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In today's Buzzword Mix, our Buzzword is Woke.

Now I have to confess this word has been sitting in my script for some time. I've been having the hardest time trying to decide whether I wanna talk about this word or not.

其实这个词我一直都想讲, 但一直都在犹豫, 主要是因为这个词后面的争议太大, 而且它的倾向性和内涵一直都在变迁。

虽然它是美国乃至英语国家, 甚至整个西方都在谈的一个热词, 但是你问10个人10个人都可能给它下不同的定义, 会告诉你不同的看法。

But anyhow, I'm gonna take a step at it.

First of all, what does it mean literally?

Woke is not standard English. 首先它不是标准英语, it is an adjective derived from AAVE, African American Vernacular English.

它是非裔美国人, 也就是美国黑人他们的口语表达里面的一个词。只要你学过小学英语, 你都学过 wake, wake up, wake醒过来, 这个词的过去式是woke, 它的过去分词是woken.

But in some varieties of African American English, woke is used in place of woken.

它最早的字面意思就是在African American的英语里面, 他们会用woke来代替woken这个词; 后来这个词就逐渐的从过去分词的一个变体变成了一个adjective, equivalent to awake.

像我们说stay awake就是保持清醒的状态, 现在woke它的字面意思, 你可以把它理解为清醒状态, 但是我们一般把它翻译成 “觉醒/警醒”.

The phrase “stay woke” has been present in African American English since the 1930s.

In some context, it refers to an awareness of social and political issues affecting African Americans.

这个词在逐渐的演化中, 就从最早的简单的awake, “清醒的觉醒的”词的本意延伸到美国黑人文化里对系统性种族歧视 “ systemic racism”保持清醒和警惕, 这也是为什么我们把它翻译成 “警醒”或者 “觉醒文化”.

But that's not all of it.

During the 2014 Ferguson protests, the phrase was popularized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists seeking to raise awareness about police shootings of African Americans.

本来这个词它是没有进入mainstream主流的英语语境, 仅限于在黑人群体中的小范围使用;

但到了2014年, Ferguson protest是因为有一位美国黑人被白人警察射杀, 这个事件掀起了弗格森地区的抗议浪潮, 所以当时在社交媒体上#staywoke, “#保持警醒”话题标签就开始火了起来.

当时主要是为了呼吁人们关注这样的一个系统性种族歧视的现象.

Over time, it gained so much popularity, it became increasingly connected to matters beyond race, such as gender and identities perceived as marginalized.

不过随后woke这个含义从简单的 “黑人反抗种族压迫” 进一步扩大, 它的政治和社会意义内涵, 开始从 “种族不平等”延伸到 “性别、跨性别者、环保主义、堕胎、性骚扰”等等社会话题, 在美国逐渐就演变成了一场文化战争, 这也是为什么英语里有wokeism, 可以把它理解为 “觉醒主义”或者 “觉醒运动”.

Now the term became popular with millenniums and members of Genz, 特别受千禧一代和Z世代的欢迎, 相当于中国的85后、90后、95后、00后这么几代人。

As its use spread internationally, woke was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2017.

Wokeism也逐渐超越了美国的国境, 蔓延到其他英语国家乃至世界上很多其他的国家。

所以2017年它也被作为形容词, 收入了牛津字典。

So far, this is understandable. But this is when it gets tricky.

但是在woke这个词进入主流英语之后, 它的感情色彩却发生了很微妙的变化。

By 2020, many on the political right and some in the center in several Western countries began using the term sarcastically as a pejorative for various leftist and progressive movements and ideologies.

Wokeism或者Woke这个概念本来就是比较偏激进派、偏左的这样的一个思潮, 所以到了2020年, 很多偏右甚至偏中间的这些组织或者党派, 他们开始用woke这个词来讽刺一些过于激进或者是这种过度追求政治正确的人。

Some argue that this is because the term has been co-opted by mainstream culture and stripped off its original meaning and power.

有的人就说这是因为Woke的内涵, 它迅速的泛化, 进入主流社会, 致使很多人虽然不清楚这个词本来表示什么, 但是他们会把这个词泛泛地用在他们自己认为的各种歧视或者不公现象, 这个时候他们就可以高举 Wokeism警醒的这面大旗, 并且对于他们认为不够woke的人占据moral high grounds, 道德高地。

正是因为这种概念的泛化和woke追随者的这种self righteousness, 自以为是道德高地的这种态度, 反而令woke这个本来应该很有力量的词引发了大量的反感.

People are starting to watch out for what they say so that they don't get blamed and attacked for not being woke enough, especially in the United States where this concept of woke originated.

It has been used in political fights, 特别是在美国这个词还被用来作为党争的工具, the Republican Party representatives, including Trump, and some senators, they are actually calling people who embrace wokeism as the woke mob.

甚至共和党里的一些言论, 他们会把 wokeism觉醒主义的这些人称为woke mob, 叫做所谓的 “觉醒暴民” 。

所以可以说短短几年间曾经被众多的美国年轻人用作觉醒号角, 在社交媒体上充当进步徽章的这个词woke, 如今很多时候都会在贬损和戏谑的语境里才会被使用。