Op-Ed Contributors

What do top English words tell?

By Xiao Xiaoyan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-16 08:19

The Chinese entertainment sector is leaving a much bigger impact on the language. Famous lines from Chinese movies or popular shows pass on to become everyday expressions. For instance, "Integrity makes the man" from Cell Phone; "You will pay for what you have done sooner or later" from the Hong Kong movie "Infernal Affairs," which most Chinese people believe was copied by Hollywood in "The Departed." " Money is not a problem" a theme line from a popular skit has become the standard version to satirize certain Chinese people's pompous attitude to money and concern over face rather than over efficiency.

Green living as a concept is becoming a focus of concern in China too, though on a delayed time schedule. Compared with the fact that "climate change" has dominated the English lists since 2000, the Chinese version didn't become a top expression till 2009, though expressions like "energy-conservation society" and "energy conservation and emissions reduction" did make their way to the 2005 and 2008 lists.

Although Chinese top expressions demonstrate similar trends to those in English, there are a few most distinctive features. A strong political flavor is found in the Chinese list as reflected in top expressions like the Three Represents (2002), Scientific Approach to Development (2004), and Peaceful Development (2005).

Another most outstanding feature of the Chinese lists is the contrast between the mainstream print media and the Internet: The English lists represent the spread of words in both print and digital media, the Internet, blogs and social media. The Chinese Internet buzzwords are mostly used on the Internet; although many have passed on into everyday life, only a small number have crept into the mainstream media.

Unlike the mainstream media, popular Internet expressions represent what the ordinary Chinese people are actually talking about in non-official contexts. Most of the expressions are highly colloquial, living, creative, and can be cynical. Some of the expressions reveal the new values and attitudes towards current affairs. For instance, da jiang you, which literally means "on the way to get soy sauce", speaks of a "not concerned" or "staying out of it" attitude. This attitude is also reflected in the expression: zuo fu wo cheng, which literally means "doing push-ups", in other words not paying any attention to what's happening.

Some Internet words have gained acceptance in the mainstream media. For instance shan zhai, which literally means "mountain village". It has now been adapted to mean "counterfeit", or things done in parody, as in "shanzhai mobile phones", "shanzhai New Year's Eve Gala", and even "shanzhai celebrities".

From a linguistic point of view, language is simply a tool for communication. When new ideas and concepts pop up, language needs to adapt itself to allow the communication of these ideas and concepts. If the Internet is reshaping our lives, the net-language is only reflecting such changes.

The author is associate professor at the English Department of Xiamen University.

(China Daily 04/16/2010 page9)

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