China News Agency, Beijing, February 9th (Reporter Ying Ni) The Commercial Press's latest "Chinese New Words Dictionary (2000-2020)" lists the top ten "new words of the era" with the highest life vitality index in China in the past 20 years , They are: Weibo, WeChat, Scientific Outlook on Development, High-speed Rail, E-commerce, Chinese Dream, One Belt One Road, Epidemic Prevention and Control, Big Data, Greater Bay Area.
"A Dictionary of New Chinese Words (2000-2020)" was edited by Hou Min, a professor of Applied Linguistics and a doctoral supervisor at Communication University of China.
The text contains 4,263 new words beginning with Chinese characters generated between 2000 and 2020, with particular focus on words in emerging technological fields such as artificial intelligence, information processing, and biomedicine.
Hou Min said that 20 years can also be called a "generation".
Those new words that have been used stably and vigorously in the past 20 years can be called "new words of the times".
Indicators such as usage rate, usage cycle, and development trend determine the vitality of new words.
The top 10 words with the highest life vitality index such as "Weibo, WeChat, and Scientific Outlook on Development" embody the innovation of this era, the characteristics of this era, and the focus of people's attention in this era.
She said that among the new words, nouns are the most, accounting for nearly two-thirds; followed by verbs, accounting for 30%.
At the same time, the proportion of non-Chinese characters in the composition of new words has increased rapidly, such as "big V, real CS, double 11", etc. This is an important feature of new words in contemporary Chinese, and it is also the face of the rapid development of society. an adaptive response.
In addition to symbols, some elements expressing onomatopoeia, tone, and dynamics also enter the interior of words and become word-forming elements, such as: Bidong, Huabei, Mengmengda, Memoda, Drunk, and Drifting Over.
In addition, although new developments and changes in society are reflected in all aspects, they are not balanced in all fields.
The 4263 new words are the most in the field of life, accounting for 40%; followed by the traditional fields of economy, politics, culture, and science and technology.
What deserves attention is the Internet, finance, and environmental protection, which were rarely mentioned before.
The new words in the field of automobiles and tourism reflect that China has gradually become a country that is "on the wheels of automobiles" and "tourism for all people and all regions".
Hou Min concluded that, overall, new words are not stable enough, their life cycle is short, and they emerge quickly but also retire quickly.
Which words can survive, that is, the vitality of words is positively correlated with the persistence and status of the things they refer to in social life.
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