Cover not available
Article published In:
Context in Systemic Functional Linguistics: Theoretical developments and directions
Edited by Wendy L. Bowcher and Tom Bartlett
[Functions of Language 28:3] 2021
► pp. 342–367

Understanding context in computer-mediated communication

A focus on Danmaku discourse

| University of Science and Technology Beijing
With unprecedented transformations taking place in the landscape of what to say and how we mean, interactions in the digital age take on various new forms of doing and being. To make sense of “what it is that is going on” requires an understanding of the context wherein the computer-mediated communications take place. Focusing on a burgeoning online video commenting discourse in mainland China called Danmaku (a media feature that projects viewer comments onto the video, like a ‘bullet curtain’), the present study applies the schematic construct of context of situation and its paradigmatic representation developed in Systemic Functional Linguistics to a functionally-driven discussion of Danmaku context. Drawing on a corpus of comments from 18 well-received videos on Bilibili​.com (a major Danmaku site in mainland China), the study provides a fine-grained analysis that highlights emergent technological and semiotic variables in the Danmaku Mode, such as anonymity, invisibility, dynamicity, and pseudo-synchronicity. It then discusses how these variables mediate the properties of Field and Tenor and further impinge upon the experiential and interpersonal meanings made in Danmaku communication. The analysis also highlights the carnivalesque nature of Danmaku which makes it an increasingly popular social media platform in mainland China.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Danmaku: A burgeoning CMC discourse in China
  • 3.CMC Contexts
  • 4.Theoretical model: Context of situation
  • 5.Research methodology
  • 6.Results and discussion: Understanding the Danmaku context
    • 6.1Features of Mode
    • 6.2Features of Field
    • 6.3Features of Tenor
  • 7.Conclusions and implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 19 May 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.20041.lia
References
Bakhtin, Mikhail
1984 Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics (Caryl Emerson, ed. and transl.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bargh, John A. & Katelyn Y. A. McKenna
2004 The Internet and social life. Annual Review of Psychology 551. 573–590. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bowcher, Wendy L.
1999 Investigating institutionalization in context. In Mohsen Ghadessy (ed.), 141–176. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 Field and multimodal texts. In Ruqaiya Hasan, Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen & Jonathan Webster (eds.), Continuing discourse on language (Volume 21), 619–646. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
2014 Issues in developing unified systems for contextual field and mode. Functions of Language 21 (2). 176–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2018 The semiotic sense of context vs the material sense of context. Functional Linguistics 5(5). 1–19. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Butt, David
2004 Parameters of context: On establishing the similarities and differences between social processes. Sydney: Macquarie University unpublished mimeo.Google Scholar
Butt, David G., Alison R. Moore & John R. Cartmill
2016 Transactions between matter and meaning: Surgical contexts and symbolic action. In Sarah J. White & John Cartmill (eds.), Communication in surgical practice, 181–206. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Cheng, Hong
2019 Freedom and carnival: Cultural dissemination strategies of Danmaku videos: A case of Bilibili.com. [in Chinese]. Today’s Mass Media 21. 136–138.Google Scholar
Cloran, C.
1999 Context, material situation and text. In Mohsen Ghadessy (ed.), 177–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Collot, Milena & Nancy Belmore
1996 Electronic language: a new variety of English. In Susan C. Herring (ed.), 13–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Derks, Daantje, Agneta H. Fischer & Arjan E. R. Bos
2008 The role of emotion in computer-mediated communication: A review. Computers in Human Behavior 24(3). 766–785. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Djonov, Emilia & Theo van Leeuwen
2018 Social media as semiotic technology and social practice: The case of Research Gate’s design and its potential to transform social practice. Social Semiotics 28 (5). 641–664. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Firth, John Rupert
1950 Personality and language in society. Sociological Review 421. 37–52. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eisenlauer, Volker
2017 Social network sites/Facebook. In Christian Hoffmann & Wolfram Bublitz (eds.), Pragmatics of social media, 225–242. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ghadessy, Mohsen
(ed.) 1999 Text and context in Functional Linguistics. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1974 Frame analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K.
1989 Spoken and written language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
1994 An introduction to functional grammar, 2nd edn. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Ruqaiya Hasan
1976 Cohesion in English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
1985 Language, context, and text: Aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective. Geelong, Victoria: Deakin University Press.Google Scholar
Hasan, Ruqaiya
1981 What’s going on: A dynamic view of context in language. In James E. Copeland & Philip E. Davis (eds.), The seventh LACUS Forum, 106–121. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar
1985 Part B. In M. A. K. Halliday & Ruqaiya Hasan, 51–118.Google Scholar
1994 Situation and the definition of genres. In Allen Grimshaw (ed.), What’s going on here? Complementary studies of professional talk, 127–172. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
1999 Speaking with reference to context. In Mohsen Ghadessy (ed.), 219–328. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 The place of context in a systemic functional model. In M. A. K. Halliday & Jonathan Webster (eds.), Continuum companion to Systemic Functional Linguistics, 166–189. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
2014 Towards a paradigmatic description of context: Systems, metafunctions, and semantics. Functional Linguistics 1 (9). 1–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2001 Computer-mediated discourse. In Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, & Heidi E. Hamilton (eds.), The handbook of discourse analysis, 612–634. Maldenn: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2004 Slouching toward the ordinary: Current trends in computer-mediated communication. New Media and Society 6 (1). 26–36. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jacobson, David
2007 Interpreting instant messaging: Context and meaning in Computer-mediated Communication. Journal of Anthropological Research 63(3). 359–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Daniel
2013 Polyphonic/pseudo-synchronic: Animated writing in the comment feed of Nicovideo. Japanese Studies 33(3). 297–313. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Rodney H.
2004 The problem of context in computer-mediated communication. In Philip LeVine & Ron Scollon (eds.), Discourse and technology: Multimodal discourse analysis, 20–33. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
2015 Discourse, cybernetics and the entextualization of the self. In Rodney H. Jones, Alice Chik & Christopher A. Hafner (eds.), 28–47.Google Scholar
Jones, Rodney H., Alice Chik & Christopher A. Hafner
2015a Introduction: Discourse analysis and digital practices. In Rodney H. Jones, Alice Chik & Christopher A. Hafner (eds.), 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(eds.) 2015b Discourse and digital practices: Doing discourse analysis in the digital age. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jovanovic, Danica & Theo Van Leeuwen
2018 Multimodal dialogue on social media. Social Semiotics 28 (5). 683–699. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lemke, Jay
1995 Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics. London: Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Li, Jinying
2017 The Interface affect of a contact zone: Danmaku on video-streaming platforms. Asiascape: Digital Asia 4(3). 233–256. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ma, Xiaojuan & Nan Cao
2017 Video-based evanescent, anonymous, asynchronous social interaction: Motivation and adaption to medium. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, 770–782. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw
1923 Supplement 1: The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In Charles Kay Ogden & Ivor Armstrong Richards (eds.), The meaning of meaning, 296–336. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul.Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. & Peter R. R. White
2005 The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murray, Denise E.
1988 The context of oral and written language: A framework for mode and medium switching. Language in Society 171. 351–373. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 Protean communication: The language of Computer-Mediated Communication. TESOL Quarterly 34(3). 397–421. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poulsen, Søren Vigild & Gunhild Kvåle
2018 Studying social media as semiotic technology: a social semiotic multimodal framework. Social Semiotics 28(5). 700–717. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poulsen, Søren Vigild, Gunhild Kvåle, & Theo van Leeuwen
2018 Social media as semiotic technology. Social Semiotics 28 (5). 593–600. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scott, Claire Emily
2011 Exploring diachronic register change in reports of armistice 1902–2003. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 4(3). 241–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shen, Yang, Li Shuchen, Ye Xiaoxiao & He Fangping
2010 Content mining and network analysis of Microblog spam. Journal of Convergence Information Technology 5(1). 135–140. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shortis, T.
2007 Gr8 txtpectations: The creativity of text spelling. English, Drama. Media 81. 21–26.Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah
2013 The medium is the metamessage. In Deborah Tannen & Anna Marie Trester (eds.), Discourse 2.0: Language and new media, 99–117. Georgetown: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin
2006 From statistical panic to moral panic: The metadiscursive construction and popular exaggeration of new media language in the print media. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 11(3): 667–701. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 Determined creativity: Language play in new media. In Rodney Jones (ed.), Discourse and creativity, 169–190. London: Pearson.Google Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin, Laura Lengel & Alice Tomic
2004 Computer mediated communication: Social interaction and the internet. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Tuomela, Raimo & Kaarlo Miller
1988 We-Intentions. Philosophical studies: An international Journal for philosophy in the analytic tradition 5(3). 367–389. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Waseleski, Carol
2006 Gender and the use of exclamation points in computer-mediated communication: An analysis of exclamations posted to two electronic discussion lists. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 111. 1012–1024. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wu, Qunfang, Sang Yisi, Zhang Shan & Huang Yun
2018 Danmaku vs. forum comments: Understanding user participation and knowledge sharing in online videos. In Andrea Forte, Michael Prilla & Adriana Vivacqua (eds.), Proceedings of the 2018 ACM Conference on Supporting Groupwork, 209–218. New York: AMC. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yang, Y.
2020 The danmaku interface on Bilibili and the decontextualized translation practice: A semiotic technology perspective. Social Semiotics 30(2). 254–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yates, Simenon J.
1996 Oral and written linguistic aspects of computer conferencing: A corpus based study. In Susan C. Herring (ed.), 29–46. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele
2015 Searchable talk: the linguistic functions of hashtags. Social Semiotics 25(3). 274–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Leticia-Tian & Daniel Cassany
2020 Making sense of danmu: Coherence in massive anonymous chats on Bilibili.com. Discourse Studies 22(4). 483–502. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Yi
2020 Adopting Japanese in a popular video-sharing website: Hetereoglossic and multilingual communication by online users of Bilibili.com. International Multilingual Research Journal 14(1). 20–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhao, Sumin & Michele Zappavigna
2018 The interplay of (semiotic) technologies and genre: The case of the selfie. Social Semiotics 28(5). 665–682. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhao, Yuxiang, Peng Xixian, Tang Jian & Song Shijie
2017 Understanding young people’s We-intention to contribute in Danmaku websites: Motivational, social and subcultural influence. iConference 2017, 359–369.Google Scholar