到了年底，各类年度词汇评选都开始宣布结果。此前，我们报道过，Brexit（英国脱欧）被选为柯林斯词典的2016年度词汇。11月15日，牛津辞典宣布，2016年度词汇为post-truth，单独发布的英美年度词汇也是这个词。今年进入牛津辞典年度词汇候选的还包括adulting，Brexiteer，glass cliff等。

在官方博客中，牛津辞典宣布post-truth（后真相）为2016年度词汇，理由是这个词反遇映了这一年政治领域“高度紧张”的状态。

牛津词典对post-truth定义如下：

an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’.

一个形容词，描述的是客观事实对公众意见的影响没有感性诉求产生的影响大这样一个状况。

简单说来，所谓的post-truth即为“自以为是的真相”，

为什么一个边缘性的词却成为2016年的头牌？

这个词原本是一个边缘的，不起眼的词，首次出现是在1992年，但到了2016年，转身成为一个网络搜索数量暴涨，且频繁地出现在媒体标题里的热闹词汇——这一切皆拜6月英国脱欧公投和今年的美国总统大选所赐。

这个词在2016年的使用率比上一年增长了2000%，而今年正好是脱欧公投和美国总统大选之年。

《牛津辞典》总裁Casper Grathwohl表示，post-truth或将成为“定义我们这个时代的词汇之一”（one of the defining words of our time）：

"Fuelled by the rise of social media as a news source and a growing distrust of facts offered up by the establishment, post-truth as a concept has been finding its linguistic footing for some time," he said. 

“随着社交媒体崛起成为新闻来源，同时人们对主流机构提供的事实越发不信任，post-truth这个理念的语言学根基其实已经形成一段时间了。”

"We first saw the frequency really spike this year in June with buzz over the Brexit vote and again in July when Donald Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination.

“我们最开始注意到这个词使用频率暴增是在今年6月英国脱欧公投期间，后来7月份，特朗普被确定为共和党总统候选人时使用频率再次明显增加。”

"Given that usage of the term hasn't shown any signs of slowing down, I wouldn't be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of our time." 
“鉴于目前这个词的使用频率还没有降低的迹象，post-truth最终成为定义我们这个时代的词汇之一，我也不会觉得奇怪。”

Post-truth是怎么出现的？

Post-truth一词第一次出现在塞尔维亚裔美国剧作家Steve Tesich于1992年为《国家》（Nation）杂志写的一篇文章之中。这篇文章是关于伊朗门事件和波斯湾战争。作者在其中写道：

“we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world”.

“我们，一个自由的民族，随意地决定自己想要生活在一个'自以为是的真相‘的世界里”。

这个词虽然带着post-前缀，却并不是其字面所谓的“在真相之后”，而是更多地指出与真相本身没有“一毛钱”关系。牛津字典在其博客中写道：

“There is evidence of the phrase post-truth being used before Tesich’s article, but apparently with the transparent meaning ‘after the truth was known’, and not with the new implication that truth itself has become irrelevant” 

"在Tesich的文章之前，post-truth这个词就已出现了，不过，意思都是很直白的‘在真相大白之后’，而不是有这个新的意思，即真相本身变得无关紧要。"

而且，在英美国家现状的影响之下，post-的意思已然与“时间”（time）先后顺序没有关系，而是扩展到某一个时间点出现的观念没有关联或是不重要。对此，牛津词典是这么解释的：

“rather than simply referring to the time after a specified situation or event – as in post-war or post-match”, in post-truth it had taken on the meaning of “belonging to a time in which the specified concept has become unimportant or irrelevant”. 

另外，post-出现这种意思扩展，最一开始是在20世纪中叶，并在1945年的post-nationalt 1971年出现的post-racial构词上得到体现。

Post-truth为什么不是“真相之后”，而是“与真相无关”呢？

这个词的真实含义能从今年美国两党候选人的竞争活动中找到解释。对于post-truth的真实内涵，《华盛顿邮报》在报道这个年度词汇的文章中指出：

Throughout a grueling presidential campaign in which accusations of lies and alternate realities flowed freely, in every direction, hundreds of fact checks were published about statements from both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Dozens of media outlets found that Trump's relationship with the truth was, well, complicated.

在大选中，两党的候选人已然不顾什么是事实了，只是在一味的自圆其说，为了自己的选票，而不顾事实的真相。

Truthyness与post-truth有什么关系？

其实，还有多家媒体在谈到post-truth的时候，都提到了另一个词truthiness，2005年的《韦氏大词典》和美国方言学会的年度词汇。这个词与post-truth有类似的作用，即都是对美国历史上的重大事件所造成的社会效应。

从《华盛顿邮报》和《纽约时报》里摘出的这几句话，就能看现两者在对于”truth“（真相）上的巨大共同点以及相互之间细微的差别。同时，也反映了美国社会，尤其是大众对于所谓的”真相“的真实态度！

Remember back in 2006, when Stephen Colbert, the fictional conservative blowhard TV personality played by comedian Stephen Colbert, coined the term “truthiness” on his Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report”? Truthiness, as Colbert defines it, is “the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support.”

It was the perfect word to serve the nation in the days of the George W. Bush administration. If you felt that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, you could believe it was true that the U.S. had sufficient grounds to invade the country and that the Bush administration and the lawmakers who voted in favor of this action did the right thing. After all, believing is the same thing as knowing in a country that consistently dumps on liberal arts education while only pretending to champion science instead.

However, Katherine Connor Martin, the head of United States dictionaries at Oxford University Press, told the New York Times: “Truthiness is a humorous way of discussing a quality of specific claims. Post-truth is an adjective that is describing a much bigger thing. It’s saying that the truth is being regarded as mostly irrelevant.”

Both “truthiness” and “post-truth” weren’t invented to describe the political climate in which they were frequently invoked. Linguists have found older uses of both words, and instead attribute their recent rise in popularity to people looking for accurate descriptions of their apparent political consternation.

And if anything, the rise of truthiness cleared the path for “post-truth,” as in: “In a post-truth world, truthiness is all that matters.”

牛津词典的2016年度十大词汇

Adulting：the practice of behaving in a way characteristic of a responsible adult, especially the accomplishment of mundane but necessary tasks.

像一个负责任的成年人一样行为处事，尤其是完成一些单调但必要的任务

Alt-right： (in the US) an ideological grouping associated with extreme conservative or reactionary viewpoints, characterized by a rejection of mainstream politics and by the use of online media to disseminate deliberately controversial content.

完整的拼写方式为alternative right，即“另类右翼”，持有极端保守或反对变革观点的意识形态组织，主要特点是反对主流政治，通过网络媒体故意散布有争议的内容

Brexiteer ： British informal a person who is in favour of the United Kingdom withdrawing from the European Union.

英国脱欧支持者

Chatbot：a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users, especially over the Internet.

聊天机器人

Coulrophobia：rare extreme or irrational fear of clowns.

小丑恐惧症

Glass cliff：used with reference to a situation in which a woman or member of a minority group ascends to a leadership position in challenging circumstances where the risk of failure is high. 

玻璃悬崖，指女性或少数族裔在颇具挑战的情形下升到领导层职位，工作过程中遭遇失败的风险较高

Hygge： a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture)

舒适惬意，这个词读作[heu-gah]，是丹麦文化的一个重要特点，描述的是生活舒适满足的状态

注：这个词也进入到了柯林斯词典的2016年度十大词汇之中。

Latinx： (plural Latinxs or same) and adj. a person of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina); relating to people of Latin American origin or descent (used as a gender-neutral or non-binary alternative to Latino or Latina).

拉美移民或后裔，这个词是Latino或Latina的中性拼写方式

Woke：adj. (woker, wokest) US informal alert to injustice in society, especially racism.

警示社会中的不公平行为，尤指种族主义，最初多在非洲裔美国人当中使用

注：除提到的外媒内容外，本文参考了中国日报网英语点津的相关内容。