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Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 33:4 (2023) ► pp.641–662

If I testify about others, my testimony is valid

A study of other-justified discourses in Chinese online medical crowdfunding

ORCID logo | Nanjing University
ORCID logo | Harbin Engineering University
While trustworthiness has been found to exert a vital influence on the success of an online medical crowdfunding (Ba et al. 2021), scarce studies have investigated the concepts and culture of trust in Eastern scenarios like China (Wang 2020). This is the first study aiming to discursively analyze how other-justified discourses, i.e., enhancing objectivity and trustworthiness through other people’s comments, contribute to obtaining potential donors’ trust in Chinese online medical crowdfunding encounters. Through the discourse analysis of 496 other-justified comments on fifty pieces of fully-funded online medical crowdfunding projects, it is found that four different types of people (a family member, a person in the same business or occupation, a classmate, a friend) offer evidence through other-justified discourses oriented towards ethos, experience, and emotion. The Wu-Lun (five ethic orders) in the acquaintance society is the underlying theoretical rationale that supports the credibility of other-justified discourse, which provides a novel research perspective for the dissemination and transitivity of trust in online medical crowdfunding. The findings serve to offer commenters an array of other-justified orientations and identity choices to engage more prospective backers in a medical donative event. The results highlight that crowdfunders not only need to display a compelling narrative strength but also raise awareness to enhance the trustworthiness of their projects, especially focusing on shreds of evidence provided by a third-person comment.
Keywords: trustworthiness discourse, online medical crowdfunding discourse, other-justified discourse, Chinese
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Research background
    • 2.1The scenarios of online medical crowdfunding
    • 2.2Evidentiality, trust, and other-justified discourses
  • 3.Research method
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Data analysis
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1The orientations of other-justified discourses
      • 4.1.1Experience-oriented discourse justified by others
      • 4.1.2Emotion-oriented discourse justified by others
      • 4.1.3Ethos-oriented discourse justified by others
    • 4.2The claimed identities underlying the other-justified discourses
      • 4.2.1A family member
      • 4.2.2A person in the same business or occupation
      • 4.2.3A classmate
      • 4.2.4A friend
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 February 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.21067.zha
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