3.1Categorization of new swearwords

A quick glimpse of the new swearwords suggested that most items, to varying extents, are related to sex, which is a common theme in swearwords in world languages (Fernández 2008Fernández, Eliecer C. 2008 “Sex-Related Euphemism and Dysphemism: An Analysis in Terms of Conceptual Metaphor Theory.” Atlantis 95–110.). Focusing on the actions/verb event involved in the words, we propose that our pool of new swearwords fall into three categories: recipient of sexual behaviour, type of sexual behaviour, and sexual organ. We attempted hypothetical deduction on the formation of these expressions based on their meaning and structure, due to a lack of relevant etymological studies (see Schuessler 2007Schuessler, Axel 2007 ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.). Despite this, the proposed composition methods suggest that the formation of the variants is anything but random, and that some patterns and methods are likely to be general across other swearwords.

From Tables 1 (a)–(c), it can be seen that our targeted items derive from sex-related roots, but have evolved into variants with varying degrees of connection with the original swearwords through processes like homophonic substitution, clipping or coinage. For example, 他妈的 (tāmāde/his mom’s) and 你妈的 (nǐmāde/your mom’s) are among the more traditional forms, from which new forms (as shown in the sub-categories) are derived. Some variants still carry strong emotional forces, such as 我操 (wǒcāo/I fuck) and 你妈的 (nǐmāde/your mom’s), while some are coined for stylistic references. The latter set constitutes new linguistic phenomena – reinterpretation of traditional swearwords. It is noted that many variants in our collection seem to alleviate the insulting force encoded in its original, like 比 (bǐ/compare) as a substitution of 屄 (bī/pussy) in 逗比 (dòubǐ/a riot). In some cases, the new swearword is plausibly the product of several processes. 煞笔 (shābǐ/a sucker) is a near homophone of 傻逼 (shǎbī/a sucker), changing tones of the characters. Thus, the former form is actually a compound coinage of 傻 (shǎ/stupid) and 逼 (bī/pussy), which reads much weaker in the insulting force than its base 傻逼 .

3.2Code-mixing in the new swearwords

Another observation among the collection is the diverse forms and disguises these new swearwords take on. Some new variants adopt code-mixing to include unusual forms such as Roman letters, numerals, English words and even radicals of Chinese characters. The concept of ‘code’ is used here in its broad sense, which includes different writing systems of a single language, like Pinyin and radicals44.Pinyin is the official Romanization system of Standard Chinese in mainland China. A radical is a graphical component of a Chinese character, which is often a semantic/phonetic indicator. For example, 妈 ‘mom’ has a semantic radical on the left meaning ‘female’ and a phonetic radical on the right suggesting its pronunciation should be in the same rhyme as that of the character 马 ‘horse’. in Chinese. Previous research has also noted the emergence of such ‘hybridized orthography’ in Chinese online space (Lee 2002Lee, Carmen K. M. 2002 “Literacy Practices in Computer-Mediated Communication in Hong Kong.” The Reading Matrix 2 (2): 1–25.; 10, Lotherington and Xu 2004Lotherington, Heather and Xu, Yejun 2004 “How to Chat in English and Chinese: Emerging Digital Language Conventions.” ReCALL 16(2): 308–329. , 309). Creation of these swearwords employs approaches from two aspects: orthography and pronunciations. For instance, 我艹 (wǒcào/I ‘head of cǎo’) is coined from 我草 (wǒcǎo/I grass), where 艹 is the semantic radical of 草 and can be typed out by certain Chinese input methods.55.‘ 艹 ’ can be typed out through a few input methods, usually by inputting ‘cao’ via Sogou Pinyin Method or via Pinyin Simplified method provided by an iOS or on Mac device. 我草 (wǒcǎo/I grass) is developed from 我操 (wǒcāo/I fuck). 操 (cāo) and 草 (cǎo/grass) are near homophones that derive from the swearword 肏 (cào/fuck) by changing the original tone into legitimate combination of tone and syllable in contemporary standard Chinese. 草 (cǎo/grass) is then replaced with its subcomponent, which is a further hedge of the original insulting connotation. These processes can be denoted as this: 我操 (wǒcāo/I fuck) → 我草 (wǒcǎo/I grass) → 我艹 (wǒcào/I ‘head of cǎo’). Another type of code-mixing involves Roman alphabets, i.e. the Pinyin form. For instance, ‘TMD’ is the acronym of the Pinyin form of the swearword tāmāde ( 他妈的 /his mom’s). Sometimes ‘TMD’ is further clipped by dropping the ‘D’, as a correspondence to the shortened swearword tāmā ( 他妈 /his mom). In most new swearwords, only one type of the disguise methods mentioned above is employed to substitute the original insulting key character(s).

There are also a group of the new swearwords that contain English words, like low 逼 (lōubī/low class). ‘Low’ is used literally to comment that the level or standard of a person (usually in terms of taste or abilities overall) is poor. Interestingly, the English word ‘low’ is used to form a derogatory word, but the use of English in Chinese presumes some knowledge in the foreign language, which is still an indication of prestige and education in China today (Gao 2009Gao, Yihong 2009 “Sociocultural Contexts and English in China: Retaining and Reforming the Cultural Habitus.” In China and English: Globalisation and the Dilemmas of Identity, ed. by Joseph L. Bianco, Jane Orton and Yihong Gao, 56–78. Bristol: Multilingual Matters., 72). In contrast, understanding swearwords involving Pinyin scripts or numerals only requires a basic level of literacy from the writer/reader. As most contemporary young netizens have had secondary education and are equipped with basic English (Hu 2002Hu, Guangwei 2002 “Recent Important Developments in Secondary English-Language Teaching in the People’s Republic of China.” Language Culture and Curriculum 15(1): 30–49. ), it is not surprising that code-mixing involving English is adopted in creating new swearwords, as it may be considered a symbol of coolness and of social prestige.

3.3The new grammatical features of the swearwords

Traditional research proposes that swearwords are usually used as interjections in discourse (Ameka 1992Ameka, Felix 1992 “Interjections: The Universal Yet Neglected Part of Speech.” Journal of Pragmatics 18(2–3): 101–118. ). They usually carry an abusive or aggressive punch. Therefore, omission of a swearword does not affect the grammaticality of its host sentences. Our data suggest, however, that certain new variants of Chinese swearwords that are pervasive today have obtained more concrete grammatical features such as discourse-pragmatic functions as they underwent derivation and other changes while their semantic meanings have been bleached. For example, 你妹 (nǐmèi/your younger sister) could serve as a discourse marker that falsifies or rejects a presupposition in a previous statement by the speaker (or another interlocutor), or an assumption that could be inferred from the context. In (1) below, the author starts with a rhetorical question “You think it’s still early?”, defying the assumption made by “you” that the time is still early; in other words, the author is presupposing the time is not early for many people. The author then follows up with a rejection 早你妹 (“Early your.younger.sister!”), further affirming his or her own stance that it is already too late. 你妹 nǐmèi here apparently has nothing to do with its original semantic meaning or abusive referent, but rather a marker that signals strong denial of the statement that could be inferred from the context. In (2), “the agent would come out…and curse at every moment” sets up a scenario where the agent always refutes rumours for the celebrity. The author follows up with a grunt 辟你妹啊 “Refute your.younger.sister ah”, expressing his/her displeasure towards and rejection of such phenomenon in the previous account.

Another swearword that has acquired new features is 逼 (bī/pussy), which shows up in the variants we gathered (Table 1–c). 逼 is likely to be derived from its taboo origin 屄 (bī/pussy), which is homophonic and refers to female’s private part. This original referent is still somewhat retained in certain variants like 撕逼 (sībī/rip pussy). The new referent in the variants could range from a cat fight (Example (3)) to a falling-out in general (Example (4)).

In most new variants, however, the original abusive referent in 逼 is weakened and even bleached, in which it is granted new referential meanings. This could be seen in the following variants (Table 1–c): 装逼 (zhuāngbī/to act ostentatiously), 二逼 (èrbī/a stupid person), 逼格 (bīgé/swag), and variants that contain its near homophones 比 (bǐ/compare) or 笔 (bǐ/pen) such as 煞笔 (shābǐ/a stupid person), 逗比 (dòubǐ/a riot). As in Example (5), 装逼 means acting in a pretentious and ostentatious manner and has a teasing and slightly sarcastic undertone. The meaning of the original swearword 逼 has been extended in this new variant. 装逼 is derogatory and somewhat vulgar, but not a swearword any more. So the original abusiveness in 逼 has faded and its insulting force considerably softened. In other new swearwords, 逼 is further extended to neutral or positive references. For example, 逼格 (bīgé/swag) is a simplified form of 装逼的格调 (zhuāngbī de gédiào/the level of someone’s swag). It appears with a mild commendatory sense in Example (6).

Some variant of 逼 (bī/pussy), such as 比 (bǐ/compare) used in Example (7), even shows a significant change in lexical meaning from the abusive origin. 比 started as a homophonic substitute of 逼 in swearwords, and carried abusive referent. In Example (7), 比 has shaken off the original meaning but acquired new referent, a common person or nobody. Compounding with the adjective 逗 meaning ‘funny’, 逗比 (dòubǐ/funny pussy) refers a hilarious person, or a riot, especially one from the grass root. In this specific context, “being a 逗比 ” is also a kind of lifestyle or personality which the author finds “charming”. Here 逼/比 is completely bleached in terms of swearing functions: turning from its original abusive referent to a neutral and even positive one, by taking on a new lexical meaning.

In similar fashion, 逼 has been used to form more compound nouns with derogatory references. For example, 丧逼 (sàngbī/depressing pussy), as shown in Example (8). 丧 means death or deprivation, infelicity or frustration. It is noted that a culture of 丧 began to emerge on new media in China (Lin 2017Lin, Zhanting 2017, August 6. “China’s Special Report: Online and Offline, Spirit of ‘Sang’ Overflows.” Retrieved April 11, 2018, from http://​www​.zaobao​.com​/znews​/greater​-china​/story20170806​-784899), where the character 丧 has come to refer to a negative and let-things-drift attitude towards life. Following this trend, 丧逼 is formed to refer to ordinary people who are often depressed or decadent to the extent that they seem to have lost the purpose in life.

Examples (7) and (8) are evidences that 逼 has been confirmed with new lexical meaning extended and distinct from the original one. It can refer to a specific kind of person, especially one who is average and of certain grass-root characteristics (no matter pleasant or upsetting). But, it should be noted that the new meaning does not stand alone by itself, but is best manifested in compound nouns.

The above Examples (3–8) and analyses demonstrate that some new swearwords such as 你妹 (nǐmèi/your younger sister) and 逼 (bī/pussy) have undergone semantic change to acquire new grammatical features. Their original concrete and abusive referential meanings appear to be lost or bleached in the process. In contemporary Chinese netizen’s vocabulary, these words are granted additional concrete and extended meanings to form new variants to be used in more contexts and lexical items (Brinton and Traugott 2005Brinton, Laurel J. and Traugott, Elizabeth C. 2005 Lexicalization and Language Change. Cambridge University Press. , 108). We could see that, for example, 你妹 serves as a marker that provides denial of a presupposition when it is used post-focally. This adds functional flexibility to this new swearwords, though the new grammatical feature retains a clear connection to its original function as swear. The other swearword 逼 (bī) represents more significant changes in lexical meanings: two new generic meanings are developed including class/style and a common person. Each new meaning is neutral and can participate in creating new compounds, which adds to the productivity of the word 逼 . It is expected that many more different kinds of ‘– 逼’ might be created by netizens in the future.

These changes of swearwords are made possible through the reinterpretation and innovative uses by young netizens, as well as on the Internet platform that enables and increases the appearance of new variants and token frequencies. During the process of change, the original insulting force of the traditional swearwords like 逼/屄 (bī/pussy) has been greatly alleviated in wide acceptance and adaptation on new social media, which has in turn further boosted frequency of occurrence and enlarge range of use.

3.5The new social functions of the swearwords

Aside from traditional pragmatic functions, the sex-related swearwords and their variants could also contribute to identity construction and solidarity enhancement on social media networks. Douban Moments, the major source of our data, was oriented towards urban youngsters who have received a certain degree of education and are fond of sharing and discussions about books, films, music and the like. The app selected and pushed popular or featured articles daily, and these could be taken as representations of the unique kind of discourse and culture of this social community. Our data revealed that from 2015 to the end of 2016, nearly one out of four popular authors or one out of six featured articles had used sex-related swearwords. In light of this, we could say this style of discourse was widely recognised, and at the same time conventionalised, by the mainstream users of Douban Moments, who mainly were young Chinese people. Swales (1990)Swales, John 1990 Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. defined that members of a discourse community share goals in common or are governed by certain beliefs and conventions, which are manifested by certain ways of talking and getting things done. Following this direction, these young netizens should be regarded as forming a particular discourse community. Use of swearwords, as proposed by Stapleton (2003Stapleton, Karyn 2003 “Gender and Swearing: A Community Practice.” Women and Language 26 (2): 22–33., 2010Stapleton, Karyn 2010 “Swearing.” In Interpersonal Pragmatics, ed. by Miriam A. Locher and Sage L. Graham, 289–305. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.), could be understood then as a community practice in terms of enhancing identity construction within a group by marking in-/out-group boundaries and affirming members’ identities, which are hard to realise through other means. When using swearwords, both the speaker (or writer) and the audience display their group membership. The swearwords and their hit rates involved in our study to some extent reflect users’ sense of identity, which in turn facilitates their identity construction in this online community by using sex-related swearwords in their posts or comments, or by being frequent audience members who consumed this style of talk.

Simultaneously, swearword uses could create or enhance the solidarity among different members and reduce their social distance (Dynel 2012Dynel, Marta 2012 “Swearing Methodologically: the (Im)politeness of Expletives in Anonymous Commentaries on YouTube.” Journal of English Studies 10: 25–50. , 38). The use of sex-related swearwords on social networks like Douban could be in some ways seen as a subculture that prevails in this specific kind of community, whose members recognise and support the words’ use. Albeit rude and impolite behaviour in traditional views, swearword usage could be taken as an in-group polite act in certain contexts on social media. By using them in vernacular conversations online, strangers on a virtual platform would have the potential to narrow their social distance and thus to increase solidarity.

Such ‘reciprocal’ effect could to varying extents be seen in other swearwords and their variants in our study. For instance, 尼玛 nímǎ is a near homophone but non-lexical variant of 你妈 (nǐmā/your mom’s), which was clipped from 肏你妈的屄 (cào nǐmāde bī/fuck your mom’s pussy). However, as reflected in Example (9), it is used in the sense of a marker where the original abusive referent is bleached.

Example (10) is part of a popular post regarding purchasing cosmetic products from online stores. The author described shopping cosmetics products on overseas websites is very appealing but with consequences. Online overseas shopping is then like “a freaking deep pit”: a person can never get out of it once s/he starts. The author goes on to provide a list of cosmetic products she finds to be of great value for money. It is not surprising that the author inserts the swearword 尼玛 nímǎ as well as other words with negative connotation like “freaking”, “pit” and “scary” when sharing her experiences. Such slangy language suggests that the author is not trying to pose as a lofty expert, but a next-door neighbour who is eager to share. As an ordinary person like most her audience, she gets excited when talking about her passion, and empathizes with her readers’ dilemma. In such a way, the author constructs her identity as a lover of and an old hand in overseas online shopping in this group. The post’s popularity can be seen in the replies that followed, as listed below.

A look at the comments under this post could contribute to a better understanding of the solidarity that the author gets to enhance through her language use. While the author has made a few heartfelt recommendations of what products to get on overseas websites, in most of the replies, readers are sharing their frustration from not knowing how to make online overseas purchases, or are inviting the author to give them advice on how to do this. Some people agree with the author’s opinions in the post (Reply 6), or affirm the value of this post (Reply 5). All of the comments are friendly in tone, and none of the commenters seem to be offended by the swearword usage. This is particularly manifested by the use of emoticons and emojis in the comments (Replies 1, 3, 4). Instead of netizens questioning the author’s authority or attacking the author for being a show-off with foul language, this post reveals how the author constructs her identity and establishes solidarity with other netizens through moderate swearword usage in an online post. Simultaneously, the participants in the comment section also construct their identity and show rapport to the author by recognising such language use. Since this post was so popular, it was tweeted by the Douban Moments app to a wide audience based on its algorithm. Among the thousands of readers this article reached, none of them seemed to have had such a serious problem with this author’s language use to the extent of leaving a bitter comment under the post.

In the instance above, the author displays her empathy and constructs her identity online with the enhancement by swearwords. Such use serves two goals: expressing strong personal emotions and opinions, and delivering one’s desire to seek resonance among other netizens. In such a context, the swearwords are not used abusively or to attack someone, but to show the authors’ belonging to the same speech community as readers. This approach is actually a tool for building connection and communication, with the aim of gaining support and establishing solidarity among readers.