网络语言产生的原因及其规化

Abstract

Since 1990s, China put great effort to develop the research and application of internet. Later, the young became the major group of internet users. With their own open, inclusive, and innovative qualities, they created a new form of language-- the cyber-language. Differ from the traditional language, the cyber-language is more vivid, the form of cyber-language is very flexible, diverse and active. Owing to the popularity of internet, cyber-language is getting more and more popular, which have attracted most people’s attention. Because of its special form, the traditional language has confronted a strong impact; therefore, we should pay a close attention to such phenomenon, guide, and make it into the correct and positive developing direction. This paper analyzes the appearance of cyber-language, the origin of cyber-language, the classifications of the cyber-language, and how to regulate the cyber-language. [Key words] cyber-language; classification; standardization; orderly

Part I. Introduction

In the late 1990s, the network is like a raging fire, spread throughout the earth, appears to be ubiquitous network; the network has become the people's fashion. When people met their friends, they no longer ask\" ate or not\not\"

It has become a fashion to most of people. The internet is like a huge shock wave, which brings much influence to us.

Because the internet possesses its existential virtual nature and makes cyber culture show a recessive characteristic, it can bring great freedom to people and it attracts numerous persons’ favors, which promote the development of cyber-language.

Mr. Gao Mingkai said: Undoubtedly, the new social environment, will generate a new social phenomenon, one of activities of human is the requirement of communication, so the internet acts as a tool of communication. Owing to the diversity and specificity, cyber-languages not only include those standard terms, but contain some new created words that understood by internet users.

There are many internet language created in these years. For example, people usually call the “E-mail” as “yimeier”(伊妹儿) in Chinese phonetic, they call “girl” as “meimei” (美眉) in Chinese phonetic or MM, they call “thing” as “dongdong”(东东) ，they call “modem” as “mao”(猫),etc.

Besides that, some numbers or abbreviation also can show some specific meanings. For example, “886” means “goodbye”, “100” means “perfect”, “dinosaur” means “ugly girls”.

Some abbreviations also represent some special meanings, “GG” stands for male, “NB” is one of the Beijing dialects, and it means “second to none”. “BF” and “GF” stand for “boy friend” and “girl friend”. “CU” stand for “see you”.

Last year, the “囧”（jiong）may be the hottest Internet words, at the first sight of its word structure, we could associate to a embarrassed face, so, “囧” is related to some awkward things. DIY is also an abbreviation, which stands for “Do It Yourself”.

Part II. The classifications of cyber-language

Because the classifications of cyber-language are free and irregular, they have brought a great impact on language. According to the traditional theory, the cyber-language should be called “coinages”. Coinages means that random words or create any changes from the original words. While, people not only tend to identify these non-standard words, but also use these words as a fashion trends. Therefore, when the internet terminology appeared, it was caused insight attention by some

scholars. From the forms of words, cyber-language can be divided into such a few categories:

The first category is internet-related technical terms and professional terms. Such as “browsers”, “World Wide Web”, “Chat room”, “Web sites”, “search engines” The problems of these words are not very important, it is must for these words if the internet develop. However, the phenomenon of multi-body terms should be concerned. For example, the most widely used of the “Internet”, there are several claims: the Internet, Internet, and International Network, exchange network, etc.

The second types are internet-related terms, such as, the Internet, contact, worms, surfing, and online friends or lovers. These words are based on modern Chinese word-building material of the existing rules with Chinese words formation rules, most of these words are legitimate. Many words are also quite distinctive, like “worms”, “surfing” and so on.

The third category is some words created by the Internet users. For instance, some Chinese people call America as “mi guo”(米国) in phonetic rather “mei guo”(美国)。 The fourth types are a great number of symbols represented by the letter abbreviation. For example, “MM” stands for girl or sister, “GG” stands for brother. With the development and popularity of QQ chat tools, some of network images created. For instance,

① : -） : Smile

② : -D : Big mouth, Smiling face ③ >:-< : Angry vertical eyebrow ④ :-(’ : Mouth watering, Greedy ⑤ :-P : Tongue, A mischievous kind

⑥ :-<) : A long moustache of a man with a smile ⑦ :-’） : A cold or I am sorry

⑧ :-& : Tongue tied or No comment ⑨ |-） : Eyes narrowed in a crack ⑩ : -O : “Wow, too surprising” The fifth type is homonymic words.

1. Some numbers combination can show specific meanings, for example, “886” means “goodbye”; “9494” means “yes yes”; “7456” means “make me angry”. “246” means “hungry”, etc.

2. Many Chinese homonymic words have been created by the internet users in these years; the internet users often use some words in similar sounds to make fun with their internet friends. I just list some typical words as below:

“给力”(strengthen), “斑竹” （版主editor）；“点心局”（电信局Telecommunications）；“粉发涂墙”（奋发图强work hard）；“杯具”（悲剧tragedy）；“密马”（密码code）；“神马”（什么what）等。

A few simple letters and symbols on changing face in such simple and vivid images, showing a sense of humor of the internet users, the internet indeed brings a little easier and enjoyable.

Part III. The features of cyber-language

i. Innovative.

Innovative is the greatest feature of cyber-language, language can be free from the shackles of the internet; its idea is very unique, which could reflect creativity of each person in language. The innovation mainly embody in vocabulary and grammar, first, to use the existing words to create a new word or to make breakthrough from the conventional syntax. For example, “灌水”（irrigation）is to pour water into container originally, but on the internet, it said the publication or article are lacking in substance. Second, the internet users use the cyber-language created by themselves. For example, the word “rookie(菜鸟)”，it refers to the beginner or green hand in some industries. ii.Economy

Consider saving the money and time, the cyber-language also has significant

economic feature, this is rather familiar with the official script of Qin dynasty. Internet language should be brief, it should break the traditional writing symbol limitations, change the word forms, sounds and meanings, and then to create a new form—a combination of sounds and meanings. For example, “GG”(哥哥); “DD”（弟弟）etc. iii Figurativeness

Perhaps inspired by the Chinese pictographic characters, the internet users also make full use of keyboard symbols to create a lot of vivid and humorous expressions and motion graphics for expressing their feelings. Such as, ^口^ (smile). These internet symbols are vivid and full of life. The figurativeness of cyber-language is also reflected in some image words, For example, the internet users are also called “worms”, and read “zhe yang zi” continuously as “jiang zi”. Through this way, we change the abstract concept into vivid one, which form the character and style of cyber-language. ⅳ Humor

Humor is also a very important factor of cyber-language; it could make the cyber-language more attractive and disseminate widely. The relatively young internet users also make the cyber- language more dynamic than any other kinds of languages; therefore, a relaxed and humorous reading atmosphere was created by these young people. For example, “菌男”(bacteria male) and “霉女”(mold female) refer to the ordinary-looking even ugly men and women, to the contrary, these two words are homonymic with “俊男” and “美女”. The words “bacteria” and “mold” enable people associate with expired, spoiled food, the two words are have a strong ironic effect. ⅴThe vulgar

The internet is same to the real life, owing to some disagreements in conversation, the vulgar language or dirty words appeared. Such as, “TMD”、 “SB” and so on, an be seen everywhere. Today, the vulgarity of cyber-language has been more and more severe, and some rude words have been spread into the traditional media, which should be aroused some related department’s attention. I suggest that some relevant departments should formulate corresponding management standards to guide cyber purification language, to form civilized language and clean atmosphere.

Part IV. The cause to the advent of cyber-language

Because the carrier of cyber-language is very unique, the generating causes are also complex. Through examining the these internet words, the reasons are as below, i The objective reasons on surface are to make users faster, and save much more time. With the development of online information dissemination, people need get the most and timely information in the least time, so the online language should be simple. There are many homophones in Chinese characters, in order to save time, the internet users will not to take the accuracy of words into consideration.

ii The subjective reasons on surface are recognized widely, many young internet users purchase novelty and unique. They think use cyber-language is interesting and cool. Although the Internet has penetrated into every corner of the world, but the main group using the Internet is the young students in high school, they have received a good education and they are lively, curious and full of innovation. The network language increase the efficiency, meanwhile, they are filled with novelties, fashion sense and avant-garde sense. So, it is an important reason that the cyber-language can widespread among young people.

Part V. The attitude to the cyber-language

On the Internet, the development of cyber-language is very complex, and it is difficult to use administrative orders to regulate the internet terms. There is no editing and checking on the internet, everything is in disorder and an only rule is

“convention”. For this particular internet culture, we should treat that in a proper way. There may be some undesirable phenomena and chance phenomena in the language developing process, from the perspective of language development, this is normal. These phenomena also could make the language impure and unhealthy; they may also prejudice the communicating functions of language in a certain extent. Because language development is in accordance with certain regularities, these accidental phenomena will be naturally eliminated on the right track, and the language will be specified in the final moment.

In this case, we should treat the internet language as the general new words. The

rising of cyber-language is very short, as time goes by, I think the words met the specifications would be remained. We should take a liberal attitudes to the internet language, while, for other words like “mi guo”(米国,) America and the like, we must get rid of them. Some vulgar words on the Internet, such as “TMD” (a curse for short), SB (ditto) must be driven out. We should concern about the development of network terminology and guide it into the direction of healthier and more civilized.

Part VI. How to standardize the cyber-language

i The principle of selective absorption. Facing the mushrooming network language, we should face them positively and promote the refined and vernacular network language greatly; and we must abandon vulgar words. On the other hand, we should protect our national language systems, the media should promote self-discipline. For us, we should be careful to use some non-standard terms, and put our traditional culture into the network language.

ii Keep refined and vernacular cyber-language. Refined language is elegant language; vernacular language is not vulgar, but convention. Dynamic language can stand the test of time, for example, some words: “yimeier (E-mail)”, “bull market” and so on, after convention, most people have accepted that.

iii Identify the reason of the cyber-language’ anomie; and strengthen the construction of moral cyber-language to the youth.

The characters of the youth are the source of cyber-language anomie. The adolescent cognitive ability is not strong, subjective self-control ability is relatively weak, so they are interfered by the external factors easily. On the other hand, the modern urban youth unusually get physiological need into trouble with psychological demand. So the young people are difficult to form a correct self-awareness, which will lead to mental health problem. In addition, the youth have a great adventurous psychology; they desire to communicate with a variety of people and experience many kinds of strange feelings, while the internet act as a place that they can interflow or to vent their anger and dissatisfactions.

Because the character of cyber-language are invisibility, equality and virtuality,

the internet also can enable a real person to become an “unmarked” in that world, no real name, no real age, no real status and no social belonging. Thus, for the young, the internet is no traditional barriers, no teachers, and no parents to some extent .There are no control, no self-respect in this place, which would let the youth show their bad inner natures.

The response of the school, the family and the society to the cyber culture is lag; it is also an important factor to the cyber-language anomie of the adolescent. The young people are at the sage that is from the moral discipline to the self-discipline, their parents are not very familiar with the internet, so there is no guidance for the young to follow, naturally, the parents lost their rights of responsibility and supervision. Language development is the manifestation of social development; language civilization is an important manifestation of social civilization. The young people are in a critical period of life, their moral status, which is directly related to the overall quality of the China, the future of the China and the fate of the nationalities. At present, our government emphasizes to run the country according to the rule of law, and propose the social virtue, professional ethics and the education of family value. But no matter what kinds of ethics should be, the language civilization must be the precondition.

ⅳ Some relevant departments should formulate network language regulations to guide people to recognize that language is not an individual phenomenon, but a social phenomenon; the involved officers must guide the things timely, to the young who use network language especially. To improve and perfect the contemporary regulations, meanwhile, the relevant departments should pay attention to the principles of flexibilities and standard specification in school especially.

Respond to other media in the cyber-language, we should define clearly in the primary and secondary education.

Strengthening the management of the websites, monitoring, inspection, boycott, prohibit some nasty words, furthermore, we should prevent such kind of words to extend to other language field.

Construct an enlightened websites and webpage, and strengthen the internet

education, particularly among the internet users. Meanwhile, some related departments should provide a positive guidance, especially to the students on the factor of etiquette and language education.

In 21 century, Chinese culture transformation into modernization era under the historical condition of the Eastern and western communications. Facing the influx of multinational language culture, we should be in an attitude of “Select the essence and discard the dross”, and make our network language be in a positive and accurate development way.

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