The Review of Word of the Year of Oxford English Dictionary for the last Decade

Abstract

This paper focuses on the word of the year of Oxford English Dictionary for the last ten years. Through the analysis of the vocabularies of these ten years, we find that the word of the year has undergone a shift from entertainment, to life, to seriousness and then to life. Through the study, this change is mainly influenced by the shift in the focus of young people, especially the post-95 generation. Language is the carrier of culture, and words are a part of language, so word reflects culture in some ways. To some extent, by studying these words in terms of the cultural characteristics which present, they can reflect the cultural attitude of young people as well as the characteristics of changes in aspects of life. And it has some significance for us new generation of young people to spread traditional Chinese culture.