Studies of formal features of language in the media, whether synchronic surveys (Diāo 2008) or diachronic studies (Diāo 2001; Lán 2004), emphasize that the Cultural Revolution era (1966–1976) was a period of pronounced conformity to the standards for normalization of language and writing prescribed in the 1950s. The unprecedented social isolation of the nation curtailed the further dissemination of any new foreign loans, while urban “educated youth” who had been taught the new standard language …