中国2020年度流行语背后的社会心态剖析

Abstract

Language is a mirror that reflects the society using the language, and the popular words of a period are often the expression of the collective mood of this period. Catchwords capture the mainstream public’s attitude towards many social conflicts and problems. The analysis of China’s 2020 buzzwords can help us understand the values of the masses and the social conflicts in Chinese society. Thus, this analysis can help us understand the trend developing in Chinese society. This paper analyzes the origin, characteristics and social mentality of the latest Chinese buzzwords in 2020. From this discussion, we learn that the main sources of China’s buzzwords in 2020 are hot events, dialects, independent creations and web celebrities. China’s 2020 buzzwords have the following characteristics: they reflect the ongoing popularity of “Sang culture”(“丧文化”), status in the workplace, society’s attention to new forms of consumption, gathering the positive energy against the COVID-19, and containing positive power and emotion for future. The social mentality reflected by China’s 2020 buzzwords is the emotions and the attitudes of the Chinese people behind them, such as encouragement of novelty and individualism, feelings of helplessness and ridicule, expressions of desire and longing, and experiences of both tolerance and contradiction. A significant portion of China’s buzzwords in 2020 express urgent social problems in China that need to be addressed. Facing a frustrating facet of reality, people feel helplessness and even indulge in self-ridicule. Society must address the needs of the people and focus on recovering the mental health of the general public and creating a healthy psychological environment by providing apt social reform and communication system.