In the online era, Internet slang has become an emerging linguistic form for communication among China’s 650 million netizens. Numerous buzzwords, including dianzan (someone agrees with or likes what others posted), have gradually been used in different fields of society, creating new research opportunities for linguists.
 

Internet slang includes many kinds of words, pictures and symbols. Currently, Internet slang has had a significant influence on society. “It has become a good thermometer and barometer of social life,” said Wang Lei, a professor from the College of Humanities at Guangzhou University.

Hui Tiangang, deputy dean of the Jingjiang College at Capital Normal University in Beijing, said that as another channel of understanding social culture, Internet slang reflects people’s way of thinking. “Internet slang presents social phenomena and hot issues,” said Hui.

With the rapid development of China’s Internet, online slang has made impressive progress. “As a new general language, Internet slang should not only meet the demands of cyber communication but also fully reflect the charm of linguistic function,” said Wang.
 

Wang also noted that Internet slang provides rich materials for linguistic research and has become a new growth point of applied linguistics and social linguistics in China. Some research achievements better display the process of communication of Internet slang based on Chinese language studies, added Wang.
 

Hui said that Internet slang extends the research subject and method of traditional linguistics. “Taking the research method as an example, it involves methods from semantics, pragmatics, cognitive linguistics, cultural linguistics, sociology, communication and culturology,” said Hui.
 

“The development of Internet slang also has significant implications for the construction of culturology, sociology, linguistics and communication,” said Hui, adding that scholars from different fields have analyzed the origins and characteristics of Internet slang and forecast their future development.
 

Zhou Haizhong, a professor from the Faculty of English Education at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said that studies of Internet slang theoretically focus on netizens, which makes it a new subject for social linguistics and anthropological linguistics. Nearly all related research is conducive to modern linguistic research and the construction of network activity, added Zhou.
 

“The essence of Internet slang is its convention,” said Li Weihong, director of the State Language Work Committee, adding that the development of Internet slang is a good example of practicing the principle that a new linguistic phenomenon will sustain if it can be commonly accepted by the public.
 

Some scholars have called for tighter regulation and guidance of the use of Internet slang. “We should scientifically and dynamically regulate Internet slang by keeping a more open and inclusive attitude and multiple perspectives,” said Hui.
 

Hui also said that future studies of Internet slang should include its structure, specifications of language, analysis from a psychological perspective and comparison of slang used on the Internet and other mediums.

 

 

Chen Yejun is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.