Cultural Perspective丨These hot words freeze the 2023 memories of different groups

Beijing's "Chinese Inventory 2023" Top 10 Online Terms.

Towards the end of the year, the editorial departments of Shanghai's "Biting Words and Chewing Words" and "Language and Writing Weekly" respectively launched the top ten popular words of the year, Beijing's "Chinese Inventory 2023" annual words were announced a few days ago, and overseas annual hot words such as "Oxford Dictionary", "Cambridge Dictionary" and "Webster's Dictionary" have been released...... The buzzwords, hot words, and barrages of the year have converged into a vivid expression of the times, reflecting the colorful picture of social life.

At the same time, in the torrent of high-speed tumbling and muddy language, many of the hot words that are frequently mentioned are more likely to play as "social currency" or "emotional outlets". Che Fei, a young scholar at Shanghai Normal University, told reporters that many hot words are a reflection of human needs, youth culture and global affairs concerns, inspiring us to re-understand the collective emotions of young people such as Generation Z, the main force in the creation and use of buzzwords, and look at them with a more rational and critical attitude and guide them.

The hot word "short video gene" enriches the language ecology

Not long ago, Bilibili's annual barrage was released, with the word "ah?", which was sent more than 13.2 million times by users of Station B this year, which can express amazement, express incomprehension, and lift weight. From short video high-frequency barrage, to "dopamine dressing" and "special forces tourism", it is not difficult to find that many buzzwords are sprouting, popular and spreading on social media platforms.

For example, "special forces tourism" refers to college students' attempts to challenge the boundaries of time and physical strength with the lowest economic cost, in exchange for the richest tourism and cultural experience. This kind of "short time, many scenic spots, low cost, and high efficiency" tourism method conveys a sense of rhythm and impact through quickly edited short video screens.

The hot words of online social media, with the advantage of circulation popularity, have once again "flowed back" to text writing and daily conversations, enriching the language ecology. For example, the Oxford Dictionary's word of the year, "Rizz", which refers to a person's ability to attract the attention of others through their style and charisma, is rooted in the culture of the internet and games, and content with the hashtag "Rizz" has garnered more than 36 billion views on TikTok alone. Casper Glaswall, President of Oxford Linguistics, said: "The proliferation of data on the use of Rizz is proof that vocabulary phrases originating from internet culture are increasingly becoming part of everyday language and will continue to shape linguistic trends in the future. ”

Of course, there are also different voices in the industry, and they are cautious about the hot word "short video". Huang Anjing, editor-in-chief of "Biting the Text and Chewing the Words", observed that short videos have won the favor of fans with their fast and down-to-earth communication advantages, and have become another important carrier for people to show their linguistic wisdom and create hot stalks. However, the spread scope of hot words such as "Hakimi", "digging and digging" and "the gears of fate began to turn" that originated from short videos and were widely disseminated did not further expand, "A large number of popular buzzwords in short videos still have obvious boundaries between traditional media such as newspapers and periodicals and even traditional communication methods on the Internet."

Through the "popular" appearance, see through the real daily life

Using words to outline the hot topics of the year, condense the spirit of the times, and connect language and culture can make people experience the rich cultural connotation of the Chinese language while caring about China and the world. Not long ago, "Zhen", "High-quality Development", "Danger" and "ChatGPT" were respectively elected as the domestic words, domestic words, international words, and international words of the year in the "Chinese Inventory 2023". After the recommendation of netizens, corpus big data extraction and expert review, these words surfaced from the vast sea of Chinese and fixed people's annual memories. Whether it is a country or an individual, in the face of challenges, do not lose their hearts, when they encounter wind and rain, and every inch of joy is worthy of the word "vibration".

There are lists that strive to strike a balance between "personalization" and "publicity". For example, the 2023 Top 10 Online Languages sponsored by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center and the Commercial Press contain language resources in different media forms such as video barrage, online news, and traditional media reports, and the corpus size analyzed exceeds 8 billion characters. Among them, there are not only new concepts that reflect the current social network, such as "focusing on a different", "conspicuous bag" and "partner", but also popular fashion trends such as "dopamine dressing" with bright colors, as well as vivid footnotes to social development scenes such as "fireworks" and "village super", the latter provides a strong cultural momentum for rural revitalization and brings inspiration to the current promotion of cultural and tourism consumption.

At the same time, some scholars have reminded that with the significant increase in "Internet natives" and "Internet immigrants", most of them are young people who have become the producers and promoters of buzzwords, and the number of "Internet tourists" and "Internet outsiders" has decreased significantly, and the voice of "I have never heard of these words" cannot be ignored. Pursuing "popularity" too much may create a certain kind of "intergenerational anxiety" to a certain extent.

For example, some netizens left a message: "Seeing this year's buzzwords, I feel that I may be a little out of step with the times, and I don't know whose language function has degraded a little, and the rhetoric has become scarce." In this regard, Huo Yan, a young scholar at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the buzzword of the year, which should condense more emotional resonance, seems to have become a carnival for young people, creating a communication gap between different generations, and even narrowing the distance between people, which stems from the contradiction contained in the buzzword itself: while breaking barriers, while creating barriers. In her opinion, it is necessary to be wary of over-exaggerating the "new" and "popular", which will overshadow the ordinary life of those who live day in and day out. "Some buzzwords seem to be colorful, but in fact, they have not succeeded in opening the circle, but are getting farther and farther away from many people's daily life. ”

In Che Fei's view, many buzzwords themselves have "game" or fashion characteristics, and have their own cyclical laws of popularity, screening, and rise and fall. "Whether the Internet subculture, represented by Internet buzzwords, can further broaden the boundaries of mainstream culture, push interdisciplinary research to a deeper level, and make a new turn in linguistic research, is worth pondering and reflecting on. ”

"Real illusion" is difficult to distinguish? Speculation responds to AI hurricane

A new round of scientific and technological revolution represented by big data and artificial intelligence is booming, and the combination of data and intelligent technology has promoted profound changes in clothing, food, housing and transportation, and a new picture of "digital and intelligent life" is slowly unfolding. Since 2023, "generative artificial intelligence" represented by ChatGPT has become a global technology hotspot, not only affecting human life and production methods, but also providing new tools and perspectives for the innovation and development of various industries.

Whether it is the "100 model war" in the top ten new words of the annual "Chinese Inventory", the trend of the competitive development of various "large-scale deep learning Xi models" in the application field, or the hot words voted by many overseas dictionaries, the topics related to artificial intelligence are quite eye-catching. For example, the Collins English Dictionary announced that "AI" (short for "Artificial Intelligence") was selected as the word of the year, the imitation of human mental functions by computer programs.

With the emergence of artificial intelligence technology, the line between authenticity and falsehood is becoming more and more blurred, often causing discussion. The Cambridge Dictionary and Merriam-Webster Dictionary have the words of the year "hallucinate" and "authentic" respectively, reflecting the public's treatment

A mixed mindset of new technologies. Wendalyn Nichols, publishing manager at Cambridge Dictionaries, said that AI can answer questions with a false meaning, reminding people that "critical thinking is still needed to use tools" in the face of AI madness.

There are forward-looking thinking focusing on technology, and there are also refined feedback on people's livelihood economy. Japan's annual kanji was released, and the monks of Kiyomizuji Temple in Kyoto wrote down the word "tax". There is a lot of controversy about whether to raise the consumption tax and insurance premiums, which are known as the "second tax" in Japan. Weak personal consumption in Japan is likely to persist for the foreseeable future. The word "tax" is intertwined with the worries and anxieties of the Japanese people behind it, which is intriguing.

Source丨Wen Wei Po reporter Xu Yang

Editor丨Qian Jiayue