Article published in:
Pragmatics
Vol. 30:3 (2020) ► pp. 431–457

Bonding across Chinese social media

The pragmatics of language play in “精 (sang) 彩 (xin) 有 (bing) 趣 (kuang)” construction

| Zhejiang International Studies University
| Fujian Normal University | Nanjing Xiaozhuang University
| University of Alicante
This paper explores social bonding in language play via the construction of ‘Chinese character (annotation)’ on two major social media platforms (Sina Weibo and WeChat) in China. The Chinese characters and their bracketed annotations under study, despite their one-to-one matching in sequence, never match each other either in meaning or in pronunciation. They convey a sense of playfulness among social media users who may be acquaintances or strangers to each other. While research on language play has uncovered systematic interpersonal meanings and social functions, our analysis of screen-based and user-based data shows that such linguistic behavior in a virtual community of practice contributes to social bonding among social media players. Within such structure and with different substitutes for both characters and annotations, social media users frame their expressions in evaluative or emotive ways to facilitate their presentation of an alternative self and of individual or community values.
Keywords: Chinese social media, social bonding, language play, pinyin , virtual community of practice, frames, identity, self, values
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 24 July 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.19010.xie

Full-text

Bonding across Chinese social media
References

References

Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2013 “Online Data Collection.” In Data Collection in Sociolinguistics: Methods and Applications, ed. by Christine Mallinson, Becky Childs, and Gerard Van Herk, 236–249. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2014 “Languaging When Contexts Collapse: Audience Design in Social Networking.” Discourse, Context & Media 45: 62–73. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2015 “Negotiating Authenticities in Mediatized Times.” Discourse, Context & Media 8: 74–77. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Anis, Jacques
2007 “Neography: Unconventional Spelling in French SMS Text Messages.” In The Multilingual Internet: Language, Culture, and Communication Online, ed. by Brenda Danet, and Susan C. Herring, 87–115. Oxford: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Arndt, Horst and Richard W. Janney
1985 “Improving Emotive Communication: Verbal, Prosodic and Kinesics Conflict Avoidance Techniques.” Per Linguam 1:21–30.Google Scholar
Arndt, Horst, and Richard W. Janney
1987 InterGrammar: Towards an Integrative Model of Verbal, Prosodic and Kinesic Choices in Speech. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1991 “Verbal, Prosodic, and Kinesic Emotive Contrasts in Speech.” Journal of Pragmatics 15: 521–549. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bell, Nancy
(ed.) 2017 Multiple Perspectives on Language Play. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Coulson, S.
2001 Semantic Leaps: Frame-Shifting and Conceptual Blending in Meaning Construction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan
2011 Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Marta
2017 “Participation as Audience Design.” In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 61–82. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Martal, and Fabio I. M. Poppi
2019 “Risum teneatis, amici?: The Socio-Pragmatics of RoastMe Humor.” Journal of Pragmatics 139: 1–21. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J.
1985 “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding.” Quaderni di Semantica 6(2): 222–254.Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra
2017 “ ‘Whose Context Collapse?’: Ethical Clashes in the Study of Language and Social Media in Context.” Applied Linguistics Review 8(2–3): 169–189. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Georgalou, Mariza
2017 Discourse and Identity on Facebook: How We Use Language and Multimodal Texts to Present Identity Online. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1959 The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
1974 Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Graham, Sage Lambert
2018 “Impoliteness and the Moral Order in Online Gaming.” Internet Pragmatics 1(2): 303–328. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gruber, Helmut
2019a “Are Austrian Presidential Candidates Ordinary People? Candidates’ Self-Presentation Strategies on Twitter during the 2016 Austrian Presidential Election Campaign.” In The Construction of ‘Ordinariness’ across Media Genres, ed. by Anita Fetzer, and Elda Weizman, 21–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2019b “Genres, Media, and recontexualization Practices: Re-considering Basic Concepts of Genre Theory in the Age of Social Media.” Internet Pragmatics 2(1): 55–83. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Haugh, Michael
2017 “Teasing.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Humor, ed. by Salvartore Attardo, 204–218. New York: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Herring, Susan C.
2004 “Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis: An Approach to Researching Online Behavior.” In Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning, ed. by Sasha A. Barab, Rob Kling, and James H. Gray, 338–376. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Herring, Susan C., and Astsa Zelenkauskaite
2009 “Symbolic Capital in a Virtual Heterosexual Market: Abbreviation and Insertion in Italian iTV SMS.” Written Communication 26(1): 5–31. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hogan, Bernie
2010 “The Presentation of Self in the Age of Social Media: Distinguishing Performances and Exhibitions Online.” Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society 30: 377–386. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Rodney H.
2015 “Discourse, Cybernetics, and the Entextualisation of the Self.” In Discourse and Digital Practices: Doing Discourse Analysis in the Digital Age, ed. by Rodney H. Jones, Alice Chik, and Christoph A. Hafner, 28–47. Abingdon: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Juliane House
2020 “Ritual Frames: A Contrastive Pragmatic Approach.” Pragmatics 30(1): 142–168. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara, and Sherzer, Joel
1976 “Introduction.” In Speech Play: Research and Resources for Studying Linguistic Creativity, ed. by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1–16. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Knospe, Sebastian, Alexander Onysko, and Maik Goth
(eds.) 2016 Crossing Languages to Play with Words: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson
1980 Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger
1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lee, Carmen
2007 “Linguistic Features of Email and ICQ Instant Messaging in Hong Kong.” In The Multilingual Internet. Language, Culture and Communication Online, ed. by Brenda Danet, and Susan C. Herring, 184–208. New York: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “Language Choice and Self-presentation in Social Media: The Case of University Students in Hong Kong.” In The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet, ed. by Philip Seargeant, and Caroline Tagg, 91–111. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Litt, Eden
2012 “Knock, Knock. Who’s There? The Imagined Audience.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 56(3): 330–345. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Madianou, Mirca, and Daniel Miller
2012 Migration and New Media: Transnational Families and Polymedia. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Maíz Arévalo, Carmen
2017 “Getting ‘Liked’.” In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian. R. Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 575–606. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Marwick, Alice E., and Danah boyd
2010 “I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Con text Collapse, and the Imagined Audience.” New Media & Society 13: 96–113.Google Scholar
Nishimura, Yukiko
2016 “Style, Creativity and Play.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language and Digital Communication, ed. by Alexandra Georgakopoulou, and Tereza Spilioti, 103–116. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Norrick, Neal R.
2004 “Humor, Tellability and Conarration in Conversation.” Text 24: 79–111. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
North, Sarah
2007 “ ‘The Voices, the Voices’: Creativity in Online Conversation.” Applied Linguistics 28(4): 538–555. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Page, Ruth
2018 Narrative Online: Shared Stories in Social Media. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Page, Ruth, David Barton, Johann W. Unger, and Michele Zappavigna
2014 Researching Language and Social Media. New York: Routledge. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pan, Yuling, and Dániel Z. Kádár
2011 Politeness in Historical and Contemporary Chinese. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Seargeant, Philip, and Caroline Tagg
(eds.) 2014 The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Su, His-Yao
2007 “The Mutilingual and Multiorthographic Taiwan-Based Internet: Creative Uses of Writing Systems on College-affiliated BBSs.” In The Multilingual Internet: Language, Culture and Communication Online, ed. by Brenda Danet, and Susan C. Herring, 64–86. New York: Oxford University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tagg, Caroline, and Philip Seargeant
2014 “Audience Design and Language Choice in the Construction and Maintenance of Translocal Communities on Social Network Sites.” In The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet, ed. by Philip Seargeant, and Caroline Tagg, 161–185. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah, and Cynthia Wallat
1993 “Interactive Frames and Knowledge Schemas in Interaction: Examples from a Medical Examination in Interview.” In Framing in Discourse, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 57–113. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina
2001 “Politeness in Cypriot Greek: A Frame-Based Approach.” PhD dissertation, University of Cambridge. Available online at: www​.ideals​.illinois​.edu​/handle​/2142​/9573 (accessed 3 March 2016).
Thaler, Verena
2016 “Varieties of Wordplay.” In Crossing Languages to Play with Words: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Sebastian Knospe, Alexander Onysko, and Maik Goth. 47–68. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Thurlow, Crispin
2012 “Determined Creativity: Language Play in New Media.” In Discourse and Creativity, ed. by Rodney Jones, 169–190. Harkow: Pearson.Google Scholar
Toma, Catalina L., and Cassandra L. Carlson
2015 “How Do Facebook Users Believe They Come across in Their Profiles?: A Meta-Perception Approach to Investigating Facebook Self-Presentation.” Communication Research Reports 32(1): 93–101. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Utz, Sonja
2015 “The Function of Self-Disclosure on Social Network Sites; Not Only Intimate, but also Positive and Entertaining Self-Disclosure Increase the Feelings of Connection.” Computers in Human Behavior 45: 1–10. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wenger, Etienne
1998 Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wesch, Mike
2008 “Context Collapse.” http://​mediatedcultures​.net​/projects​/youtube​/context​-collapse (accessed 20 June 2016).
Yus, Francisco
2011 Cyberpragmatics: Internet-Mediated Communication in Context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele
2011 “Ambient Affiliation: A Linguistic Perspective on Twitter.” New Media Society 13(5): 788–806. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2014 “CoffeeTweets: Bonding around the Been on Twitter.” In The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet, ed. by. Philip Seargeant, and Caroline Tagg, 139–160. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2018 Searchable Talk: Hashtags and Social Media Metadiscourse. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Ziem, Alexander
2014 Frames of Understanding in Text and Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Xie, Chaoqun
2020. Internet memes we live by (and die by). Internet Pragmatics 3:2 ► pp. 145 ff. Crossref logo
Xie, Chaoqun & Ying Tong
2021.  In Approaches to Internet Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 318], ► pp. 207 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 april 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.