Language Standards in the New Era: Balance between Stability and Development
【Language Forum】
Host language
In the 1950s, "Speech on Grammar and Rhetoric" set off an upsurge of Chinese standardization throughout the country, and the awareness of standardization was generally established in the society. The norm is to make the language conform to certain standards, and make the language expression fluent, coherent and appropriate. Since then, the Department of Chinese Literature in Chinese universities has been changed to the Department of Chinese Language and Literature, and modern Chinese courses have generally been offered, and the modern Chinese subject has begun to develop rapidly. Do not forget the original intention, learn from the outside world, keep integrity, integrate innovation, and better face the future. Today we commemorate the 70th anniversary of the publication of "Speech on Grammar and Rhetoric". We hope that we can once again arouse everyone's attention to language standards and better safeguard the healthy development of the motherland's language and writing.
——Ma Qingzhu (Professor of Nankai University)
For language to maintain its normal communicative function and maintain its own vitality, it must find a balance between stability and development, and the former is mainly manifested in norms and compliance with norms.
Therefore, for language and its application, the role and significance of norms are huge.
In the study of modern Chinese history, the author once took grammar as an example, and summarized the early modern Chinese before 1949 into several characteristics such as diversification and complexity, many synonymous forms, and many "extraordinary" phenomena.
These characteristics are basically directly related to the "unable to follow (no clear norms)" and "there are no laws to follow (the partial norms are not well implemented and abided by)" in the language use at that time.
It was against this background that after the founding of New China, the party and the country launched a large-scale movement to standardize language.
Its iconic starting point was the editorial published by the People's Daily on June 6, 1951, "Use the motherland's language correctly, and fight for the purity and health of the language!"
", and serialized "Speech on Grammar and Rhetoric" by Lu Shuxiang and Zhu Dexi.
This year coincides with the 70th anniversary of the publication of "Editorial" and "Speech". At this time, it is very necessary for us to review and summarize the gains and losses of language regulation since the founding of New China, and to re-understand the meaning and value of language regulation in the new era on this basis.
Looking at the standardization of language and writing in the past 70 years, on the one hand, great achievements have indeed been made, but at the same time there are also some more prominent problems.
The latter can be summed up in two main points, namely, two extreme manifestations: one is over-regulation, and the other is lack of regulation.
Both directly or indirectly bring some problems to language standardization work and language use in different periods and stages to a certain extent.
The so-called over-regulation is to adhere to rigid standards and divide the rich and diverse language phenomena into either normative or non-standard binary opposition. To a certain extent, it ignores the habituation and development of language.
As for the lack of norms, it is more manifested in the "Cultural Revolution" and a period of time after the reform and opening up. There is a certain degree of confusion or even out of control in the use of social language and characters, such as the resurgence of traditional characters, the prevalence of typos in film and television subtitles, and the "intrusion" of natural language on the Internet. Language etc.
Reflecting on the above issues, a profound lesson is that in the practice of language norms, "management" and "relaxation" should not be out of balance, and the best balance should be found between the two, and this should become the core of the theory and practice of language norms One of the content.
In recent years, on the basis of fully reflecting on the previous linguistic norm theories and practical gains and losses, people's normative views have made great progress.
In a nutshell, it is mainly reflected in five aspects: one is from a rigid view to a flexible view, the other is from a static view to a dynamic view, and the third is from a monistic view (focusing only on language norms) to a dual view (language and speech norms are equally important ), the fourth is to establish a level view of language norms from different angles, and the fifth is to establish the language norms and values of serving language users and improving their "communicative value".
The progress of the above-mentioned normative view has been reflected in the current social pragmatics.
For example, the occurrence and use of related forms of reference in the two epidemics in 2003 and 2020 are two typical cases of the gains and losses of norms, and there are many points worthy of summary and reflection.
He Guowei mentioned in the book "The Generation and Finalization of Chinese Words" that in the spring of 2003, only two days after the media officially used "atypical pneumonia", newspapers and magazines around the world began to use "SARS" as the abbreviation formally used. .
The author also made an investigation on the "Atypical (sex) pneumonia-SARS-Pneumonia/Atypical" used by the "People's Daily" in the book "History of Modern Chinese".
"Atypical pneumonia" appeared on February 11, 2003, and "atypical pneumonia" appeared the next day, and the first appearance of "SARS" was April 5, 2003.
On April 18, 2003, a new combination form "anti-SARS" appeared, and two completely synonymous abbreviated forms "anti-SARS" and "anti-SARS" soon came into being. In addition, there were also analogous and complete abbreviations. Synonymous "anti-non-non-non" and "prevention".
These two groups of four abbreviated forms have a high frequency of use.
Not to mention whether the abbreviated form of "SARS" is sufficient or not, and the fact that SARS and its transliterated form "Sass" were later released halfway through the fact that there are more than one name, only "anti-classic" which means exactly the same thing. In terms of coexistence with "anti-non", "anti-non" and "prevention", it is obvious that there is a loss and absence of language regulation.
Looking at 2020 again, from the initial "new coronavirus pneumonia" to the finalized "new coronary pneumonia", a complete standardization process including expert explanations, netizens' voices, and final determination by authoritative agencies has been completed in a very short period of time.
For example, from a clear-cut opposition to stigmatized naming, such as "Wuhan Pneumonia", to a positive discussion of the theoretical basis of the abbreviated form of "New Coronary Pneumonia", and the prediction of further reasonable development (it may be further shortened to "New Crown")... Experts and scholars played a vital role in the naming process, and at the same time demonstrated the role and effectiveness of language standardization work.
In the end, what people see is that there is neither one real name nor multiple real names, and it is generally perfect.
The resulting understanding is that under the new background of the new era, language norms still have great significance and value. In short, there are the following main points:
First, under new social conditions, people have developed many new understandings of language. For example, they believe that it is an important resource related to national security, social stability, cultural progress, and personal development. This determines the health and correctness of language. The use of larger and more realistic demands puts forward higher requirements for language standardization and makes it more valuable.
Second, in the Internet era and the highly developed background of integrated media, social language life is becoming more diversified, and language usage is becoming more and more complicated.
As a result, the necessity and importance of language norms have become increasingly prominent; at the same time, how to understand norms, how to determine, implement, and implement norms has also become an urgent issue that must be embarked on.
Third, many problems in today’s real language life and language use are directly related to factors such as the indifference or lack of awareness of language users’ norms, as well as the misunderstanding of relevant departments and the inadequate or even lack of management. In this case, language Standardization work must face the reality, bravely assume the responsibility of correcting the errors, and better serve the language users and their communication.
(Author: Diao Yanbin, professor and doctoral supervisor of Beijing Normal University)