Why are radio and television blocking abbreviations?

Excerpt from the article: Editor's note: Recently, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued a notice to CCTV that the abbreviation "NBA" can no longer be used in the host's spoken broadcasts, reporter interviews and subtitles, and it must be called "U.S. Men's Professional Basketball League", not only CCTV, but also other TV stations; not only "NBA", but also "CBA", "F1", "GDP", "WTO", "CPI", etc. As soon as this regulation of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television came out, it immediately aroused heated discussions from all sides. Some netizens joked that simply changing the CCTV-1 logo to "China Central Television's First Program" in Chinese, and then enlarging the font size to a luxurious place, the scene should be spectacular. . However, many netizens expressed support for this regulation: "Chinese is mixed with English, which makes Chinese a bit nondescript. This habit should be changed." It is right for the public to talk about the public, and it is right for the mother-in-law to say that the mother-in-law is right. Combining the opinions of the majority of netizens, the reporter interviewed some citizens and combined them into a manuscript in the form of a debate competition through integration and summary. I hope readers will forgive me if the words in this article are biased. Debate topic: (affirmative) foreign language abbreviations should be blocked, (negative) foreign language abbreviations should not be blocked Affirmative members: Xiao Chen, a sophomore student in the School of Humanities of Taizhou University (first argument) Teacher Li from Jiaojiang Hongzhong Middle School (second argument) Me Mr. Zhang, a retired city worker (third argument) Zheng Youxiao, dean of the School of Humanities of Taizhou University (fourth argument) Opposition members: Li Baojia, professor of Nanjing Normal University (first argument) Xiao Tang, a graduate student from Zhejiang University in Taizhou (second argument) Gao Wanlong, professor of the School of Foreign Languages ??of Taizhou University (third argument) Debate) Netizen on the 19th floor of Taizhou "Where does the wind blow from?" (Four debates) The first defense: "Mr. Zhang is used to interacting with foreigners, and he has a characteristic in his speech - he likes to mix unnecessary English in Chinese... The English embedded in the mouth is not as good as the gold teeth embedded in the mouth, because the gold teeth are not only decorative, but can also be used." This is the famous writer Qian Zhongshu's strong satire on "Chinese and English" in "The Besieged City". This time, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television issued regulations prohibiting the appearance of foreign languages ????and abbreviations such as "NBA" in TV programs. This is undoubtedly a good medicine for protecting the mother tongue and national culture. From a deeper level, "blocking foreign language abbreviations" demonstrates the self-confidence of the Chinese nation. Chinese writing has a long and splendid history. It is the root of Chinese culture and the lifeblood of Chinese culture. Every stroke of it is imbued with the wisdom of the Chinese nation. But some people blindly believe that to integrate with the world, we need to comprehensively learn Western culture and introduce languages. What's more, even our famous mountains and rivers have to be given foreign names. I don’t know what kind of blood is flowing in these hot-headed foreign-loving people! CCTV has also conducted audience surveys before. The survey showed that a large part of the audience did not know what the "NBA" was, or that "NBA" was limited to the concept of basketball to them, and "CBA" and "F1" The same is true. This kind of normative behavior will not only have no impact on the audience's viewing habits, but will help more viewers understand and understand such events. Therefore, our point of view is that blocking foreign language abbreviations is very timely and necessary. Argument from the opposing side: Since "NBA" is not used, then "CCTV" is also an abbreviation, so cancel it first! Don’t use this “TV” or that “TV” in those TV stations! As for what you are worried about: "With so many foreign words coming in, Chinese is no longer like Chinese" and "Chinese is impure", what I want to say is that this is modern Chinese! The Chinese language is inherently impure and is a historical lingua franca. All powerful civilizations are the intersection of multiple cultures. If you want to purify your Chinese language, go back to the primitive tribes in Africa. I would like to ask, can a fertile mother be pure? Blocking foreign words means blocking the cultural integration of East and West and deviating from the trend. In today's society, there are many "bilingual people" who understand both Chinese and English. When they encounter foreign words that are difficult to express and translate during communication, they directly use foreign language abbreviations. Both parties understand them and communication is convenient. This is not deliberate, nor is it worship of foreign countries. Leaders also talk about "WTO"! In addition, international exchanges are now too frequent and too fast, and a large number of foreign words are pouring in. Before there is time to think of a corresponding Chinese word, a batch of new words appear again. This allows foreign abbreviations to enter Chinese directly. From the perspective of vocabulary itself, abbreviations are also unstoppable.

This is a manifestation of safeguarding the purity of the national language and maintaining the unity of media terminology. Four counterarguments If it is to protect the mother tongue, the purpose and starting point are of course good, but the effect of this approach is almost zero. I am not a fan of foreigners. On the contrary, I have always been opposed to the current craze for English across the country, which places English in an overly important position, causing a lot of waste of resources. However, with the nationwide craze for "blindly" learning English, simply blocking foreign abbreviations in television broadcasts is like trying to do something wrong and is unlikely to have any effect. If you are afraid that a small number of viewers will not be able to understand such abbreviations and thus block them, then you really have to thank the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television for its carefulness and humanistic care. However, such care and care are somewhat superfluous. Audiences who like basketball will definitely know what "NBA" and "CBA" mean, but for those who don't pay attention to basketball at all, even if "NBA" is changed to "American Men's Basketball Professional League", they still won't pay attention. Therefore, blocking abbreviations does not bring even the slightest benefit to the general TV audience, except for adding a little bit of broadcast workload to TV hosts. If you really want to dedicate attentiveness and care, you might as well work hard to improve the quality of TV programs and reduce annoying advertising time. A few words from the reporter: Writing standards have been around since ancient times. There is nothing to say about this, but we can’t help but ask, how can we just change it? Foreign abbreviations such as "NBA" and "CBA" have been widely used by the media and young people because of their convenience, easy to remember and international use. It seems a bit abrupt to change them all at once. Besides, no one informed everyone that there was a "problem" with these words before this announcement was issued. If language is a universal tool product, it is born to follow the customs of the people. Only the users should have the right to speak and put forward more practical suggestions for the use of this product. Implementing it without discussion will not only expose the loopholes in the policy, but will also brand yourself as disrespecting the majority and violating the laws of language development. It is understandable that the government promulgates policies to regulate the use of foreign words, but such an approach that is enforced without discussion and regardless of the consequences is highly questionable. Taizhou News Broadcasting staff, we have no objection. Since there is this policy, we should strictly abide by it. You may not be used to it at first. After all, you have been using it for so long, but you will gradually get used to it in the future. We are currently conducting relevant training. .