2.10 Studying Popular Language in Social Networks ...
In the last five years，with the fast development of Internet technology and the expanding Chinese domestic economy，multimedia，web and other high-tech phenomena have become a necessary component in Chinese people’s daily life.The modern media as a kind of influencing meme has also changed people’s traditional custom of daily language use： some newly created terms and expressions appear in different occasions and places by varied communication means.Therefore，the prevalence of new words in contemporary Chinese is manifested in new words，loaning words，profession words，network words and dialect words.Meanwhile，the Buzz Word of the Year，the New Word of the Year and the Cyber Word of the Year were also released every year.In these collections，new words normally refer to popular words in social networks.According to Jia，because the majority of netizens are young people，popular words found in social networks are creative and interesting.For example，“白富美” （white，rich and beautiful） is used to describe the ideal girl in young men’s hearts，while “坑爹” （to entrap dad） refers to someone who makes trouble for their parents or cheats on others （2015： 166）.
Besides，“Some idioms were changed or created with the development of society” （Liu and Guo，2013）.For example，altered idioms and words as idioms were originally called “知难而退” （back translation： shrink back from difficulties）； during the period of economic development，however，people changed this idiom to “知难而进” （back translation： advance despite difficulties”） in order to show their support for social reform.Self-created idioms or words inspired by certain popular artistic works or new media （e.g.，Internet） are referred to as “新鲜出炉（back translation： freshly baked [literal translation]，refer to new things） or “雷人雷语” （back translation： something or somebody that is shocking and weird）.Meanwhile，some words and idioms that have accidentally become popular are called “非诚勿扰” （back translation： do not bother if you are not pure-hearted （literal translation））.Such words and idioms，which became popular because of the highly popular film If You Are the One （2008） when released in China，enrich and develop contemporary Chinese language.Since netizens，who are mostly found in young and middle-aged demographic groups，prefer to use these up-to-date words in their daily communication with acquaintances and friends，including their discussion of translated subtitles in animation films，they are considered to be making up the majority of the audience when a translated film is released in China.As such，the subtitler should have certain ability in terms of insight and sensitivity regarding this new language tendency in order to fulfil the audience’s expectations.(https://www.daowen.com)
Cao (2012) believes the use of these types of new words in subtitle translation emphasize the classical lines in the translated version and enrich the target language as well.In Cao’s opinion,the use of new words represents a trend in subtitle translation in today’s China because it makes the target audience feel closer to the film and produces similar feelings in them to the native language audience.The use of the new words helps the translated subtitles to be more idiomatic and humorous.However,there are also some translations that involve the inappropriate use of new words.Cao emphasizes the effectiveness of the use of such expressions by discussing three factors that should be considered to effectively apply new words in English-Chinese subtitle translation in sitcoms: 1) the origins of new words; 2) the situation in which they will be used; 3) the effects of using new words on the overall subtitle translation.Similar to sitcoms,in my view,animation films are always full of humorous memes and end with happiness (the effective use of new words will also be discussed in my research,including references to Cao’s suggestions).
In this study,after defining idioms and archaisms as “traditional expressions”,I refer to types of new words as “popular expressions”.Compared with traditional expressions,popular expressions originate from contemporary Chinese language and can therefore be said to represent modern Chinese culture.In the later discussion chapter,I will test the frequency of the use of popular expressions in the given data and discuss the importance of using these types of expression in the subtitle translation of animation films nowadays.