语言折射社会发展的轨迹。中国历史上每一次大的社会变革,都会涌现出一大批新词语。语言属于社会现 象,语言是随着社会的发展而发展的。词汇是语言中最活跃的因素。社会的变革、科技的发展、人们思维 的活跃和观念的更新,都会在语言的词汇中很快地反映出来,突出表现是新词新义新用法的大量出现。远 的不说,就从上一个世纪来看,“五四”前后、建国初期和改革开放以来,分别是新词语出现的三个高峰。 如近年来随着网络这一新事物的出现,跟网络有关的新词语就出现了一大串,像因特网、互联网、电子邮 件、网站、网校、网址、网页、网络犯罪等,这是语言与社会共变的最好例证。同时,语言也是社会的一 面镜子,社会发生了很大变化,语言不可能是无动于衷的,不可能还是保持原样的。语言还可以帮助强化 一种观念,甚至强化一种意识形态,所以无论是保守的还是革命的,都分别以不同方式来利用语言。
Language reflects the path of social development, for every major change to the society in the history of China has brought a myriad of new terms into existence. Language, a social phenomenon evolves with the community. Lexis is the most active element of languages, because social changes, scientific and technology advances, new thinking and fresh ideas are quickly embodied in the word-stock. Most prominently, there have emerged huge quantities of coinages, new meanings and usages. As recently as last century, to say nothing of the distant past, neologisms peaked around May 4th Movement in 1919, in the infancy of the People's Republic of China, and after reform and opening up to the outside world respectively. In recent years, for example, with the emergence of a new thing—the web, a large number of web-related new words found their way into our life, such as the internet, email, dotcoms, online schools, websites, web pages, cybercrime and such like things that are the best instances of the co-evolution of language and society. At the same time, language is a mirror of the society. If it undergoes great changes, not a tongue can possibly remain unaffected or unchanged. Language can also help reinforce some ideas, even some kind of ideology, so whether one is conservative or revolutionary, he uses his language in a specific way.