Word of the Year is a direct reflection of the public's social sentiment about the major events of the year." Zhang Tianwei, a professor at Beijing University of Foreign Chinese, believes that the word "stability" reflects the Chinese's world view and methodology, and shows Chinese's perseverance, pragmatism and patience in the face of uncertainty. The "20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China" reflects the steady progress of the people of the whole country under the leadership of the Communist Party of China towards the realization of the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

Buzzwords and new words are an important part of language life, vividly outlining big things and small things. In the "Chinese Inventory 2022" activity, "Chinese-style modernization", "digital economy" and "space master" were selected as "Top Ten New Words", "Global Security Initiative", "New Physical Enterprise", "Digital Collection" and "Precise Prevention and Control" were selected as "Top Ten New Words". In the "Top Ten Popular Words" of 2022 released by the editorial board of "Biting Words and Chewing Words" not long ago, "Vigorous and Courageous Forward", "Chinese-style Modernization", "New Track", "Great White", "Fireworks", "Ceiling" and "Pinching" were selected.

"Only the selection of buzzwords from the 'normative layer' composed of normative mother tongue components is more in line with the linguistic and sociological values that we have always emphasized." Huang Anjing, editor-in-chief of "Biting Words and Chewing Words", believes that linguistic value refers to contributing to the Chinese language and promoting the healthy development of the Chinese language. Whether the word is "innovative" in terms of structure, meaning, and usage has become an important criterion for the selection of buzzwords. Words such as "Chinese-style modernization" and "new track" reflect the new structure and new form of the Chinese language, and words such as "pyrotechnics" and "pinching" are popular because they have new meanings. Sociological values mainly consider the need for buzzwords to reflect the characteristics of the times and leave a mark on social life in the past year. The "vigorous and courageous march forward", "Chinese-style modernization", "new track" and "great white" that entered the list all reflect this characteristic.

Experts believe that when more individual narratives are embedded in national narratives, self-expression is integrated with the spirit of the times, and buzzwords become one of the carriers of positive energy, vividly highlighting the feelings of home and country.

Internet language gradually enters the real context

Internet buzzwords and new words such as "electronic squeezed vegetables", "ice cream assassin" and "my eyes are rulers" that appeared in the "Chinese Inventory 2022" activity came from every tap and click of hundreds of millions of netizens. Yu Guilin, deputy editor-in-chief of the Commercial Press, said that these words were selected by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center based on the big data corpus, which includes language resources such as mainstream media, online media, radio and television media and social media, and the corpus has more than 2 billion words of text every year, and then screened by language information processing technology and selected by expert review.

In the inventory of Internet buzzwords released by Shanghai's "Language and Writing Weekly" at the end of last year, "Plug Q (I will really thank you)" and "Retreat!" Withdraw! Withdraw! "etc. were selected as "Top Ten Internet Buzzwords", "Bing Dun Dun (Winter Olympics)", "Online Lessons", "Qatar World Cup", etc. were selected as "Top Ten Internet Hot Words". The list has gone through the stages of reader recommendation, online audition and expert review, which reflects the wisdom and willingness of netizens.

In the era of mobile Internet, barrages, public messages, comments, etc. have gradually entered the expression context of many netizens.

"Elegance never goes out of style" "Elegance! It's so elegant! ”...... The video maker of the video barrage website Bilibili "Handmade Geng", in a video called "Homemade Piano Skewer Car", combined the piano and barbecue to invent a homemade piano skewer car by handmade method, and netizens praised the "elegance" of the barrage. As more and more netizens use it, the word "elegant" has gradually departed from the traditional Chinese semantics on the Internet, and has been extended to "praise someone for having a strong heart or excellent skills, and can remain calm and stable under any circumstances". In the 2022 annual barrage released by the Bilibili website and China Book Company, the word "elegant" was elected.

"Internet language is a vigorous language and cultural phenomenon, which is gradually entering real language life." Yang Erhong, director of the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Print Media Center and professor at Beijing Language and Culture University, divided online buzzwords into several categories: first, words that record the characteristics of the times and are widely disseminated by the media, such as "new journey" and "digital economy"; the second is words generated by hot events, such as "space master" and "ice cream assassin"; The third is the lyrics or song titles of popular music, which themselves carry wishes, spirits, etc., such as "together to the future" and "the lonely brave"; Fourth, the network anchor creates words such as laughter and memory points due to accents, homophonies, and some scenes of games and anime, such as "bolt Q"; There are also buzzwords that quickly express emotions through text on self-media platforms, such as "yyds (eternal god)" and "emo (bad mood)".

Internet languages have their own characteristics in phonetics, vocabulary, and grammar. For example, the "um" in reality expresses agreement and affirmation, but it is not enthusiastic enough on the Internet, and it is necessary to use "um-hmm" to express a positive communication attitude; In the past, "hehe" meant a smile, but it gradually evolved into a state of perfunctory expression and nothing to say on the Internet, and the expression of real happiness must be done in "hahahaha" and other ways.

Yang Erhong said that online language needs netizens to type on online platforms to convey hidden attitudes, emotions, expressions, etc., so there are relatively many alphabetic words and numerical words in Internet buzzwords, which is related to factors such as netizens' pursuit of typing communication speed, novelty and differentiation, and the internationalization of online platforms, and also reflects the unique self-decompression and adjustment methods of netizens on self-media.

Build a harmonious and healthy language life

What makes language hotspots come about? The story behind "digital human," one of the new words of the year released at the "Chinese Inventory 2022" campaign, may answer this question.

"Welcome the Winter Olympics, welcome the Winter Paralympics, and usher in the arrival of the New Year in China; Four Daokou, Five Daokou, Six Daokou, leading to Zhangjiakou; Alpine skating, cross-country skating, short track skating, figure skating, skiing skating..."On the eve of the Beijing Winter Olympics, a video of Zhu Guangquan, host of China Central Radio and Television Corporation, competing online with "sign language anchors", exceeded one million views just after it was launched. In the video, Zhu Guangquan challenges the "hand speed" of the "sign language anchor" with extremely fast speech speed, and the "sign language anchor" easily copes with his excellent professional ability. In fact, this "sign language anchor" is not a real person, but a virtual digital person. At the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Winter Games, smart sign language anchor "Lingyu" provided services in sign language to share the excitement of the event with tens of millions of hearing-impaired people.

The emergence of digital humans is not accidental. With the in-depth implementation of the "New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan" and the "14th Five-Year Plan for Radio, Television and Online Audiovisual Science and Technology Development", the research and development of intelligent sign language anchor products has accelerated its application. Digital humans began to be used to refer to digital avatars created using digital technologies that are close to human images.

According to the "Report on the Living Conditions of Chinese and Chinese Dialects (2022)" compiled by the National Language and Writing Committee, with the development of virtual digital human technology, sign language informatization benefits the hearing-impaired group, greatly reduces the cost of sign language interpretation, and promotes the integration of hearing-impaired people into society as soon as possible.

Experts believe that the fundamental attribute of language is sociality, and language is born in society, serves society, and also reflects and changes society. Social development affects the country, the nation, and the individual from many aspects, and the individual forms public opinion through discussion, analysis, evaluation and other discourse expressions, which in turn affects the development process of social events, and language hotspots are produced in this interaction.

The disappearance of language hotspots also has its own laws. In recent years, popular words such as "fan", "cottage", "thunderer" and "willful" have been included in the Modern Chinese Dictionary or entered books to become fixed words, while other popular words have gradually disappeared.

"This not only reflects the vigorous vitality of the Chinese language, but also shows that the Chinese language system itself has its own development laws." Zhang Wenwei believes that the general vocabulary of popular words is the fastest changing part of the Chinese system, but the core vocabulary of Chinese is stable, and in the process of development, some new words with accurate expressions and laws will be absorbed, and those words that are not closely related to social life and do not conform to the laws of Chinese development will be automatically eliminated.

Yu Guilin believes that from the perspective of language development trends, some special cases that were not standardized at that time have slowly become regular, accepted and recognized by the majority of language users, and language standards will continue to adjust with social development. He suggested that through reasonable standardization and orderly guidance, the healthy development of online language in a benign environment should be adopted.

How can the huge potential of language and writing be better exploited in the future? The Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening Language and Writing in the New Era issued by the General Office of the State Council at the end of November 2021 proposed to build a harmonious and healthy language life and effectively enhance the service capacity of the national language.

Experts believe that through the monitoring of language life conditions such as buzzwords, special language surveys should be carried out, measures such as standardization, standardization and informatization of sign language and Braille should be accelerated, and language and writing work should be promoted to focus on national strategies, promote social applications, and transform to modern governance, so as to continuously meet the diverse language needs of the people. (Reporter Peng Xunwen)

Source: People's Daily Overseas Edition