The Great Influence of Society on Chinese Language

Language is a mirror of society, reflecting the development of history. Language and society are correlative and interrelated. Language is an important part of society, for it is the tool for communications and the main implement of thinking; society is developing and changing all the time, which exerts a great influence on language. In other words, every trivial development of society could be reflected in the expressions of language and vice versa including the development of economy, politics and culture. In Chinese various historical periods, with the development and change of society, Chinese language is also transforming with new words emerging and some old words being eliminated. It can be said that society has the decisive effect on Chinese language. The great transformation of Chinese modern society and culture has stamped on Chinese language. For example, with the great development of Chinese economy, new words related to economy predominate while the change of political also lead to the production of a large amount of new Chinese words. The practice of Chinese reform and opening- up has brought inevitable transformation to Chinese people who experience dramatic transition in a fast speed in a short time. After experiencing long-time avoiding having contacts with other countries, Chinese people feel a cultural shock when they start to face foreign culture again. The practice of reform and opening-up has facilitated the transition of Chinese society as well as Chinese language. Chinese language experience three big change in words. The first time of change occurred in the Eastern Han Dynasty when Buddhism was first introduced into China. At that time there were lots of Chinese words related to Buddhists such as ‘Buddha’ ‘Luohan’. The second time of the change of Chinese words occurred after Chinese Opium War when western countries invaded China. A large number of foreign words conveying western thoughts and concepts such as ‘science and technology’ ‘Ballet’ ‘Golf’ appeared. Compared to other periodic time, foreign words appeared in this time came and vanished in a faster speed. And the third time change of Chinese words occurred since the practice of reform an opening-up. In the following part, I would analyze how Chinese language reflect the change of society.

To begin with, the development of Chinese economy has placed words related to economy in a leading position. A large number of Chinese new words centered on the reform and opening-up emerge and they are known by the more and more Chinese people. For example, words like ‘socialist marketing economy’ and ‘Socialist commodities economy’ sprung up. In the 1990s, those words frequently occurred in Chinese mainstream newspapers such as People’ Daily. According to the statistics, the frequency of Chinese words related to economy was much higher than other words. For example, in the same newspaper, the frequency of words like ‘marketing economy’ is much higher than that of ‘socialist’. And some Chinese words like ’marketing management’ ‘banking reform’ ‘real estate’ are commonly used, becoming a part of Chinese people’s lives. At the same time, words related to the economic sphere are increasing and economic terms are popularizing. Many Chinese terms which are used in other subjects now also are utilized as economic terms. For example, the Chinese term 滑坡(huapo)which means landslide in English and was used to describe the natural disaster indicates the decrease in economy now. The other word 割肉(gerou)referring to cutting meat in English now also means that the price of stock is so low that you could not even get the prime cost back, indicating the pain of losing wealth. From here, it can be seen that those vivid words have greatly associated with economy and the Chinese words related to economy has ingrained into various aspects of people’s lives. The popularity of new words related to economy is attributed to the practice of marketing economy in China which leads to the transformation of Chinese people’s concept of values. Hence, the property of a word may change. Some derogatory Chinese words or phrases might be altered into commendatory terms. The term ‘老板’（laoban）which usually means boss in English was used to indicate the exploiting class at the time of Chinese Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. After the practice of reform and opening-up, it is endowed with the meaning of boss or private entrepreneur and now it has become a popular addressing in China now. Besides, with the practice of marketing economy in China, people tend to seek for fame and fortune urgently, which leads to the creation of new words or terms equipped with the utilitarian flavor. The phenomenon mirrors the fact that the urgent pursuit of wealth is quite popular in China. In the past, under the influence of Confucianism that considered seeking for fame and fortune as a shame, people may suppress their desire to chase wealth. Therefore, words related to wealth were usually derogatory. Since the reform and opening-up, the suppression for wealth has been released out, which leads to the creation of a large number of commendatory terms related to wealth. For instance, American famous magazine Fortune was translated as happiness in Chinese before the practice of reform and opening-up. However, after the practice of reform and opening-up, the Chinese translation of Fortune is related to money. The change of translation from ‘happiness’ to ‘wealth’ to certain extend indicates the change of Chinese people’s values.

Besides, international economic integration has broaden the use of loanwords for Chinese. With the development of globalization, socialization of production has blurred the line between countries. There are more and more English alphabetic words used in Chinese language. For example, the words such as CEO or WTO are used directly without being translated in Chinese because it is regarded to be interface with International Practice by using English alphabetic words. It means that loanwords of Chinese is not restricted into being transliterated or being paraphrased. At the same time, logos of English alphabetic words have popularized. For example, pizza hut, Coco-Cola are becoming familiar to more and more Chinese people. During the process of commodity internalization, Chinese business logos become more and more internationalized. Instead of using Chinese phoneticize, names in English are widely adopted in Chinese business logos. For example, Chinese business brands such as Midea and Shinco use English spelling in order to keep up with the world because Chinese businesses want to use international brand names to attract audiences from all around the world. Hence, it is necessary for Chinese brand to adopt English spellings in their brand names. In addition, the communication with different cultures inject fresh vigor to Chinese language. Since the practice of Chinese reform and opening-up, foreign cultures have exerted great influence on Chinese language. In the current era when science, technology and economy are developing in a fast speed, to more and more Chinese, English has been considered as a tool that should be mastered. Since the economic strengths of English-speaking countries are usually more powerful than that of China, English possess more market value. English that is the main source of loanwords for Chinese language has obtained the unique position of being the general language in the world. Hence, the amount of loanwords and words in the way of English alphabetic surge. Nowadays, many Chinese would say ‘bye-bye’ or ‘OK’ unconsciously. Those who receive much higher education in China more easily accept English loanwords than whose receive less education. Furthermore, the cultural exchange between Hongkong, Taiwan and Mainland China is also reflected in the use of Chinese language. Many Mandarin Chinese possess lots of words that originally are from the dialects of Hongkong-- Cantonese and the dialects of Taiwan—Minnan dialect. From another point of view, the import of words from Hongkong and Taiwan can be seen as the import of culture from Hongkong to mainland China. Hongkong culture is the integration of western culture and Chinese traditional culture because Hongkong is under the colonization domination of Britain for a hundred years while Taiwan was used to be governed by many countries such as Japan. Hence, both languages from these two regions reflect both of traditional Chinese culture and culture from foreign countries. After 1997 when Hongkong came back to the sovereignty of Chinese government, the cultural communication between Hongkong and mainland China is much more frequent. And in recent years, with the development of mainland Chinese economy, the cultural exchange between mainland China and Taiwan also increases rapidly, which influence the change of Mandarin words. Thus it can be said that the change of environment and society have great impact on Chinese language. In addition, Chinese words that reflect the influence of Chinese traditional culture demonstrate different meanings in Chinese current society now. Let’s take the change of addressing as an example. Patriarchal Clan system that is regarded as the core of traditional culture still has great effect in current Chinese society, which is also reflected in the expressions of words. For example, the words of how to address people’s names such as ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’ are strictly classified. The special addressing of names for families have become a general term. However, nowadays, the use and meanings of those addressing are changing with the change of modern culture in China. For example, the Chinese addressing grandpa is used to indicate rich men now and the addressing ‘sister’ refers to a girl who is talking about herself now. Thus it can be seen that the kinship terms such as ‘grandpa’ ‘sister’ has lost their special meanings of addressing specific people in many cases, which demonstrates that the Chinese tradition of family hierarchy is becoming less important. This change attributes to the influence of western culture where clan hierarchy is not as important as that of China. On the other hand, it shows that Chinese emotional bonds with families are diluting because of socialization of production.

What’s more, the diversification of Chinese culture facilitates the variation of Chinese words. Even though the linguistic notation does not have positive connections with the things they refer to, to some extent linguistic notation is associated with the imagination of people. In China, since reform and opening-up, many Chinese young people are trying to catch up with the trends and looking for something unique. Those young people try to catch the attention of others by using special and fashionable words. Hence there are lots of new Chinese popular words created by young people. With the rapid development of internet, popular words are much easier to be spread. And the buzzwords are also become part of people’s lives. For example, many young people like to use buzzwords such as ‘rich and bitch’ ‘I promise you won’t get killed’ in real life to show their individuation. Buzzwords, on the other side also have impacted on people’s lives. Buzzwords can create happy online communication environment because popular words are usually humorous, which may serve as a relief for monotonous life. The popularity of buzzwords indicate that Chinese young people are trying to get rid of constraints of traditional culture. For example, Chinese popular words such as ‘rookie’ ‘meimei’ ‘the coolest’ are known by more and more young people. Endless streams of new popular words occur every second, which reflects the fast pace of life of Chinese people in a sense. Through the use of new buzzwords, the uniqueness of Chinese X-generation is fully performed, which sometimes is judged by the elderly in China. The use of internet language makes Chinese more attractive. On the other side, it brings a shock to traditional Chinese because lots of students now use non-standard Chinese in writing and there are lots of wrong spellings under the influence of internet Chinese. Hence many Chinese people worry that the fast development of internet and buzzwords would demolish traditional Chinese because there are no certain rules to regulate the change of language if buzzwords came and went in a fast speed. However, as the development of Chinese is inevitable, the change of Chinese language is also irreversible. The most important thing is to keep the essence of Chinese traditional language as well as catching up with the change.

Also the change of social convention exert great influence on the transformation of Chinese words. China is a multicultural countries where there are 56 ethnic groups. Different ethnic groups have their own unique language which reflects different culture. The same Chinese character may refer to different meanings when it is used by different ethnic group. For example, the word 你妹(nimei) in some part of regions is an insulting word while in Tibet ‘nimei’ refers to the sun. The famous linguist Edward use to say that language could not live without society. In other words, language is the beliefs and customs of our tradition. Let’s take Chinese surname as an example. Chinese surname originated from maternal society. The Chinese characters of surname originated from that time usually have the characteristic of female. The radicals of characters are relates to ‘nv’ which means female in Chinese. However, after China has entered the age of patrilineal society, the characters of surnames started to change. Lots of surnames related to male sprung up. At this time, politics also came into being, as a result of which new surnames appeared. The original use of surnames is to distinguish blood relationship. However, nowadays, surname has lost the use of their original meanings which is used just to distinguish individuals. In addition, the meaning of some Chinese words change because of change of customs between ancient China and modern China. For example, the Chinese character 跪(gui) in ancient China refers to normal sitting. At that time when there was no chair and table in China yet, people usually sat on the floor. Hence, people used the character跪(gui) to indicate sitting on the floor. But later people started using chairs and tables. The meaning of跪(gui) in modern Chinese referred to a humble practice of kneeling down. Therefore, it can be seen that the change of lifestyle is an important part of social development, which could be reflected in the change of words directly. For example, after changing from living in caves to living in buildings, there occurred lots of Chinese words related to ‘building’. After the development of agriculture, there were lots of Chinese words associated with farming. Hence it could be said that every time with the emergence of new things, Chinese new words are created. What’s more, the appearance of new concepts also facilitated the creation of Chinese new words. For example, after Chinese feudal moral system had built up, concepts like the three Obedience and Four Virtues, The Three Guardian Guides and Five Constant Virtues were also created. With the creation of new social system, new Chinese words are also created. For example, at the beginning of 20^th century when capitalist democratic revolution was conducted, new Chinese words such as capitalism, parliament occurred. After the setting up of Chinese socialist nation, a large number of Chinese new words such as people’s congress, one nation and two systems sprung up. No matter how many Chinese words are created every minute, they always follow a certain rules. American linguist Sapir stated that a new concept or words was created when the original words were not enough. When mentioning creating new Chinese words, Chinese people like to add affixation behind a word to create new words. Different from English, the adding of affixation behind a Chinese would totally change the original meanings, which shows the flexibility of Chinese language system. Besides, some Chines words have been eliminated as society has changed and not many people use them. For example, the Chinese words ‘hongweibing’ which means soldiers in English has gradually stepped out from people’s lives. And some meanings of some Chinese words are amplifying or narrowing as society and Chinese people’s ideological understanding are changing. For example, the Chinese word 同志(tongzhi) that indicates those who share the same goals. Chinese people used it to address each other a lot in the past. However, the word is narrowing down into referring to homosexuals now.

Furthermore, the change of social politics also assigns Chinese words and terms to different flavor of politics. Before the practice of reform and opening-up, many words were just the appendix of politics. In the past, politics took a leading position in China. Under such environment, many Chinese neutral terms were strongly related to politics. For example, the Chinese term 集团 (jituan) which means groups in English was defined as reactionary with the derogatory flavor. Nowadays, the word was defined again as groups without much politics flavor. Many economic terms now have also been used as what they originally mean to be. For example, the Chinese term 失业(shiye) which means unemployment was used to describe the economic phenomenon in western countries in the past. It reflects that Chinese people held hostile attitudes towards western countries. With the development of reform and opening-up, the term was also used to describe Chinese economic phenomenon, from which it can be seen that Chinese people admitted that the phenomenon of unemployment also occurred in China. This change reflects that Chinese are more and more reasonable to look at the world. Without the strong influence of politics, Chinese people would also like to hold more tolerant and humanistic views towards social problems. Many Chinese words and terms reflect the humanistic spirits. For instance, to those people whose intellectual do not meet the normal standards, instead of using ‘silly’ or ‘retard’, Chinese people would use ‘people with mental disability’, which reflects the modern humanistic sprits towards those people.

In short, Chinese language that is dynamic and changing all the time is the barometer of society. Any trivial change of society would be reflected in the change of expression of Chinese languege. Chinese words experience three times of big change, of which the influence of the practice of reform and opening-up is the most profound. With the rapid development of society, Chinese language now is also experiencing dramatic transformation. The change brings advantages as well as disadvantages. It is crucial to use logical thought to look at the change.