Opportunities and Challenges: On Foreign Factors and Their Influence in Contemporary Chinese (in Chinese)

Abstract

Great changes have taken place in contemporary Chinese, which are mainly reflected in the overall structure, specific units and meanings of vocabulary. The above-mentioned changes are generally manifested as a certain degree of deviation or even breakthrough from the original norms, reflecting the “new tendency” of contemporary Chinese; in addition, the restoration and reuse of some old forms before 1949 are “restorative” changes. The former is directly or indirectly related to the influence of western factors, providing a large number of concrete facts for the theory of language development, as well as the latest materials, explanations and supplements for the proposition of “language and social co-variation” by sociolinguistics, the theory of language variation and contact, and the theory of style, etc. The above changes have brought opportunities and challenges to contemporary Chinese research. They not only provide an excellent window for observing the development and changes of contemporary languages, but also promote the current language research into the “second era”; on the other hand, they challenge the traditional view of language and characters, knowledge system and the processing and understanding of some specific issues, which need to be actively addressed.