What is online language? Is it the acronym of YOLO, which stands for you only live once? Or LOL, meaning laugh out loud? Or something else like Versaille literature or 凡尔赛文学？
As technology has developed quickly, online language has been nurtured by us teenagers and adults as well. These terms are now influencing both people and the language itself greatly. So today I will introduce the relationships between online language and language developing process.
For some people, they are worried that the online language is ruining the language developing process, as they are using the language that might not be used among senior citizens. Also they think that these terms and phrases are changing the meanings and the pronunciation of the original ones.
However, the father of modern linguistics, Saussure, says that language is changing all the time in all places. In other words, language revolution can appear in different periods of time. In my opinion, I do not think the existence of online language is absolutely negative. Actually, the online language has many advantages.
Firstly, with technology developing rapidly, we are becoming more and more creative in different aspects of life. Being one of our creations, online language symbolizes our fast-changing lives. For example, there is a popular phrase called “内卷”, which means intelligent and competent peers who are highly competitive increase some people’s inner pressure. As a result, they will gradually feel stressed out. In this competitive society, the online buzzword “内卷” defines this situation very well.
Secondly, online language plays the same role in communication as normal language. Why? Because we also use it to express positive and negative opinions about certain events.
In addition, according to a famous linguist, Chinese only includes about 5000 basic phrases, yet there are more than fifty million online languages in the world. This infers that online language is ubiquitously used worldwide.
What’s more, new meanings and combinations of phrases being made, online language can be treated as a brand-new way of using words and expressing meanings. For example, the term “Brexit” is combined with two words “Britain” and “Exit”, which is used to describe the potential departure of United Kingdom from the European Union. The word is so ubiquitously used that almost everyone in the world knows what it means. So, online language is a new method of expressing meanings.
Lastly, online language epitomizes the society. As these terms vividly exhibit its fascinating characteristics and features. Take YOLO as an example, it is used when people want to do something challenging but meanwhile we need to cherish the things around us. Therefore, I am convinced that online languages are not just simple words but also a way to demonstrate our values as well as personalities.
Truely, online language originates from and is a symbol of our daily lives. Therefore, with the advantages mentioned above, the increasingly popular online terms becoming the norm in today’s world is not surprsing. To be honest, we students use a lot of online language at school and it is our way of communicating and expressing ideas. So I believe that online language has already become a significant part of our life. And thanks to these online terms, the normal language is on the course to improve and become better. Every single language will always require online terms to help it develop by adding something to it. In one word, I reckon that a normal language cannot live without online language, just like fish cannot live away from the fresh water.