Beware of the multiple negative reactions to the misuse of online words | Telecom Review
2024-08-08
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Source: Xinhua Daily Telegraph, August 8
Author: Hu Yuanyuan
The Internet has changed the traditional language environment and people's social methods to a certain extent. A typical example is that some Internet languages are gradually extending into daily life, showing an interactive influence between online and offline. Some vivid Internet languages not only conform to the expression habits of the younger generation, but also enrich our language system and show a positive side. At present, some words have been included in the "Modern Chinese Standard Dictionary". But at the same time, the phenomenon of the abuse of Internet words such as "green tea", "super male", "love brain", "fish girl", "Pusin man" and "PUA" is also worthy of our vigilance.
The emotional carnival of the Internet era is a hotbed for the widespread spread of some label-like Internet terms. Many people are swept into a context full of "Internet jargon" before they have time to think carefully. However, some words have been separated from their original contexts during the spread, and their characteristics have mutated. They have been abused without verification or used for entertainment to refer to more things, and even become part of Internet violence.
The reproduction of some online words is the product of passionate narratives of some netizens. They ignore the integrity of language expression and deviate from the normative nature of language expression, but they are very tempting, making people mistakenly believe that being familiar with and using these online words can make them look advanced or young. For example, in the past two years, discussions about "super male syndrome" have increased. Not long ago, a blogger accidentally photographed a grandmother in Yunnan, and casually labeled her "Kunming Super Male Old Lady" in the video, causing the old lady to be cyberbullied. But in fact, the grandmother has a very easy-going personality, and "super male" is a medical term only related to men. It is not appropriate to abuse this popular label on the Internet.
Words are not rights, but they are the fulcrum of rights. We should be vigilant against the abuse of some online words because some words have objectively become tools for users to suppress others unequally. Some seemingly accurate and vivid online words have tamed the thinking of many people in an imperceptible manner.
In his "Strong Linguistic Relativity", American linguist Wolff mentioned that "the speaker is a prisoner of the grammatical and lexical structure of his language". Philosopher Wittgenstein also said, "The world of words is the world in your eyes". Language is the most important thinking tool for human beings. It turns the world of sensory impressions into an inner, conceptual and meaningful world. We use language as a symbol to fix the world in our consciousness, review the past and look forward to the future in our minds, and externalize the rich inner world. However, some closed and narrow network words have abandoned expressions with different emphases and different emotional colors, and have imprisoned rich and diverse people in words with only a single aspect, compressing the creative potential of thinking, causing users to gradually lose their perception of the vast world, and turning the infinite into the finite.
The misuse of some Internet buzzwords and the neglect of the bias and lack of logic hidden in some words may direct the focus of consciousness of the sender and the receiver to a single characteristic. For example, some people on the Internet are accustomed to calling affectionate people "love-brained" and giving people "lickers". Ordinary men who show a little confidence are "ordinary men". When dealing with women, they will be labeled "misogynistic" if they are not careful... These phenomena of misusing Internet words not only establish a hierarchical relationship between the sexes and incite gender confrontation, but also erode the trust between people.
In addition, due to the spiritual needs of young netizens to flaunt their individuality, Internet words have also become a code for building intergenerational barriers. Research shows that the abuse of Internet words has not only exacerbated the trend of individualization and utilitarianism among young people to a certain extent, but its vulgarization will also have a negative impact on the language environment of minors.
How to adapt to the language evolution in the digital age while not losing the normativeness of traditional language expression? This is a topic that needs to be considered urgently.
