Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 34:4 (2024) ► pp.565–587
An investigation of the formation and pragmatic strategies of “xx-zi”
The case of Chinese internet buzzword juejuezi
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 25 July 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.22041.mu
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.22041.mu
Abstract
With the stride of technology, new media and online communication bring innovative language phenomena to the fore, in particular, the spread of internet buzzwords. In 2021, the internet buzzword juejuezi gathered momentum on the internet. Enlightened by this online catchword, this paper investigates the popularity behind “xx-zi” and its three types of word-formation, then takes juejuezi derived from “adj.+zi” as the example, conducting a qualitative encoding and analysis of the posts sourced from Weibo based on NVivo 20. Additionally, the study examines the specific pragmatic strategies, such as, praise, compliant and irony, embedded in the posts for further explicating how individuals employ juejuezi to express a chain of connotations in online communication. Notably, the internet buzzword provides channels to mirror the discourse ecology of the internet era, the public’s attitudes and behaviors regarding to shifts of politics, economy and culture change, thus providing a supplement for further research on internet buzzwords.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 3.The word-formation of Chinese internet buzzword “xx-zi”
- 3.1“N.+zi” words in forming “xx-zi”
- 3.2“V.+zi” words in forming “xx-zi”
- 3.3“Adj.+zi” words in forming “xx-zi”
- 4.Data and methodology
- 4.1Data collocation
- 4.2Data analysis
- 5.Pragmatic strategies of Chinese internet buzzword juejuezi
- 5.1Praise
- 5.1.1Praise + Description
- 5.1.2Description + Comparison + Praise
- 5.1.3Description + Self-praise
- 5.2Complaint
- 5.2.1Description + Complaint
- 5.2.2Description + Complaint+ Jocular Mockery
- 5.2.3Description + Comparison + Complaint
- 5.3Irony
- 5.3.1Description + Irony
- 5.3.2Description + Comparison + Irony
- 5.3.3Irony + Description + Comparison + Self-deprecation
- 5.1Praise
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
References
References (36)
Barešová, Ivona, and Halina Zawiszová. 2014. “Creativity and Innovation in Word Formation by Japanese Young People.” Proceedings of the Olomouc Linguistics Colloquium 2013, 157–170. Olomouc: Palacký University.
Bridges, Judith. 2017. “Gendering Metapragmatics in Online Discourse: ‘Mansplaining Man Gonna Mansplain…’.” Discourse, Context & Media 201: 94–102.
Bryant, Antony, and Kathy Charmaz (eds). 2019. The Sage Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Fowler, Roger, Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress, and Tony Trew. 1979. Language and Control. London: Routledge.
Haugh, Michael. 2010. “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8): 2106–2119.
Holmes, Janet. 1986. “Compliments and Compliment Responses in New Zealand English.” Anthropological Linguistics 28 (4): 485–508. [URL]
Huang, Yanning. 2021. “Who are the ‘Grassroots’? On the Ambivalent Class Orientation of Online Wordplay in China.” Popular Communication 19 (4): 266–280.
Kim, Mary Shin. 2015. “The Complexity and Variability of Self-deprecation in Korean Conversation.” Pragmatics and Society 6 (3): 398–420.
Li, Qin. 2017. “Characteristics and Social Impact of the Use of Social Media by Chinese Dama.” Telematics and Informatics 34 (3): 797–810.
Li, Yuming. 1999. “Word-mold.” In The Features of Chinese Grammar, ed. by Fuyi Xing, 146–157. Beijing: Beijing Language and Culture University Press.
Lin, Gang 林纲. 2021. “Wangluo shiyu xia ‘xx-ren’ ciyumo de shengcheng yu gongneng shanbian 网络视域下‘XX人’词语模的生成与功能嬗变 [‘XX group’ word model and the development of online appellation function].” Chuanmei Guancha 传媒观察 [Media Observer] (02): 62–67.
Lv, Xiaoling 吕晓玲. 2013. “Luzhong laiwu fangyang ‘xx-zi’shi zi weici 鲁中莱芜方言 ‘XX子’式子尾词 [Words with the form of ‘xx-zi’ in Laiwu dialect of middle Shandong].” Yuyanxue Luncong 语言学论丛 [Essays on Linguistics] 21: 227–237, 374–375.
Markham, Annette, and Elizabeth Buchanan. 2012. “Ethical Decision-making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0).” [URL]
Olshtain, Elite, and Liora Weinbach. 1987. “Complaints: A Study of Speech Act Behavior among Native and Non-native Speakers of Hebrew.” In The Pragmatic Perspective: Selected Papers from the 1985 International Pragmatics Conference, ed. by Jef Verschueren, and Marcella Bertuccelli-Papi, 195–208. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Papapicco, Concetta, and Giuseppe Mininni. 2019. “Twitter Culture: Irony Comes Faster Than Tourist Mobility.” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 18 (5): 545–556.
Peng, Xinjia. 2018. “The Emergence of a Discourse Construction in the Internet Technological Affordance and Socio-cultural Factors in Language Innovation.” Chinese Language and Discourse 9 (2): 209–243.
Ren, Wei, and Yaping Guo. 2020. “Self-praise on Chinese Social Networking Sites.” Journal of Pragmatics 1691: 179–189.
. 2021. “What is ‘Versailles Literature’?: Humblebrags on Chinese Social Networking Sites.” Journal of Pragmatics 1841: 185–195.
Sun, Ya, Gongyuan Wang, and Haiying Feng. 2021. “Linguistic Studies on Social Media: A Bibliometric Analysis.” SAGE Open 11 (3): 1–12.
Szablewicz, Marcella. 2014. “The ‘Losers’ of China’s Internet: Memes as ‘Structures of Feeling’ for Disillusioned Young Netizens.” China Information 28 (2): 259–275.
Tang, Houguang, and Litao Yang (eds). 2018. On the Post-modern Variation of Language from the Perspective of New Media. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.
Vladimirou, Dimitra, Juliane House, and Dániel Z. Kádár. 2021. “Aggressive Complaining on Social Media: The Case of #MuckyMerton.” Journal of Pragmatics 1771: 51–64.
Walkinshaw, Ian, Nathaniel Mitchell, and Sophiaan Subhan. 2019. “Self-denigration as a Relational Strategy in Lingua Franca Talk: Asian English Speakers.” Journal of Pragmatics 1391: 40–51.
Wang, Lei. 2014. “The Three Buzzwords:山寨(Shanzhai),雷(Lei), and囧(Jiong).” In The Language Situation in China: Volume 2, ed. by Li Yuming, and Li Wei, 249–255. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton and Beijing: The Commercial Press.
Xia, Jie, and Ping Wang. 2022. “Am I Trolling?: A CA-informed Approach to Gangjing in a Chinese Online Forum.” Discourse, Context & Media 47 (1): 1–19.
Xie, Chaoqun, Ying Tong, and Francisco Yus. 2020. “Bonding across Chinese Social Media: The Pragmatics of Language Play in ‘精(sang) 彩(xin) 有(bing) 趣(kuang)’ Construction.” Pragmatics 30 (3): 431–457.
Yang, Na, and Zihe Wang. 2022. “Addressing as a Gender-preferential Way for Suggestive Selling in Chinese E-commerce Live Streaming Discourse: A Corpus-based Approach.” Journal of Pragmatics 1971: 43–54.
Yang, Xiren, and Meichun Liu. 2021. “The Pragmatics of Text-emoji Co-occurrences on Chinese Social Media.” Pragmatics 31 (1): 144–172.
Yuan, Zhoumin. 2013. “Understanding Identity Discourse: A Critical and Sociolinguistic Perspective.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 8 (1): 79–85.
. 2018. “Exploring Chinese College Students’ Construction of Online Identity on the Sina Microblog.” Discourse, Context & Media 261: 43–51.
Zhang, Yi, and Wei Ren. 2020. “‘This is so Skrrrrr’ – Creative Translanguaging by Chinese Micro-blogging Users.” International Journal of Multilingualism 19 (3): 289–304.