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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 35:4 (2025) ► pp.579–603

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Crazy literature

A case of mock self-impoliteness

 | Dalian University of Foreign Languages
 | Dalian University of Foreign Languages | California State University, San BernardinoSan Bernardino
 | Dalian University of Foreign Languages
Published online: 18 October 2024
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.23035.liu
Abstract
In this paper, we investigate crazy literature, a newly emerged genre on Chinese Internet in which posters portray themselves as being mentally instable or, simply, insane. Based on data collected from the Internet and findings from a survey of college students, we argue that the image created by crazy literature is best captured by the notion of mock self-impoliteness. That is, although the image of insanity is damaging to the self-face of the poster, the impolite self-image is a persona, not the real image, motivated by transactional effectiveness. In addition, crazy literature helps the blogger to appear humorous, to express their helplessness in vulnerable situations, and to gain a sense of belonging. Our paper, therefore, contributes to the pragmatics literature by drawing scholars’ attention to a (possibly) hitherto non-existent type of language use, offering an analysis of the genre that is innovative, and demonstrating a need for investigating Internet pragmatics seriously.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminaries
    • 2.1Research on crazy literature
    • 2.2Theoretical prerequisites
  • 3.Methodology and findings
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Survey
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Linguistic features of crazy literature
      • Interrogation
      • Emotive lexicon
      • Hyperbole
      • Illogicality
      • Parody
      • Metaphors
      • Special symbols
      • Misordering of elements
    • 4.2Self-image in crazy literature
    • 4.3Motivations for crazy literature
    • 4.4Crazy literature, other Internet genres, and the Internet modality
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
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