"Hard Inflation": Social performance in language depreciation

Author: Dai Yan (Professor of Jiangxi Normal University School of Journalism and Communication); Cao Xin (Master's degree in the School of Journalism and Communication of Jiangxi Normal University)

Source: "Young Reporter", No. 15, 2022

In the era of social media, people are more inclined to the latter for standardized expression and image emotional expression. The depreciation of the language everywhere in the youth group can partially reflect the changes in the language of the social media era. From this, you can also see the "performance" of the youth groups in social media.

Sociologist Li Anzhai pointed out in his book "Inflation of Language": "The currency system is a means to exchange wealth, language is the medium of expressing thoughts and emotions; Without matching the thoughts and emotions behind language, it is the inflation of language. "Today, the" inflation "we talk about is actually the phenomenon of language depreciation. In the past, as long as we played the word "haha", we could express our current happiness, and now we have to play a series of "ha ha ha ha ha", which seems to be able to express happiness. The phenomenon of inflation similar to "Harbin Inflation" is very common. For example: the daily name for women, from the evolution of "girl", "beauty" to "goddess" and "fairies"; The change of "perfect match" and "Tianxian match".

Features of "Faldness" phenomenon

(1) Concentrated in young groups. The author conducts in -depth interviews with some users to supplement the information that cannot be directly obtained from daily exchanges, and analyze the language depreciation phenomenon represented by the interview object "inflation". Through searching for WeChat chat records from February 1, 2021 to February 1, 2022, I found that a single WeChat message contains 5 or more "ha" with 4,257, all of which are distributed in people in the 20-30 age group. And people under the age of 20. Among them, 5 of the 10 people who sent the "Hahahahaha" were 5 men and 5 women. Of these 10 people, one of the average of 4 messages contains "Hahahahaha" or "Hahahahaha" plus other text.

Through the comparison of the above data, it can be found that the post -90s crowd's communication on social media shows more language depreciation, and it is also manifested in daily WeChat chat. Most people over the age of 40 maintain traditional expression habits. Language inflation and depreciation are rarely appeared among people over 40 years old.

(2) Repeat and exaggerated language. Multi -word stack and exaggerated expression is the most significant feature of language depreciation. Repeating is exaggerated, such as "clean" and "clean", and the latter's intensity is significantly greater than the former. The overlapping similarity of language is not only reflected in "inflation", but also a series of "ah ah ah ah ah", "oh oh", "wife" and so on.

The usual language can no longer meet the expression of young people. They use more intensity and strong emotional concentration to express the same meaning. Before the interview, the author set a situation with 10 people based on the background of the interviewee. For example, the new work of a well -known movie star reacts as a super fan of the super fan of the movie star; if the interviewee No. 3 has planned to travel, it is suddenly notified to work overtime; The No. 7 respondent who expressed support for the screen couple they like), what will be said on the day of the "CP" official announcement ... In the face of the situation described by the author, the interviewees are more surprised, admired, happy to admire , Helplessly waiting for feelings, but when they expressed their views on the incident, 8 people played "YYDS" (eternal god), "absolutely" or "man's numbness" and other words. People send relevant emoticons. In addition to emotional needs, many times people are afraid of being ignored, so they can attract the attention of others as much as possible. People think that the more complicated the language form, the more the characters are repeated, and the more the information sent is valued.

(3) Entertainment expression is mainly. Unlike words and highly condensed literary languages, the interaction of social media emphasizes instant, interactive, and emotional. In order to expand the common meaning space and optimize the effect of communication, the expression method must cater to the network exchange environment, which also constitutes a specific "story" of the youth group on social media. "Inflation" is based on such long -term entertainment expression, and it is also a manifestation of social media exchanges.

Young people use an exaggerated series of "Ha" to make a "laughter", tentatively build a harmonious context of communicating with others, or to eliminate the social pressure caused by serious and embarrassing context in advance. In the past and one time, the speaker and the talker have a common sense of significance. At least when they play "Hahahahaha", they expressed a kind of friendly exchanges, and the contradictions and misunderstandings that could be caused during the conversation process could be solved during the conversation process. Essence The expression of entertainment can not only create a happy social atmosphere, but also shorten the social distance between young people.

Social performances in "Harway Inflation"

From a social perspective, the expansion language is a tool for people to perform social performances to a certain extent. People play a series of "Hahahahaha", which is more convenient than looking for appropriate text words and emoji packages. Compared with real emotional expression, people are more inclined to use the expansion language performance. American sociologist Goffman proposed the famous "drama theory" in his book "Self -presentation of Daily Life". The world is like a huge stage. Everyone is an actor on the stage. It will deliberately dress up and packaged, and will intentionally or unintentionally control their words and behaviors, thereby guiding and controlling others to form an impression. The essence of social performance is impression management. In the front desk performance, people will consider their language expression to maintain their good image. Behind people's expansion languages, there are the following states of performance: (1) Modification: Weaken expressing edges and corners. Talking on social media mainly communicates through text. Texts usually present more angles of expression. When there is no superposition of expressions, movements, and environmental factors, it is easy to cause misunderstandings from others, friction and conflict. Internet interpersonal communication eliminates many necessary factors in face -to -face interpersonal communication, and the actual sense of participation in the dissemination is reduced. The absence of non -language symbols makes people have to use language duplicate, emoticon modification, and combination of punctuation symbols to express their emotions with text.

"I feel that I am not hahahaha, others can't get my point, I may feel that I am serious, I dare not talk to me, and even misunderstand me, there is unnecessary contradiction and conflict." ( Interviewee No. 1) A series of "Hahahahahaha" can regulate the atmosphere, ease the conflict that may occur during the conversation, and largely modify the edges and corners of the text of the conversation. Essence Actively playing "Hahahahaha" can also make some people who are seriously cold and cold quickly become affinity. After the modification of "Hahahahaha", the edges presented in the expression of text have been weakened. In fact, for the sender, sending "Hahahahaha" has conveyed an attitude of friendly exchanges itself.

(2) Pretend: Hide the true self. The swelling "ha" is like a social mask. Under the mask, people hide their true self and cover up their true moods. The "Hahahahaha" appearing in the dialog box seems positive, in fact, there may be negative and negative emotions hidden behind it.

A respondent on the 4th stated that in the embarrassing dialogue atmosphere, he would play "Hahahahaha" to alleviate and adjust the atmosphere and "make yourself decent." American psychologist Rogers divides himself "true self" and "ideal self". The former is a consciousness of self -actual reality, and the latter is a consciousness of the desired self. When the individual is in an embarrassing and aphasia scene, there is a gap between true self and ideal self at this time, which will trigger personal self -defense methods and start performances to cover up true self. In order to obtain the acceptance and recognition of the group, people also perform camouflage performances during group exchanges. The interviewee 5 stated that in order to keep himself young, he would deliberately maintain the communication habits of the youth group: "When I feel that I am hitting it, it is still a young man. If I do n’t hit it one day, I feel that I feel It is getting farther and farther from my own girlhood, and it is really difficult to keep the heart of Chizi. "When others play" Hahahahaha ", it is a bit uncomfortable to play" Haha ". It has also become a password to enter group communication. Following the convergence of the group, people who are not used to this expression are assimilated, so that they are integrated into the group and are not isolated from the group. People are self -disguised through expansion languages ​​such as "ha ha ha ha" to defend the embarrassing situation that individuals may encounter. People accept the logic of group communication into it, and it means that it is not isolated and in a safe environment with the consistency with the group.

(3) Perfunctory: Social etiquette. When the other party's what or the view of the statement is not interested, people will also perfunctory "Hahahahaha". Even when these "ha", some senders are expressionless. At this time, the literal meaning passed at this time has nothing to do with the true feelings of the heir. "I'm playing hahahahaha, sometimes I don't feel funny, just start with politeness, and sometimes I don't want to talk about it. I can make a series of haha. I can look polite." To understand from the positive level, the conversation may continue; if you feel the perfunctory of the other party, the conversation will be terminated.

Of course, not all "hahahahaha" are perfunctory. It is very obtrusive to end the conversation in a serious or embarrassing way. It takes the initiative to play "Hahahahaha". When both sides want to terminate the conversation, this is a perfect ending signal. When people are subject to social etiquette, in order not to offend or offend others, they usually accidentally play "Hahahahaha" and continue or end interaction. The perfunctory of social etiquette is also a manifestation of the communication strategy. People are willing to "perfunctory" instead of abruptly ending or piercing each other. The receiver will also interpret the sender's intention from a friendly and positive level.

The problem after "lata inflation"

The expansion language reflects the randomness and freedom of spoken language during social performances, but the problems reflected in it cannot be ignored. The abuse of words makes the meaning of the word falling. Essence (1) Expression: "Text Belexy" trap. We were used to the explanation of spoken language, and exaggeratedly performed in social networking. Although the spokesperson's social distance was closer at the time, in the long run, it would lead to the loss of the original vitality of the language and continuously depreciating its original value significance. "Haha" was originally expressing happiness, but now we have to use the words "ha ha ha ha ha", "laughing to death", "惚 惚" to replace them. We will find that finding words that can accurately express our meaning are getting difficult.

Douban's "Text Declars Mutual Assistance Alliance" now has more than 300,000 members (as of February 2022). Everyone will post some words to discuss some words, try to avoid the current habits of network expression, and think about how to pass the meaning of writing in writing text. Essence The No. 7 respondent joined this alliance a few months ago. "Expression of species". The members introduced themselves like this: "For a long time, as listeners and bystanders, we have gradually forgot how to organize the logic of text and how to clearly use words to express their emotions and views."

The spoken expression of entertainment that is accustomed to expanding. When you need meticulous expression, your words are inadequate, the words are unsatisfactory, and it will fall into the "text loss" trap. It is difficult to accurately express our own feelings. We will eventually lose the delicate language.

(2) Thinking: inertia and laziness. With such a social mask for a long time, it will eventually lead to the laziness of thinking. Our emotional labor is getting less and less, and the emotional threshold is constantly improving. "We have shaped the tools, and then the tools were shaped us." Language and social media were originally a tool for us to make convenient communication, but now we are on ourselves. "Now we call strange women a beauty and goddess, what about the future? Continue to raise our own degree of words? We seem to have lost the ability to think about carefully now, and the boss is strict. Volume. "(Interviewee No. 8)

We use these familiar words to explain and define different things we encounter. While expanding the form of expression, the meaning of the word is also undergoing swelling, and it is mistaken for various situations. For example, normal and positive efforts should not be equivalent to "inner rolls" that are invalid and malignant.

Thinking for inertia and laziness, our expression is not clear, and the receiver naturally cannot get accurate information and emotions. After receiving fatigue on the expansion language and emotion, people may be tired and bored with social media and cause social anxiety.

(3) Emotion: Rough and shallow. When we play "Hahahahaha", or when we shouted "Fairy" to a strange woman on the Internet, we did see a certain expression of freedom and liberation in the popular discourse, but we The original expression of these words could not be seen directly, and on the stage of social performance in the real environment, it seemed a bit rough. The dissection of the migrant is indifferent, and the decoding process of the by the conversation is equally rough. "Follow others on the Internet to shout 'treasure' 'sisters' 'pro -pro -', others also treat this as one, sometimes they really blurt out in real life, but offline exchanges are really strange to speak like this, as if it seems that it seems to be strange, as if it seems that, it seems like Will offend the intimate social distance of others. "(Interviewee No. 9)

The names of these expansion accuracy have blurred the concepts of interpersonal distance. Those "ha ha ha ha" lack of in -depth description of emotional expression, making people lack in -depth understanding of emotions, and the expansion language makes emotions' expression and reception.

Reflect

虽然以“通哈膨胀”为代表的语言贬值现象存在种种问题，但不可否认的是它们目前就是青年群体在社交媒体上表达的主流方式，并且文学著作、杂志、报纸等有着自己的行文规范和Expressing logic will not be disturbed by too much. Therefore, we are not opposed to the use of these social performances by the youth groups, but we are a shallow socialization caused by the depreciation of the language, and we are alert to the thoughts that may destroy.

(1) Quit inflation dependence. Although the expansion language, as a secret code, is a personality expression of the youth group, what we need is not only "ha ha ha ha ha", but also to be accurate. While using the expansion language, we must also try to accurately use precise accurate words. The language fully expresses his own thoughts so that the spread of information and emotional acceptance are clearer. Therefore, we must quit their dependence on expansion languages ​​and network terms, and exercise our ability to re -perform complete text expression.

(2) Optional thinking inertia. In the end of "Entertainment to Death", Huxley's words were quoted, and wrote: "What people feel pain is not that they use laughter instead of thinking, because they don't know why they laugh, and why they don't think about it." The description of things The evaluation only uses top words, which is consistent with the excessive expression of the popular expression habits. To maintain communication with the expression of high emotional thresholds, it will eventually be excessively assimilated and lost its unique personality. We should also overcome the inertia of thinking, re -think and feel the slight differences in different context and different emotional states, and express it. (3) Expressive emotional expression. As an actor in the center of the stage, everyone performed on the huge platform of social media. He psychologically affected the super attention and exposure, eager to get the attention and love of others, and strive to create his own "person". Response. Rough emotions and excessive effort will be counterproductive and cause misunderstandings. We can also work hard to appreciate the delicate emotions between interpersonal communication, try to express subtle, vivid and in -depth emotions in social media, make our own people set more plump and real, and make the interaction between the two parties more lasting and connotative.

The motion depreciation phenomenon represented by the "inflation" phenomenon, as one of the ways of social performances of youth groups, may radiate to more groups in the future, or new expression forms may also appear. On the other hand, the youth groups are also seeking breakouts of social media subcultures, innovating "impression management", and actively looking for romantic language.

[This article is the research results of the "Research on Language Declanquerism under the Perspective of the theoretical Perspective of the Drama Theory" of the Graduate Innovation Fund of Jiangxi Normal University]

Reference format for this article:

Dai Yan, Cao Xin. "Harbid inflation": social performance in language depreciation [J]. Young reporter, 2022 (15): 48-50.

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