Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society: Online-First Articles“Why does he appear so ordinary, but he can be so confident”
A critical discourse analysis of controversial feminism in Chinese stand-up comedian Yang Li’s Talk Show Speeches
Adopting proximization theory as its analytical framework, this article examines the feminist discourse of
controversial Chinese talk show performer Yang Li. Yang’s talk show is known for her incisive and sarcastically humorous remarks
on men, and her speeches have aroused widespread controversies. Our analysis finds that by positioning herself and other women as
the inside deictic-centers (IDCs) within her constructed discourse space, Yang tactically presents the spatial, temporal and
axiological proximization from the outside deictic-centers (ODCs) mainly composed of men. Yang’s version of the controversial
feminism has revealed gender inequality and conventional patriarchy in contemporary society; but the reliance on male- and
class-based gender stereotypes and the imagery projected from past incidents to create gendered or even men-hating discourses has
begot controversies and backlashes. This study also discusses how Yang’s controversial feminist discursive patterns are influenced
by the platformization of daily life, and the commodification and entertainmentization of gender issues against the backdrop of
contemporary Chinese society where neoliberalism, market, capital and convention coexist.
Keywords: yang, controversial feminism, proximization, STA model, IDCs/ODCs, talk show
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Data and analytical framework
- 2.1The data
- 2.2Analytical framework
- 3.Data analysis
- 3.1Analysis of spatial proximization
- 3.2Analysis of temporal proximization
- 3.3Analysis of axiological proximization
- 4.Further discussion of findings
- 5.Conclusion
- Note
-
References
Published online: 10 October 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.23059.wan
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.23059.wan
References (45)
Cap, Piotr. 2008. “Towards the proximization model of the analysis of legitimization in political discourse.” Journal of Pragmatic 40 (1): 17–41.
. 2013. Proximization: The Pragmatics of Symbolic Distance Crossing. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
. 2015. “Crossing symbolic distances in political discourse space: Evaluative rhetoric within the framework of proximization.” Critical Discourse Studies 12 (3): 313–329.
. 2021. “On the development of the social-linguistic nexus in discourse research: A critical review.” Pragmatics and Society 12 (2): 309–333.
. 2022. “Virtual dialogues in monologic political discourse: Constructing privileged and oppositional future in political speeches.” Pragmatics and Society 13 (5): 747–768.
Chen, Dan and Gengsong Gao. 2023. “The transgressive rhetoric of standup comedy in China.” Critical Discourse Studies 20 (1): 1–17.
Chen, Eva. 2016. “Power femininity” and popular women’s magazines in China.” International Journal of communication 101: 2831–2835.
Dai, Jinhua. 2002. “Redemption and Consumption: Depicting Culture in the 1990s.” In Cinema and Desire: Feminist Marxism and Cultural Politics in the Work of Dai Jinhua, ed, by Tani E. Barlow and Jing Wang, 172–188. London: Verso.
Frith, Katherine and Yang Feng. 2009. “Transnational cultural flows: An analysis of women’s magazines in China.” Chinese Journal of Communication 2(2): 158–173.
Gu, Liping. 2020. “Man-mocking comedian accused of being ‘sexist’, but who is the joke on?” Ecns.cn. Accessed January 30 2023. [URL]
Guo, Jingyi, Zhang Ziwei, Song Jinhong, Jin Lu, Yu Duan and Sara Liao. 2022. “Femvertising and Postfeminist Discourse: Advertising to Break Menstrual Taboos in China.” Women’s Studies in Communication 45 (3): 378–398.
Harvey, David. 1990. “Between space and time: reflections on the geographical imagination1.” Annals of the association of American geographers 80 (3): 418–434.
Ho, Wing Shan. 2022. “Chinese Supermom: Re-domesticating women in reality TV shows.” Feminist media studies 22 (7): 1801–1816.
Jammer, Max. 1994. Concepts of space: The history of theories of space in physics. Canada: General Publishing Company
Lazar, Michelle M. 2009. “Entitled to consume: Postfeminist femininity and a culture of post-critique.” Discourse & communication 3 (4): 371–400.
2005. “Politicizing gender in discourse: Feminist critical discourse analysis as political perspective and praxis.” In Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Michelle M. Lazar, 1–28. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lazar, Michelle M. and Lixin Wan. 2022. “Remediatisation, media interdiscursivity and ideological ambivalence in online news reports on sexual assault.” Discourse, Context & Media 481: 100620.
Lin, Chun, Liu Bohong and Jin Yihong. 1998. “China.” In A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, ed. by Alison M. Jaggar and Iris Marion Young, 108–117. Oxford: Blackwell.
Liu, Fengshu. 2014. “From degendering to (re) gendering the self: Chinese youth negotiating modern womanhood.” Gender and Education 26 (1): 18–34.
Looft, Ruxandra. 2017. “# girlgaze: Photography, fourth wave feminism, and social media advocacy.” Continuum 31 (6): 892–902.
Meng, Bingchun and Yanning Huang. 2017. “Patriarchal capitalism with Chinese characteristics: gendered discourse of ‘Double Eleven’ shopping festival.” Cultural Studies 31 (5): 659–684.
Nartey, Mark. 2021. “A feminist critical discourse analysis of Ghanaian feminist blogs”. Feminist Media Studies 21 (4): 657–672.
Peng, Altman Yuzhu. 2021. “Neoliberal feminism, gender relations, and a feminized male ideal in China: A critical discourse analysis of Mimeng’s WeChat posts.” Feminist Media Studies 21 (1): 115–131.
. 2022. “Digital nationalism versus gender politics in post-reform China: Gender-issue debates on Zhihu.” Global Media and Communication 18 (3): 281–299.
Qiao, Fei and Ye Wang. 2022. “The myths of beauty, age, and marriage: femvertising by masstige cosmetic brands in the Chinese market.” Social Semiotics 32 (1): 35–57.
Spearman, Charles. 1904. “General intelligence objectively determined and measured.” American Journal of Psychology 151: 201–293.
Tajfel, Henri. 1979. “Individuals and groups in social psychology.” British Journal of social and clinical psychology 18 (2): 183–190.
Thurstone, Louis L. 1928. “Attitudes can be measured.” American journal of Sociology 33 (4): 529–554.
Torgerson, Warren S. 1952. “Multidimensional scaling: I. Theory and method.” Psychometrika 17 (4): 401–419.
Wang, Bin and Catherine Driscoll. 2019. “Chinese feminists on social media: Articulating different voices, building strategic alliances.” Continuum 33 (1): 1–15.
Wesoky, Sharon R. 2012. “Harmony and Critique: Chinese Modernity, Harmonious Society, and Contemporary Chinese Feminist Perspectives.” In China’s Rise to Power: Conceptions of State Governance, ed. by Tse-Hei Joseph Lee, Nedilsky, Lida V. and Cheung Siu-Keung, 49–69. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Wodak, Ruth. 2001. “The discourse-historical approach”. In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer, 63–94. Sage.
Woelfel, Joseph and Edward L. Fink. 1980. “The measurement of communication processes: Galileo theory and method.”
Wu, Angela Xiao and Yige Dong. 2019. “What is made-in-China feminism (s)? Gender discontent and class friction in post-socialist China.” Critical Asian Studies 51 (4): 471–492.
Yang, Fan. 2020. “Post-feminism and chick flicks in China: Subjects, discursive origin and new gender norms.” Feminist Media Studies 1–16.