Chinese Netizen’s Value Orientation Reflected In Internet Language

This paper attempts to make a study of100internet language items which arerandomly selected from Chinese Language Living Conditions Survey from1997to2012. Based on the selected100internet language items, the study aims at findingout how Chinese netizens values have been changing with the variation of internetlanguage, and then picturing today s mainstream culture values in China.Based the theoretical foundations of Schwartz, Kluckhohn-Strodtbeck andHofstede, the12representative oriental and western cultural value indicators arecompiled. These12indicators and value theories are used to analyze the100internet language items by content analysis. Each internet language item embodiedone or more values. This paper classifies100internet language items into twogroups. One group comes from the period of1997-2007and another from theperiod of2008-2012. After comparing the data of the two stages, the paper comesto the conclusions that collectivism, masculism and social participation weredominant values during1997-2007and individualism, feminism and social rightswere rising during2008-2012. But still, public participation in social activities stilloccupied the mainstream values too. This is mainly because of economic boom,advancement of science and technology, and great improvement of people s life inthe past decades in China. Chinese people, especially Chinese netizens, have morefreedom to express their opinions and value their individual rights more than everbefore. After surveying and analyzing the development of internet language inChina, this paper concludes that individualism, feminism and active involvement inpolitical and social activities are greatly cherished as more and more people haveaccess to internet. Therefore, the widespread of internet language can clearly show value changes in past decades and mainstream values in present China.Internet language has been growing very fast to satisfy the needs of internetcommunication. With its fast growth, internet language not only demonstratespeople s values, but also has effect on the formation of values. In the past decades,some linguists have begun to pay close attention to internet language, mainlyfocusing on lexicon and syntax. However, there are still few studies on internetlanguage in terms of relationship between internet language and values. Therefore,the study of internet language and cultural values is of great importance andsignificance.