Article published In: Words in the World
Edited by Laura Teddiman, Lori Buchanan and Hamad Al-Azary
[The Mental Lexicon 19:1] 2024
► pp. 180–188
Xiaosi ‘die laughing’ as a discourse marker
A Corpus-based study during the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan
Published online: 10 January 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.24020.chu
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.24020.chu
Abstract
This study investigates the usage of 笑死
(xiaosi hereafter, ‘laugh-die; die laughing’) in Facebook posts retrieved during Taiwan’s level-3 COVID-19
alert period (5/15/2021–7/26/2021). The analysis of xiaosi revealed that it serves two major functions: (a) as
its literal meaning, ‘to laugh to death’ (die laughing), and (b) as a discourse marker. The use of this discourse-marker function
demonstrates that it has acquired a new pragmatic function in social media contexts beyond its literal meaning. Specifically,
xiaosi can express a speaker’s stance or provide an evaluative comment on the situation, thus introducing a
new conversational function distinct from its original meaning.
Keywords: die laughing, xiaosi laugh-die, social media, discourse marker, corpus
Article outline
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Step 1: Search for the keyword xiaosi in CrowdTangle
- Step 2: The retrieved data were subsequently downloaded in Microsoft Excel for further analysis
- Results
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Note
References
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