What is Shanghai Daily's Word of the Year 2023?

As the Year 2023 is drawing to a close, it is also a time for summing-up. Language reflects social trends and ethos, embodies people's thoughts and spirits, and reveals current interests and concerns. The annual Word of the Year encapsulates the zeitgeist, and has become an important cultural event in many parts around the world.

Collins English Dictionary took the lead in unveiling its Word of the Year 2023 on October 31, with AI (Artificial Intelligence) topping the list. The Collins Word of the Year is selected by lexicographers through monitoring various data sources, including social media. Apart from AI, the other nine words on the shortlist reflect various aspects of the English-speaking world from the British perspective, including deinfluencing (a social media influencer using their popularity to warn followers to avoid certain commercial products, lifestyle choices, etc), nepo baby (a person whose career is believed to have been advanced by having famous parents), debanking (the act of depriving a person of banking facilities), and greedflation (the alleged practice of some businesses making excessive price hikes in a bid to maximize profits at a time of high inflation in the UK).

On November 15, hallucinate was declared Cambridge Dictionary's Word of the Year 2023. Originally referring to the experience of seeing, hearing, feeling, or smelling something that does not exist due to illness or medication, the word has now taken on a new sense in line with the advancements of AI. With the rise of AI tools based on large-scale data models, AI can generate hallucinations like the human brain, creating deceptive and false information. The shift in the meaning of hallucinate and its growing popularity reflect human's skepticism, necessitating a comprehensive examination and critical approach towards the rapid development of AI. Hallucinate also implies the direction for future improvements in the field of AI.

On November 27, authentic was named Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year 2023, a choice echoing Cambridge's selection of hallucinate. The rise of AI has sparked discussions on academic integrity and the perplexing misinformation it creates, resulting in a crisis of authenticity in 2023. The popularity of the word is also linked to the calls for an authentic voice and authentic self by such American celebrities as Taylor Swift. Also, the virtual world of social media blurs the line between reality and fiction, making it difficult to discern truth from falsehood, hence a growing demand for social media content to be more authentic.

Rizz of rizz

Oxford Languages, for the first time in 2022, introduced its Word of the Year poll, attracting the participation of 340,000 people.

The final winner went to goblin mode, a phrase depicting a state in which individuals in the Western world reject social norms and indulge in laziness, sloppiness, and greed. Following the pattern set last year, Oxford continued to stir up a voting frenzy in 2023.

On December 4, the Oxford Word of the Year was unveiled, and rizz clinched the crown. Clipped from charisma, rizz refers to the ability to attract others through a unique style or personal charm. In 2023, rizz experienced a significant surge in popularity. It was related to British actor Tom Holland's response during an interview when asked about his personal charm, saying, "I have no rizz whatsoever. I have limited rizz." The victory of rizz marks an era of personal and professional PR – to attract attention, win publicity, and gain followers. In order to have rizz, it is necessary to be innovative, showcase individuality, and exhibit unique charm.

Runners-up include prompt (an instruction given to an artificial intelligence program, algorithm, etc., which determines or influences the content it generates), de-influencing (also on the Collins Word of the Year shortlist), situationship (a romantic or sexual relationship that is not considered to be formal or established), Swiftie (an enthusiastic fan of the singer Taylor Swift), beige flag (a character trait that indicates that a partner or potential partner is boring or lacks originality; also a trait or habit, esp. of a partner or potential partner, viewed as extremely characteristic, but not distinctly good or bad.), and parasocial (describing the one-sided, unreciprocated intimacy felt by audiences, fans, or followers towards celebrities, falsely believing they know the celebrity as a friend), and heat dome (a prolonged high-pressure weather system that forms over a specific geographic area).

Shanghai Daily's Word of the Year

The Corpus Application and Research Center at Sanda University, established in 2021, has selected the Word of the Year from the Shanghai Daily. Shanghai Daily is the only English newspaper in Shanghai and the most influential foreign language media in the Yangtze River Delta Region.

The selection criteria for the Word of the Year are that it does not need to be a single word; it can be a phrase or even a short sentence. The key point is that it should be representative enough to reflect the major events, social trends, and zeitgeist of the year. The depth, breadth, intensity, and sustainability of the word's influence should also be taken into consideration. The center chose vaccine and omicron as Shanghai Daily's Word of the Year for 2021 and 2022 respectively. The selection attracted widespread attention.

In the early winter of 2023, the center resumed its annual project. The data collected covered the past 12 months, from December 2022 to November 2023. With the help of computer-aided statistical analysis plus manual intervention, the words used by Shanghai Daily in 2023 were revealed.

All the candidates had gone through several rounds of rigorous pre-selections, evaluations, and reappraisal to make it to the shortlist.

ChatGPT, short for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, claims the title of the highly anticipated Shanghai Daily's Word of the Year 2023.

On November 30, 2022, OpenAI, an American artificial intelligence research company, unveiled its groundbreaking program, ChatGPT. Ever since its birth, it took the world by storm, becoming the talk of the town, the focal point of major media, conferences, forums, and online discussions, and the center of the trend. Its extraordinary language comprehension and text generation capabilities enable it to possess knowledge across all fields. This empowers it to effortlessly craft high-quality emails, video scripts, translations, code editing, and even academic papers.

ChatGPT is not just another step towards liberating human hands; it also brings humanity closer to realizing its dream of emancipation of human brain. However, along with its rapid rise to fame, drawbacks have also emerged. ChatGPT has had a profound impact on employment and career choices, leaving every human being anxious about being replaced and losing their livelihoods.

Furthermore, it has disrupted traditional teaching methods, resulting in rampant academic dishonesty, fostering laziness among students, undermining their critical thinking abilities, contributing to data leakage, and perpetuating the spread of inaccurate and misleading information. These ethical, privacy, and technical issues have thrown ChatGPT into the center of controversy, questioning whether it is a Pandora's box or a panacea.

The discussions surrounding ChatGPT have persisted throughout the year 2023, demonstrating its deep and wide-reaching influence. After a comprehensive evaluation, ChatGPT proves to be an unrivaled choice for Shanghai Daily's Word of the Year.

Apart from ChatGPT, the candidates on the shortlist also include post-pandemic era, which enjoys high frequency in the Shanghai Daily corpus, together with related expressions such as post-pandemic economic recovery, post-pandemic economic vitality, post-pandemic tourism, post-pandemic scenario, post-pandemic excitement, and post-pandemic euphoria, among others. These expressions vividly illustrate the revival of all industries in 2023, and people being filled with enthusiasm and vigor, longing and yearning for a better life after the pandemic.

The term post-pandemic era encompasses all of the above, bearing the imprint of the time, and making it a worthy choice. Years later when we look back, both ChatGPT and post-pandemic era will undoubtedly evoke vivid memories in our minds.

Since 2021, the selection of Shanghai Daily's Word of the Year has received full support from the English World magazine.

(The article is written by Yang Zhixia and Xi Danyun, research fellows at Corpus Application and Research Center, Sanda University, and Hugo Tseng, Professor of English & College Dean, Sanda University.)