Buzzword Through a Survey
【Abstract】Buzzword is a kind of popular culture phenomenon in present society. There is no doubt that it has great influences on people. This essay is due to analyze it and give a proper position to the influence force. Through analysis of the latest typical case: Ten Popular Buzzwords of the Year(2012), it is distinct to see the feature of contemporary buzzword and its influence. In addition, a small-scale survey in university is done and analyzed. The survey helps the study of buzzword’s influence. there is a brief analysis of buzzword’s tendency and potential in the end of the essay.
【Keyword】buzzword; influence; case analysis; survey
1. Introduction
Language is the core feature of a nation’s culture. Not only it is the outer skin of thoughts, the usage of language also reflects on its impact on the thinking mode of a nation. Martin Heidegger said, “it is not the people speaking through language, it is the language speaking through people.” Based on such fact, the relation between language and thoughts is exactly like both sides of a paper. People use language to express his thought. However, the content of language will exert reaction on people’s thought.
Stalin noted, “Language, specially for its vocabulary, is in a state of continuous change. By the development of industry, agriculture, business, transportation, science and technology, language needs new words and new language to fill in its vocabulary. Language directly reflects such need, and improves its grammar structure.” Buzzword, which is on the leading edge of language’s development, firstly and mostly reflects the change of a language. In present society, buzzword deserves more attentions and researches.
2. Brief analysis of buzzword
In customary definition, “buzzword” is a kind of language phenomenon which is popular in specific times, area, class and industry. When pay attention to the sociality of language, buzzword is not only a kind of language phenomenon. What’s more, it is a kind of social phenomenon. Buzzword reflects the transformation of social group’s ideology, social culture, social life and value orientation.
Zequan Liu(2010) defined buzzword as those words which is widely spread and has higher frequency of utilization than normal words. From the research point of view, it contains linguistics, sociology, psychology and literature. As a shifty signal, it reflects the most popular phenomenon in present society. It witnesses society’s development trajectories.
There is an latest example. In the 30th of 2012 December, the famous Chinese periodical “Word-Splitting”(咬文嚼字) published Ten Popular Buzzwords of the Year:
i) “Positive energy”(正能量): It is a kind of positive power and emotion ii) “Yuanfang, what is your idea?”(元芳，你怎么看？): It expresses a certain
kind of query, sneer or consultation.
iii) “On tip of tongue”(舌尖上): It expresses abundant connotation related with
good food.
iv) “Lay but shot”(躺着也中枪): Someone or something is involved in for no
reason.
v) “Tall, rich and handsome”(高富帅): It means Tall, rich and handsome man
which contains yearn for dreaming world and self-mockery for the ordinary world.
vi) “Sinotype”(中国式): It expresses doubt and sneer at social problem which is
unique to China.
vii) “Mountain-like pressure”(压力山大): It means the pressure is the same large
as a mountain. It is homophonic with “Alexander” in Chinese.
viii) “Good!”(赞): It means praise, appreciation, commendation. Used as a noun,
it also means something is fairly good.
ix) “Most beautiful”(最美): It is used as a prefix in a phrase which means
something is the most beautiful or the best.
x) “Catch basic”(接地气): It means something or someone is close to common
people’s real life.
It is obvious that these buzzwords have reflected the real social state of present China. Some of them are in culture scope, like Sinotype(中国式), Catch basic(接地气). Some of them distinctly reflects people’s spiritual world nowadays, like Positive energy(正能量), Tall, rich and handsome(高富帅), Mountain-like pressure(压力山大). Several of them just come from pet phrase, like Good!(赞). All of the buzzwords has played a significant role in current language.
In fact, such case of selection and publication of Ten Buzzwords means a lot. In one side, buzzwords has received more and more prefer. Most people nowadays are accustomed to use it in daily life. In a summarize, buzzwords has more substantial population base. On the other side, buzzword culture is closely joined with mainstream culture. The concern from mainstream Chinese periodical proved it.
In general, present buzzword has several characteristic features: (1) Simplification
In modern society, life is fast-paced. The language needs to conform to it. For buzzword, we also pursue this feature.
E.g. “cool” (酷): It means someone is fashion or counter-tradition.
“sweat”(汗): It expresses the idea that candidly admitting defeat. “BF”: Boy friend
“mass-election” (海选): It means a selection everyone could join in. “3Q”: Thank you
“520”(我爱你): It means “I love you”. It is homophonic in Chinese. “ing”: It means something is ongoing. It borrows the form of progressive
tense in English.
(2) Be affected with Internet
In present society, Internet is widespread. Everyone could get access to Internet. As an exchange site, Internet affects buzzwords to a large extent. On the other hand, there are more young people surfing the Internet, who make new buzzwords more vivid and interesting.
E.g. “noob”(菜鸟): It means someone is green hand in something.
“tour pal”(驴友): Travelling by oneself, without the travel agency. “dinosaur”(恐龙): It means a girl who is not beautiful. “frog”(青蛙): It means a boy who is not handsome. “I”(偶): It means “I” myself.
“KO”: It means one people finally defeat another one.
(3) Arbitrariness
Language is discrete. There is no continuous relation between two language units. Such property means that the user of a language could assemble the words in a certain limit. For buzzwords, this feature is more intuitionistic.
Under the circumstances, the tone of buzzwords is often casual and direct. It is a kind of sensory abreaction. It is outpouring of individuality. It reflects current culture and fashion in this concept.
E.g. “Google it”(Google一下): Use Google to search.
“clap brick”(拍砖): To give advices.
“corns”(玉米): It means fans of Chris Lee(李宇春).
(4) Combination of Chinese and English
More and more people in China are familiar with English nowadays. From the classes to usual life, English is no more mysterious for Chinese people. Under such situation, English words is inevitable combined with Chinese words, forming new buzzwords which is full of the times.
Another reason for this combination is that, in certain situation English is more possible to clearly express meaning of context.
E.g. “Sorry, I have something to deal with.”(Sorry啊,我还有点事): In this
sentence, such kind of expression is more euphemistic and acceptable.
“U-disk”(U盘): The original English noun is USB flash disk. For convenience, people prefer to say “U-disk”.
“K music”(K歌): KTV, where people could sing in, becomes popular nowadays. Therefore, people often say “K music” to express this action.
3. A survey on buzzword’s influence
Browsing previous essays, there are few survey examples about influence of present buzzword. As what mentioned before, buzzword plays a more significant role in modern language. It is necessary to start survey on the influence of present buzzword. (1) Survey environment
Be under the limit of condition, author set the survey field in Zhejiang
University(Zhejiang Province, China). The survey receivers are mainly students from Zhejiang University. (2) Survey questions
The questionnaire is composed of 7 questions and corresponding options:
i) Do you often speak buzzwords?
ii) What is the reasons for speaking buzzwords? iii) What is your attitude toward buzzwords?
iv) What is your parents’ and relatives’ attitudes toward buzzwords? v) Do you think present buzzwords has great influence on mandarin? vi) Which Ten Popular Buzzwords of the Year from Chinese periodical
“Word-Splitting”(咬文嚼字)? Which have you said before?
vii) What kind of person can be called “Tall, rich and handsome”(高富帅) in
your mind?
In order to do the tentative survey on buzzword’s influence, several facts are need to take account of. Question 1 and 2is used for investigating the basic situation about buzzwords in sampling space. Question 3 and 4 involves subjects’ subjective attitudes. Question 5, as a kind of supplementary question, make the survey more detailed. In addition, it is verifying question contrasted with before questions. Question 6 and
Question 7 is somewhat interesting. They are open questions. In this site, the result will be more multiple and approach to reality. They will give us the most useful information we want. (3) Result analysis
Totally give out 53 pieces of questionnaires, and receive 53 valid pieces. There are 30 males and 23 females joining in the survey.
Analysis the results, we could reach the following arguments: i) Vast majority of subjects are familiar with popular buzzwords.
In Question 1, 45.3%(24) subjects usually speak buzzwords, 37.7%(20) subjects ordinarily. In Question 3, 43.4%(23) subjects enjoy speaking buzzwords, which contains 50%(15) of the males. Only 13.2%(7) subjects hate hearing buzzwords. In Question 5, 58.5%(31) subjects think buzzwords influence a lot on mandarin. In Question 7, averaged 7.89 words in Ten Buzzwords are picked by subjects. In conclusion, vast majority of subjects have influenced by buzzwords. ii) More eldership comprehend new buzzwords
Through the survey, it is beyond author’s imagine that a good deal of the eldership is tolerant and understand buzzwords. In Question 4, 84.9%(45) subjects pick “comprehend” choice. It is really a large part. Through analysis, it is possible that the eldership is gradually affected by young men. iii) Buzzwords cast positive affect
Question 7 and 8 is interesting subjective problems. They can distinctly reflect subjects’ real thoughts. In Question 7, “Positive energy”(正能量) is picked by 86.8%(46) subjects, “Tall, rich and handsome”(高富帅) is picked by 96.2%(51) subjects, “Most beautiful”(最美) is picked by 79.2%(42) subjects. Taken in this sense, most of the subjects are influenced by positive buzzwords. In Question 8, only 67.9%(36) subjects choose “handsome and tall”(高大英俊), 35.8%(19) choose “rich”(富有，出手大方). However, 77.3%(41) subjects choose “have life purpose”(生活有追求),75%(40) choose “have good moral quality”(品德好，对人好).
It is obvious that most subjects prefer those people who are rich in spirit rather
than in substance. Opposite to the wicked meaning implicated in buzzwords, a number of young people tend to focus on buzzwords’ positive part. It means that present buzzwords do not only cast bad affects on people. On contrary, it shows the tendency that young people nowadays received more positive thoughts rather than the other one.
4. Conclusion
Buzzwords have enriched modern language and vocabulary. They not only help people get in touch with new things in time, but also promote those burgeoning objects. Thus, through long-term usage, various buzzwords are successfully integrated in modern language.
Buzzwords make modern language be filled with creativity and fashion. Buzzwords are created by broad masses. Except outer constraint, to maximize extent they reflects the creativity on language.
Buzzwords strengthen expression force of modern language. They are vivid and active. With buzzwords, both sides of communication could easily understand each other. They could get into other’s emotion, satisfying both sides with more communication.
Through survey, the present buzzword obviously influences younger nowadays. What’s more, such kind of influence is near positive. Younger is the hope of future. Therefore, it is not the time to refuse buzzword. On contrary, we should promote it to some extent.
Everything is in changing. Nothing is invariability. Marx said, “Development and changing is the eternal law of things’ movement.” Language is the same. If one language refuse changing, it will lose its life. Buzzword belong to language. Its influence force has proved its vigor and potential.
It is the tendency that buzzword will have more tremendous influence in the future. As time goes by, it is possible that one day the buzzword totally blends in official mandarin. It is destined to occurrence.
【References】
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【Appendix】
流行词语影响力的调查
同学您好：
本次调查的目的是要流行词语在校园内的影响力情况，答案无对错之分，只作为学术性课题使用，在任何时候都不会公开个人信息。本次问卷大约需要5-10分钟填写，希望您能抽出宝贵时间，如实填写信息。十分感谢您的支持和合作，祝您学习生活愉快！
说明：流行词语，是指当下流行的词汇或词组，例如“高富帅”“元芳，你怎么看”等等。
性别： 男 / 女 年龄：
1. 你经常说流行词语吗？
□经常
□一般
□基本不说
2. 你说流行词语的原因有哪些？（多选）
□很好玩，紧跟潮流
□很顺口，能清楚表达意思
□周围人都说
□其他：
3. 你对流行词语的态度是怎样的？
□自己就很喜欢说流行词语 □能接受别人说流行词语 □不希望听别人说流行词语 □讨厌听到流行词语
4. 你的父母、亲戚朋友对流行词语的态度是怎样的？
□理解
□不理解
5. 你觉得流行词语对普通话影响大吗？
□影响很大
□影响一般 □没什么影响
6. 以下表格内是《咬文嚼字》杂志评出的2012年度十大流行词语，你知道哪些词语的意
思？说过哪些词语？（打勾即可） 流行词语 正能量 元芳，你怎么看？ 舌尖上 躺着也中枪 高富帅 中国式 压力山大 赞 最美 接地气
我知道词语意思 我说过这个词 7. 你认为什么样的男生可以称之为“高富帅”？（打勾即可）
描述 高大英俊 富有，出手大方 穿着有品味 有许多女生喜欢 生活有追求 品德好，对人好 学习认真，成绩好 不清楚 我认为这是“高富帅”
（问卷结束，再次感谢您的合作）
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