An investigation of the formation and pragmatic strategies of “xx-zi”: The case of Chinese internet buzzword juejuezi
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.
Publication history
Table of contents
- Abstract
- Keywords
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 3.The word-formation of Chinese internet buzzword “xx-zi”
- 4.Data and methodology
- 5.Pragmatic strategies of Chinese internet buzzword juejuezi
- 6.Conclusion
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Literature review
- 3.The word-formation of Chinese internet buzzword “xx-zi”
- 4.Data and methodology
- 5.Pragmatic strategies of Chinese internet buzzword juejuezi
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgments
- Funding
- Acknowledgments
- References
- Address for correspondence
- Biographical notes
1.Introduction
Language, as an important carrier of culture and a signifier of social transformation, yields discourse practices and social practices that the public deploys in everyday life. Fowler et al. (1979Fowler, Roger, Bob Hodge, Gunther Kress, and Tony Trew 1979 Language and Control. London: Routledge. , 1) in their early research argue that language can be regarded as an instrument of communication since language usage is an indispensable part of the social process that reconstructs “social meanings and social practices”. In the same vein, the diachronic and synchronic evolution of language guide readers to probe into how the shift of society construct, shape and constitute individuals’ discourse practice, particularly the far-reaching influence from promising and digitized media, e.g. the digital news, live-streaming, social platforms, which act as a catalyst for boosting the spread of internet buzzwords and its variant structure with a wide range of public recognition, acceptance and deployment.
With the giant stride of the internet, as suggested by Zhou (2021)Zhou, Yan 2021 Chinese Internet Buzzwords: Research on Network Languages in Internet Group Communication. London: Routledge. , China has for years seen a spurt of pioneering, grassroots and perishable network language derived from interlaced and parallel communication modes, and buzzwords are exercised and underpinned by how people relate to others through group communication, interpersonal communication and organizational communication. More generally, buzzwords, as the main embodiment of internet culture, not only construct a peculiar language phenomenon, but also provide an illuminating account of specific social phenomena, a barometer of culture and a kaleidoscope of various social communities (Tang et al. 2018Tang, Houguang, and Litao Yang (eds) 2018 On the Post-modern Variation of Language from the Perspective of New Media. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.).
According to the “Top 10 buzzwords swept on the internet in 2021” released by Chinese National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center, jué jué zǐ 绝绝子 is one of the trending words that go viral on the internet and is also included in the popular chart. With regard to China’s social platform Sina Weibo (Weibo henceforth), hashtags related to the juejuezi have seen an exponential growth in 2021. The public, in particular, the young generation, is hooked on and obsessed with using juejuezi on social media platforms, such as Weibo, Bilibili, TikTok, Kuaishou, Wechat, etc. Impressively enough, for some time, the buzzword juejuezi is so omnipresent that individuals’ work and lives are flooded with this emotion-strewn word. Moreover, influenced by the advanced media, technology and psychological factors of public pursuing conformity, simplicity, optimality and novelty (Xv 2013Xv, Chaohui 2013 Research on Current Popular Phrases. Guangzhou: Jinan University Press.), the catchwords become more diversified than ever before and gradually, and an array of words stemmed from juejuezi is playing out. Of particular interests are the structure of “xx-zi” that is composed of overlapped “x” and zǐ 子, for example, xīn xīn zǐ 欣欣子, nà nà zǐ 娜娜子 and qí qí zǐ 琪琪子.
As for the emergence and connotation of “xx-zi”, there is no single cause of its presence and vogue, rather, several have coincided. To begin with, “xx-zi” has come a long way in Chinese dialects, such as Laiwu dialect in Shandong province and Jingzhou dialect in Hunan province. To take another example, within the scope of Laiwu dialect, bǎn bǎn zǐ 板板子 refers to the small board, which is much shorter, thinner and narrower compared with other boards; dōu dōu zǐ 兜兜子 is used to address the belly-brand wore by children with a view of covering their stomach to keep warm. As the study suggests, the structure of “xx-zi” in dialect, to a considerable degree, enriches and stretches the research of its word-formation in essence (Lv 2013Lv, 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] 2: 227–237, 374–375.), which is consequential to further investigate how “xx-zi” become ubiquitous on the internet.
Additionally, with regard to the popularity of “xx-zi” in fandom, it sprouts from Chinese’s European and American music group. To be sure, it first appears in Baidu Tieba “Taylor Swift Bar” proposed by qī pǐ mǎ 七匹马 (a nickname), the monitor of this post bar, to express his strong passion and praise towards Taylor’s songs. Henceforth, the linguistic structure “xx-zi” becomes prevailing in a small circle, particularly in the Western music community. Noticeably, how “xx-zi” style discourses surge in popularity and widely spread in the media can be illustrated by several Chinese talent shows, such as Youth with You, Sisters Who Make Waves, Creation Cramp 2020. Fans, with a view of providing a highly available praise and support for idols, give the star nickname and call them “xx-zi”. For example, fans call Yu Shuxin, a singer player, as xīn xīn zǐ 欣欣子, and they use the reference qiàn qiàn zǐ 茜茜子 to signify the actress Wan Qian. In this way, using the nickname provides the impetus for fans, being friends or staunch supporters, to transmit and emphasize intimacy, friendliness as well as affection towards their favorite star. Hereby, as a form of discursive construction, “xx-zi” has been embraced by various speech communities, in which the language meme is formed, recognized and evidenced by the width and breadth of identification, replication as well as dissemination.
To date, internet buzzwords sprouted from internet advancement and extension of communication modes have gained extensive scholarly attention. Previous studies in this respect have examined specific internet discourse phenomena, such as Versailles-style speech (Ren and Guo 2021 2021 “What is ‘Versailles Literature’?: Humblebrags on Chinese Social Networking Sites.” Journal of Pragmatics 184: 185–195. ), YSZL construction (Peng 2018Peng, 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. ), four-character Chinese internet buzzwords (Zhou and Li 2017Zhou, Haiming, and Tingting Li 2017 “A Memetic Study of Internet Buzzwords.” English Language and Literature Studies 7 (4): 42–48. ), the mansplaining phenomenon (Bridges 2017Bridges, Judith 2017 “Gendering Metapragmatics in Online Discourse: ‘Mansplaining Man Gonna Mansplain…’.” Discourse, Context & Media 20: 94–102. ), Chinese character (annotation) (Xie et al. 2020Xie, 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. ), living streaming discourse (Yang and Wang 2022Yang, 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 197: 43–54. ) and so on. Moreover, existing studies mainly adopt quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate the embedded pragmatic strategies netizens deploy on social media, the use and further development of internet language innovation, the mismatched annotation practice, as well as the general communicative and indexical functions.
Previous studies on internet discourse phenomenon have provided guidance on how to probe into internet buzzwords. However, little attention has been paid to the “xx-zi” phenomenon in the Chinese context, particularly, the latest Chinese buzzword juejuezi that has become a catchword of the moment in virtual and face-to-face communication. Meanwhile, some studies choose mixed approaches based on corpus study, while the research gap still exists with issues such as how to maintain objectivity in identifying the data. Therefore, following current pivotal studies on internet buzzwords, the present study aims to investigate this trending language phenomenon by conducting a dataset-based triangulation analysis, especially exploring what pragmatic strategies are used in “juejuezi” style discourse and how netizens deploy juejuezi in online communication based on NVivo 20.
With this as the basis, the rest of the study is organized as follows. In Section 2, the review of previous state-of-the-art and empirical studies on internet buzzwords is provided. Section 3 elaborates the word-formation of “xx-zi”, then the subsequent Section 4 analyzes the collected blogs from Weibo and data analysis is also presented. Section 5 mainly discusses specific pragmatic strategies that pertain to juejuezi. And Section 6 concludes the present study with general conclusions, limitations and suggestions for further study.
2.Literature review
This section aims to delineate previous studies on internet buzzwords at a macro level. The macro perspective lays more emphasis on how researchers probe into internet buzzwords and what perceptions they develop, somewhat differently, towards the catchwords, or more precisely from the angle of identity construction, social function, along with communication function in the realm of pragmatics and sociolinguistics (Sun et al. 2021Sun, Ya, Gongyuan Wang, and Haiying Feng 2021 “Linguistic Studies on Social Media: A Bibliometric Analysis.” SAGE Open 11 (3): 1–12. ).
The first aspect is identity construction, particularly, the buzzword’s influence on recasting the group’s collective identity and the individual’s self-identity. As explained by Yuan (2013Yuan, Zhoumin 2013 “Understanding Identity Discourse: A Critical and Sociolinguistic Perspective.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 8 (1): 79–85. , 2018 2018 “Exploring Chinese College Students’ Construction of Online Identity on the Sina Microblog.” Discourse, Context & Media 26: 43–51. ), identity construction is a dynamic, vibrant and adaptative process, and social changes have a major part in building identities. Specifically, Szablewicz (2014)Szablewicz, Marcella 2014 “The ‘Losers’ of China’s Internet: Memes as ‘Structures of Feeling’ for Disillusioned Young Netizens.” China Information 28 (2): 259–275. in her study explores the origin and nature of the self-proclaimed form diǎo sī 屌丝, indicating that the diaosi phenomenon, as a form of internet meme, mirrors netizens’ self-mockery over their lowly status, the disillusionment for imbalanced socio-economic mobility and stifling growth environment. Meanwhile, with a view of analyzing the social status of young urbanites, Huang (2021)Huang, Yanning 2021 “Who are the ‘Grassroots’? On the Ambivalent Class Orientation of Online Wordplay in China.” Popular Communication 19 (4): 266–280. further demonstrates how social stratification and hierarchy shape, integrate and separate “grassroots” netizens via illustrating the connotation behind the buzzwords diaosi and shā mǎ tè 杀马特. In effect, the individual’s and the group’s identity construction influence each other on social media, and some buzzwords emerged from specific events can refer to things or people with similar characteristics. For instance, Lin (2021)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. illustrates how the buzzword dǎ gōng rén 打工人 is employed to highlight the group characteristics, communicative functions and nucleus of internet appellation, then exemplifies the effect of communication mechanism and pluralistic media culture.
The second centers on the social function behind the buzzwords. As the embodiment of culture, the internet buzzword is coined in tandem with the advancement of society, thus making the embedded social significance public. For instance, Wang (2014)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. in his investigation explains the interdependent relationship between language and socio-economic development via the buzzword shān zhài 山寨, which undergoes a transmission and legitimation process in the period of diffusion from Hong Kong to mainland China. In addition to the focus on the language phenomenon itself, attention has also been paid to the referent. As a buzzword went viral on mainstream media in 2013, “Chinese Dama” refers to a group of middle-aged Chinese women who once were seen as the silent majority, while the progress of social media provides them with chances to narrow the digital divide, gain public voice and witness the transition of society (Li 2017Li, Qin 2017 “Characteristics and Social Impact of the Use of Social Media by Chinese Dama.” Telematics and Informatics 34 (3): 797–810. ).
Thirdly, a growing number of studies now highlight the communicative function of internet discourse. For example, through a nuanced analysis of Versailles Literature discursive acts inspired by Japanese caricature, Ren and Guo (2021) 2021 “What is ‘Versailles Literature’?: Humblebrags on Chinese Social Networking Sites.” Journal of Pragmatics 184: 185–195. examine the embedded pragmatic strategies based on Weibo posts, indicating that indirect and mitigation strategies are adopted by netizens to air humblebrag in online self-presentation. Additionally, creative internet discourses studded in popular culture have been noticed. Zhang and Ren (2020)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. dwell on the popularized hip-hop expression “skr” and how the relocalisation of this rap element allows micro-bloggers to perform a host of communication functions in digital literacy practices.
Interestingly, the anonymity, virtuality, and inclusiveness of the internet enable netizens to conduct deviant behaviors, such as the emergent trolling label gàng jīng 杠精, serves as lens to observe what pragmatic motivations and communication functions (e.g. disagreement, sharing, entertainment) are performed in online interaction (Xia and Wang 2022Xia, 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. ). Furthermore, rooted in discourse construction, Peng (2018)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. has investigated the linguistic innovation discourse yě shì zuì le 也是醉了, pointing to the communicative intent and entailed pragmatic meaning behind this construction based on a self-established corpus.
Overall, with regard to pertinent studies on internet buzzwords, the research provides an illuminating account of the trending language phenomenon on the internet. Specifically, previous studies lay more emphasis on how internet buzzwords construct individual and group identity, and how the buzzwords’ attitudinal, social and communicative functions are performed, which sheds new light on investigating budding buzzwords. Thus, considering the aforementioned aspects, the present study contributes to related research on internet buzzwords by investigating three word-formations of “xx-zi”, then taking juejuezi as the example to further expound and mirror specific pragmatic strategies of juejuezi. More specifically, the study, via encoding, classifying and analyzing the collected posts from Weibo, elaborates how Chinese bloggers use juejuezi to invoke and express emotions kindled by social changes. Thus, a special note is also given to the public attitudes towards social changes as individuals are more inclined to take the brunt of invisible life pressure.
3.The word-formation of Chinese internet buzzword “xx-zi”
Given the emerging internet buzzwords derived from “xx-zi”, “xx-zi” constitutes a productive word-mold with fixed structure and varied content. According to Li (1999)Li, Yuming 1999 “Word-mold.” In The Features of Chinese Grammar, ed. by Fuyi Xing, 146–157. Beijing: Beijing Language and Culture University Press., the word-mold has two basic properties, mold-maker and mold-slot, and the former refers to fixed morphemes while the latter is regarded as changeable and replaceable morphemes. As such, in the framework of “xx-zi”, the affix zi can be thought of as the mold-maker and “xx” is referred as the mold-slot. With regard to identification of word formation, three types of formation are behind “xx-zi”, starting with “noun+zi” (abbreviated as “n.+zi”), then followed by “verb+zi” (“v.+zi”) and the third involves “adjective+zi” (“adj.+zi”).
3.1“N.+zi” words in forming “xx-zi”
With respect to three formations related to “xx-zi”, “n.+zi” enjoys a glaring advantage in everyday use as a form of personal reference. In addition, a highly important function when it is used as appellation, which we want to underline here, is to indicate commendatory or neutral sense via repeating the last word of a given name. Two examples are presented.
幸运群众晨晨子有幸看到北京的第一场雪，虽然被大风吹得东倒西歪。
xìng yùn qún zhòng chén chén zǐ yǒu xìng kàn dào běi jīng de dì yī chǎng xuě, suī rán bèi dà fēng chuī de dōng dǎo xī wāi.
Chenchenzi (the blogger) is lucky enough to see the first snow in Beijing, although I was hit by the wild wind!
今晚海市这太后造型还真是大气得很呐，配上这妆容简直让人无法拒绝,幂幂子可以的！
jīn wǎn hǎi shì zhè tài hòu zào xíng hái zhēn shì dà qì dé hěn nà, pèi shàng zhè zhuāng róng jiǎn zhí ràng rén wú fǎ jù jué, mì mì zǐ kě yǐ de!
Tonight, the Empress Dowager Haishi (the role in a Chinese TV drama) is really atmospheric, and with the excellent make-up, that’s so amazing. Mimizi (Yang Mi, a Chinese star), come on!
In Example (1), chenchenzi belongs to the self-proclaimed address form, which shows the blogger’s playful and lovely personalities, thus giving people a sense of intimacy. In addition, the self-reference indicates the blogger’s particular interest in using buzzwords to show the individual’s acceptance and adaptation of internet catchwords on the one hand and the fondness of quotidian life-sharing in a virtual community on the other hand. Moreover, mimizi in Example (2) shows how “xx-zi” is used to refer to others, specifically, the famous star Yang Mi. Particularly, other-reference is commonly used to address celebrities or familiar people, by employing a nickname, thus showing closeness and shortening social, psychological as well as emotional distance rooted in social relation and social status.
In addition, “xx-zi” also can refer to specific things in regional dialects, such as in Laiwu dialect, Jingzhou dialect and Lanyin (Lanzhou and Yinchuan city) official dialects, with slightly derogatory connotation. Below is an example.
越来越难喝，全是渣渣子（附一杯奶茶照片）。
yuè lái yuè nán hē, quán shì zhā zhā zǐ (fù yì bēi nǎi chá zhào piàn).
It’s getting worse and worse and studded with fragments (zhazhazi) (accompanied by a photo of milk tea).
As the basic information displayed in Weibo suggests, the blogger of Example (3) comes from Zibo city, Shandong province. Geographically, Zibo is close to Laiwu, and much more prone to be influenced by Laiwu dialect. In this sense, Laiwu dialect contributes to expounding the meaning of zhazhazi that refers to food fragments or residues. Then, in Example (3), zhazhazi means the fragmented additives in milk tea, and thus makes no attempt to mirror the blogger’s dislike of this type of leverage.
3.2“V.+zi” words in forming “xx-zi”
The second structure concerned with “xx-zi” is “v.+zi”, which has emerged in regional dialects. It’s also worth noting that, at this time, the word class of “v.+zi” has been attached to the nouns and refers to household tools and other instruments in everyday touch and use, such as gōu gōu zǐ 钩钩子 and gài gài zǐ 盖盖子 in Laiwu dialect, which show the frequently-used household tools gōu zi 钩子 and gài zi 盖子 (Lv 2013Lv, 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] 2: 227–237, 374–375.). Specifically, gouzi this term is roughly approximate to “hook” in English, which means a bent piece of metal or plastic used for catching or holding things, or for hanging things up (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/hook). Also, of particular relevance to gaizi is “cover” in English, used to denote a thing that is put over or on another thing for better protection or decoration (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/cover).
3.3“Adj.+zi” words in forming “xx-zi”
The third structure “adj.+zi” has received a great deal of attention, or more accurately, it can be seen as the most novel use of “xx-zi”. And in this sense, “xx-zi” is an adjective, and mostly used as the attribute to express producers’ attitudes towards specific people or things, accordingly, reflecting appreciative and derogatory emotions. Two examples are given on the status quo of “xx-zi” as adjectives.
谢谢谢谢，烤地认真工作了，这两天的状造漂漂子（附一张韩国明星图片）！
xiè xiè xiè xiè, kǎo dì rèn zhēn gōng zuò le, zhè liǎng tiān de zhuāng zào piào piào zǐ (fù yī zhāng hán guó míng xīng tú piàn)!
Thanks veeeeeeery much! The stylist is working hard, and the makeup is extraordinarily exquisite and beautiful (piaopiaozi) (accompanied by a photo of Korean star)!
抖音推的洗鞋泡泡粉一点鬼用没有!说周五泡泡鞋休息，结果，劳资刷鞋刷 到十二点，我服了！#绝绝子#
dǒu yīn tuī de xǐ xié pào pào fěn yì diǎn guǐ yòng méi yǒu! shuō zhōu wǔ pào pào xié xiū xi, jié guǒ, láo zī shuā xié shuā dào shí èr diǎn, wǒ fú le! # juéjué zǐ#
The shoe washing bubble powder fed by TikTok is useless! And I plan to soak the shoes and then have a good rest. Consequently, I scrub the shoes till midnight. It’s so unbelievable (juejuezi)!
Focusing on Examples (4) and (5), it shows that “xx-zi” enjoys great feasibility and rich morphemes when used as an attribute in general. Specifically, piào piào zǐ 漂漂子 in Example (4) suggests the admirer’s praise for the idol’s stylist, in particular, the picture-perfect outfit and make-up designed by the stylist, which, to a great extent, add a little brightness to the idol’s appearance. In the devotees’ meal circle, also known as fàn quān 饭圈 in Chinese, for South Korea’s idols, kǎo dì 烤地 is synonymous with the stylist. As such, it shows that fan clubs are a force in booming internet buzzwords and also their preference for using buzzwords to fulfill the communicative needs of building closeness with idols and enhancing the belonging among the “in-group” members (Barešová and Zawiszová 2014Barešová, 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. ).
Having just looked at the appreciative connotation of “xx-zi”, we now turn to its negative sense in online communication. Juejuezi in Example (5) is deployed to accuse the misleading consumption of the bubble powder on TikTok, and then the fake promotion draws fire from the consumer. In addition, the use of juejuezi is understood as the deliberate linguistic activity for expressing negative evaluations.
Overall, justifying three word-formation types of “xx-zi” contributes to emphasizing the profoundness of this structure, for example, its expressive, communicative and interpersonal functions. Additionally, when “xx-zi” is characterized as an adjective, it’s nurtured under the joint effort of social media, technological innovation along with the young generation’s pursuit of novelty. As such, the study, based on collected blogs, investigates how juejuezi mirrors the entwined relationships between language, individual and society, particularly through elaborating on pragmatic strategies, thus offering insights for further study exploring budding Chinese internet buzzwords.
4.Data and methodology
For enhancing the research’s reliability and validity, the trustworthy data were collected from Weibo, and then, the analysis was conducted by means of qualitative research methods integrated with the NVivo 20 tool.
4.1Data collocation
Rooted in pragmatic features of discourse, the study mainly illuminates pragmatic strategies of juejuezi. Given the authenticity, timeliness and objectivity of language material, 200 blogs pertain to juejuezi are collected randomly from January 1st, 2021 to December 31st, 2021 from Weibo. Then, certain criteria have been taken into consideration when selecting blogs. Starting with the diversification, which means that the chosen one should align with the social mainstream trend of economy, culture and society, specifically, the blogs can mirror contemporary changes, such as technological progress, education reform, cultural and entertainment development and so on. Secondly, enlightened by the ethical principles recommended by Markham and Buchanan (2012)Markham, Annette, and Elizabeth Buchanan 2012 “Ethical Decision-making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0).” http://www.aoir.org/reports/ethics.pdf and current buzzwords research conducted by Ren and Guo (2020Ren, Wei, and Yaping Guo 2020 “Self-praise on Chinese Social Networking Sites.” Journal of Pragmatics 169: 179–189. , 2021 2021 “What is ‘Versailles Literature’?: Humblebrags on Chinese Social Networking Sites.” Journal of Pragmatics 184: 185–195. ), objectivity has gained prominence in this process, thus, the information that is private, offensive and highly controversial (e.g. the blogger’s ID, affronts to others’ dignity, remarks derived from extreme nationalism) should be eliminated. By tracking topics and real-time latest blogs associated with juejuezi, then, 200 posts were selected from Weibo.
4.2Data analysis
Specifically, three steps processed in NVivo 20 helped investigate the pragmatic strategies of 200 blogs under the guidance of grounded theory (Bryant and Charmaz 2019Bryant, Antony, and Kathy Charmaz (eds) 2019 The Sage Handbook of Current Developments in Grounded Theory. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. ). Firstly, we identified and encoded the original dataset via NVivo 20. Secondly, the codes were inductively classified into three categories and established a tertiary coding framework referring to their functions and previous related studies through discussion and careful consideration (as shown in Table 1). And finally, in order to enhance the reliability of research and promote researchers’ coding consistency, the researchers encoded the posts and conducted the analysis procedure by adopting the triangulation approach.
| Primary codes | Secondary codes | Frequency | Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Praise | Praise + Description | 108 | 54% |
| Description + Self-praise | 8 | 4% | |
| Description + Comparison + Praise | 10 | 5% | |
| Description + Praise + Self-mockery | 5 | 2.5% | |
| Complaint | Description + Complaint | 31 | 15.5% |
| Description + Complaint + Jocular Mockery | 3 | 1.5% | |
| Description + Comparison + Complaint | 2 | 1% | |
| Irony | Irony + Description | 22 | 11% |
| Irony + Description + Comparison | 10 | 5% | |
| Irony + Description + Comparison + Self-depreciation | 1 | 0.5% |
Inter-rater reliability is utilized to examine the consistency of the code-based coding framework. By processing the “code comparison” function of NVivo 20 software, the results show that Cohen’s kappa coefficient is 94.47% and the agreement is 97.52%, reflecting a high agreement and consistency between researchers’ coding.
5.Pragmatic strategies of Chinese internet buzzword juejuezi
Rapid gains in online technology and entertainment applications favor the further gains of network language, and under the orientation of media convergence, the network language which is brief in form, rich in connotation and more emotionally acceptable, is becoming more diverse than ever before. On this basis, the internet buzzwords, as the epitome of era, can examine the hallmarks of group communication, public opinions towards dynamic changes, as well as the peculiarity of Chinese media culture (Zhou 2021Zhou, Yan 2021 Chinese Internet Buzzwords: Research on Network Languages in Internet Group Communication. London: Routledge. ). Therefore, based on the strategies presented in Table 1, this section mainly provides a pragmatic account of how social media users deploy juejuezi in virtual community.
5.1Praise
Praise is expounded as means of verbal communication and is often deployed to express appreciation, admiration as well as the recognition of others or self (MCD 2017MCD 2017 Modern Chinese Dictionary. Beijing: The Commercial Press.), including particular individuals and specific things. Additionally, the positive evaluation performed by the producer has also come with genuine or sincere outpouring of emotions rather than utilitarian benefits.
5.1.1Praise + Description
With regard to the most salient pragmatic strategy of juejuezi used to show praise, it’s inclined to use “explicit or implicit attributes credit to someone other than the speaker, for some specific characteristics, skills or possessions” (Holmes 1986Holmes, Janet 1986 “Compliments and Compliment Responses in New Zealand English.” Anthropological Linguistics 28 (4): 485–508. http://www.jstor.org./stable/30028355, 485). Notably, this type of strategy is featured as the most frequently used device to air personal praises (occurring 108 times in the collected dataset), reflecting that netizens prefer using juejuezi to show praise in conjunction with the plain description.
Considering following examples, the use of juejuezi discloses the netizens’ intention to convey overt admiration or compliment on the third party, in particular, the reference to public figure, ordinary people and other social events.
#青年大学习何同学#何同学关于5G那个视频简直绝绝子，我愿称之为当年B站最好的视频。以现代人的眼光去看前人眼中的现在，这个思路简直绝妙。
#qīng nián dà xué xí hé tóng xué# hé tóng xué guān yú 5G nà gè shì pín jiǎn zhí jué jué zǐ, wǒ yuàn chēng zhī wéi dāng nián B zhàn zuì hǎo de shì pín. yǐ xiàn dài rén de yǎn guāng qù kàn qián rén yǎn zhōng de xiàn zài, zhè ge sī lù jiǎn zhí jué miào.
#Youth Study Hetongxue# He’s video about 5G is absolutely innovative and impressive (juejuezi), and I would like to regard it as the top-ranking video in Bilibili. The thought of looking at the present in the eyes of predecessors from the perspective of modern people is particularly brilliant.
In Example (6), the blogger begins the post by making positive comment juejuezi on an innovative uploader and blogger, He Shijie, also known as “hetongxue” in Chinese social media. He’s video about texting the speed of 5G is conducted in Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, and the video goes viral on social platforms for which it gives audiences a timely guidance about mysterious 5G. And in the post, the blogger illuminates the reason behind explicit praise, in particular, He’s rich digital knowledge, novel angle and high-quality topic selection strike a chord with public growing perception with advanced 5G.
模范男友绝绝子，午休打开便当盒满满的幸福！我最近真的太累了，但是要告诉自己我能行！
mó fàn nán yǒu jué jué zǐ, wǔ xiū dǎ kāi biàn dāng hé mǎn mǎn de xìng fú! wǒ zuì jìn zhēn de tài lèi le, dàn shì yào gào sù zì jǐ wǒ néng xíng!
What a best and ideal (juejuezi) boyfriend! When I open the lunch box, it’s filled with happiness! I’m really tired recently, while I’ve to tell myself that I can do it.
Example (7) is a speech act in which the blogger depicts her boyfriend’s sweet, careful and loving preparation of a lunch meal, thus the blogger’s sincere praise is conveyed by juejuezi explicitly, which also gives wings to her to overcome obstacles. When praise is translated into colloquial words in life, it’s important to note that a body of speech acts contribute to forming a harmonious, warming as well as loving atmosphere of life.
#神舟十三号升空#绝绝子，希望三位宇航员在太空中一切顺利。
#shén zhōu shí sān hào shēng kōng# jué jué zǐ, xī wàng sān wèi yǔ hāng yuán zài tài kōng zhōng yí qiè shùn lì.
#The successful launch of Shenzhou-13 crew# It’s so fantastic (juejuezi)! I sincerely hope three taikonauts will go well in space.
In addition, the poster also uses juejuezi to praise China’s great and promising aerospace industry without further modifications. Chinese people are proud of the successful launch of the Shenzhou-13 crew and it creates new glories in the new era and symbolizes a major step for Chinese advanced space program, then the growing pride in the country’s space programme is manifested by juejuezi openly. Furthermore, in this post, inspired by strong national pride, the blogger also expresses a blessing to three Chinese taikonauts at the end of the blog.
5.1.2Description + Comparison + Praise
Apart from overt compliments for others, netizens adopt comparison to show praise in speech acts. With regard to specific discursive function, it’s associated with description, comparison and explicit praise. Comparison, on the one hand, can showcase the pros and cons of different objects, and then highlight the preference for one side; adversely, on the other hand, netizens also via comparison kindle the praise for both sides, as presented in Example (9).
#你好李焕英总票房超越哪吒#一部是国漫崛起，一部是喜剧界的绝绝子，都是为中国影业贡献力量，一起加油，一捧一踩大可不必。
#nǐ hǎo lǐ huàn yīng zǒng piào fáng chāo yuè né zhā# yī bù shì guó màn jué qǐ, yī bù shì xǐ jù jiè de jué jué zǐ, dōu shì wéi zhōng guó yǐng yè gōng xiàn lì liàng, yì qǐ jiā yóu, yī pěng yī cǎi dà kě bú bì.
#The box office of Hi, Mom! exceeds Nezha # Between two movies, one is the booming power of Chinese animation, and the other is the excellent (juejuezi) representation of Chinese comedy. Both are conductive to sharpening Chinese movies’ edge. Therefore, we should cheer for them rather than discrediting.
The blogger in Example (9) first praises the tear-jerker film Hi, Mom by using juejuezi for its warmth and sincerity. Then, through the explicit comparison, the appreciation, recognition as well as compliment for two high-quality and record-breaking movies shot by Chinese budding directors are underlined. Though the two abovementioned movies belong to distinctive movie types, time-travel comedy film and animated film respectively, they both gain stream for the actor’s acclaimed performances, peculiar quirk and versatility of role, and the public has also seen their popularity skyrocket. Furthermore, one more noticeable point of the blog is that the producer praises both sides by comparison rather than heaping praise on one side. Overall, in the given context, the illocution of such an act is to delineate the praise, recognition and support for two movies.
5.1.3Description + Self-praise
In addition to explicit praise for others, in the collected posts, bloggers also use overt compliments to praise themselves for some good skills, qualities, makeups, clothes, foods and so on. Notably, such compliments are mostly used for entertaining, recording and sharing loving moments of life and shaping a positive self-presentation and public-image on the internet. An example is given to expound this strategy.
厨艺渐长，没有任何调味品，美味的绝绝子（附博主自己做的美食照片）!
chú yì jiàn zhǎng, méi yǒu rèn hé tiáo wèi pǐn, měi wèi de jué jué zǐ (fù bó zhǔ zì jǐ zuò de měi shí tú piàn) !
My cooking skills are gradually improving and how delicious (juejuezi) the food without any condiments are (accompanied by photos of tasty food made by the blogger)!
In Example (10), juejuezi is used by the blogger to praise her excellent cooking, and moreover, the good cooking totally originates from her personal skills instead of other assisted condiments. Admittedly, in this sentence, apart from the comment on valuing and judging the cooking, the blogger uses the photo of delicious foods to complement the statement, indicating the direct praise, appreciation and confidence for her cooking skills and constructing a positive “self”. In this sense, self-praise is achieved by juejuezi without modifications for recording and sharing life.
5.2Complaint
Besides praise, complaint also ascribes to one of pragmatic strategies of juejuezi in online communicative texts, and in particular, the integrated functions with self-mockery, comparison along with description are highlighted on how to encode the studded pragmatic strategies in the posts. As Olshtain and Weinbach argue (1987Olshtain, 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. ), the complaint can be used to express displeasure, disapproval, annoyance, blame, censure, threats, or reprimand as a reaction to certain actions. Furthermore, according to Olshtain and Weinbach (1987)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. , explicit complaint, given the interlocutor’s social parameters, can lead to the face threatening act for others. And Vladimirou et al. (2021)Vladimirou, Dimitra, Juliane House, and Dániel Z. Kádár 2021 “Aggressive Complaining on Social Media: The Case of #MuckyMerton.” Journal of Pragmatics 177: 51–64. in their study investigating aggressive complaints on Twitter indicate the tendency for aggression or impoliteness. The following examples provide another instance of how the blogger uses juejuezi to mark their own stances.
5.2.1Description + Complaint
Along with the pragmatic strategy of complaint, netizens also explicate the source of complaint, then use buzzword juejuezi to release negative emotions directly. Remarkably, this strategy is the second most frequently used in the collected posts (15.5%), showing netizen’s fondness for complaining with plain description.
有的企业真的是…讲什么共生，员工都快被折磨死了！发现很多员工因为压力太大心理健康出状况的解决方式就是把抗压能力挂进KPI里！绝绝子！
yǒu de qǐ yè zhēn de shì…jiǎng shén me gòng shēng, yuán gōng dōu kuài bèi zhé mó sǐ le! fā xiàn hěn duō yuán gōng yīn wéi yā lì tài dà xīn lǐ jiàn kāng chū zhuàng kuàng de jiě jué fāng shì jiù shì bǎ kàng yā néng lì guà jìn KPI lǐ! jué jué zǐ!
Some enterprises are really…… several employees are tortured by high pressure and the company even links the enterprise symbiosis with employees. The way they adopt to wrestle with employee’s mental health problems is connecting their anti-pressure ability to KPI. It’s so absurd (juejuezi)!
It’s worthy of mention that in Example (11) the blogger deploys juejuezi straightforwardly as a means of complaint to express criticism, disapproval, dissatisfaction, even blame towards the company’s act, thus depicting the stress-strewn workers as dogged by work and mirroring modern youth’s mental and physical dilemma caused by intense work stress, and hinting a longing of youth to escape from modern life. Specifically, the blogger gives a negative attitude towards the company’s unreasonable rule, in particular, the association between the employee’s performance and their anti-pressure ability.
5.2.2Description + Complaint+ Jocular Mockery
In addition to giving a detailed account of description of complaint, bloggers also convey their personal emotions first, then using non-serious or jocular mockery to further “hold a complaint up as a target” via several linguistic means (Haugh 2010Haugh, Michael 2010 “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8): 2106–2119. , 8). As a complex pragmatic act, jocular mockery is achieved through a host of verbal of non-verbal acts whereby the producer alleviates the face threats to others or the third party (Haugh 2010Haugh, Michael 2010 “Jocular Mockery, (Dis)affiliation, and Face.” Journal of Pragmatics 42 (8): 2106–2119. ). Consider the following Example (12).
这三天加班十七个小时，绝绝子！我还行，就是人有点飘手有点抖，还能一针见血，没个三五年熬夜功底怕是不行了。还没下班，明天再继续！
zhè sān tiān jiā bān shí qī gè xiǎo shí, jué jué zǐ! wǒ hái hang, jiù shì rén yǒu diǎn piāo shǒu yǒu diǎn dǒu, hái néng yì zhēn jiàn xiě, méi gè sān wǔ nián áo yè gong dǐ pà shì bù xíng le. Hái méi xià bān, míng tiān zài jì xù！
Seventeen hours overtime for the last three days, my god (juejuezi)! I’m ok, just a little bit unstable and shaky, but I still can hit the nail on the head, which bases on my three or five years’ experience of staying up. Until now, I haven’t finished work yet and tomorrow I will continue working!
The above blog exemplifies a burnout worker who is fed up with the grinding work hours imposed on her by corporate. In Example (12), the blogger depicts the overloaded and overworked situation on the basis of juejeuzi, hinting at personal grievances. Then, further disgruntled emotion is achieved through jocular mockery, and in particular, through the idiomatic expression “yizhenjianxue”, which means draw blood with one prick. Interestingly, based on the blogger’s public account information, it’s found that she is a room nurse in Shanghai. Thus, the humorous expressions “yizhenjianxue”, “piao” and “dou” capture this nurse’s tiredness and implicit complaint towards her current work. Overall, the blogger, via juejuezi and jocular expressions, denotes the feeling of exhaustion, helplessness and complaint towards the relentless working schedules, which exposes that contemporary young generation are trapped by the grueling long-hours culture.
5.2.3Description + Comparison + Complaint
The third type, via description of speech act and comparison with “target”, helps explain the discursive feature of juejuezi accounting for 1% in the collected dataset. Moreover, through comparison, the blogger lays on the negative judgment, evaluation and assessment to the “target” in the posts.
大雪纷飞，多么美的圣诞节！上辈子做了什么孽这辈子遇到这个老板，大周末的大清早九点让开会，睡不了懒觉也就算了，自己还迟到，还不来，绝绝子！
dà xuě fēn fēi, duō me měi de shèng dàn jié! shàng bèi zi zuò le shén me niè zhè bèi zi yù dào zhè ge lǎo bǎn, dà zhōu mò de dà qīng zǎo jiǔ diǎn ràng kāi huì, shuì bù liǎo lǎn jiào yě jiù suàn le, zì jǐ hái chí dào, hái bù lái, jué jué zǐ!
Snow falling, what a beautiful Christmas! Maybe I have done bad things in previous life to meet such an intolerable boss who requires the meeting need be operated at 9 a.m. on weekends. As a result, I have to give up sleeping. However, the boss doesn’t appear on time. So speechless (juejuezi)!
In Example (13), the blogger first illustrates the situation of act, depicting the attractive and pretty silver world carpeted with snowflakes, and then uses comparison with the boss, highlighting the negative attitude towards the boss’s harsh requirements, unpunctuality, as well as intense employee relations. On this basis, it can be inferred from the post that the blogger’s acts of complaining challenge even damage the face of “target” directly. Meantime, a quick sift through the blog, it’s not hard to find the blogger also compares cozy festival with hustles and bustles of office-bound workers, revealing the frenetic pace of life influenced by intense work. Then, the blogger lends juejuezi to grumble the unreasonable work on weekends.
5.3Irony
In the dataset, irony is wittingly used to convey bloggers’ emotions. According to Collins dictionary (https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/irony), irony is defined as “a method of humorous or subtly sarcastic expression in which the intended meaning of the words is the direct opposite of their usual sense”. On the basis of this, it can be found that irony is widely used in online conversation, and in particular, it’s regarded as a figurative means of social communication by employing ironic devices (Papapicco and Mininni 2019Papapicco, Concetta, and Giuseppe Mininni 2019 “Twitter Culture: Irony Comes Faster Than Tourist Mobility.” Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change 18 (5): 545–556. ). Moreover, as Amante (1981Amante, David J. 1981 “The Theory of Ironic Speech Acts.” Poetics Today 2 (2): 77–96. , 77) demonstrates, with respect to specific ironic utterances, it “creates multiple layers of meaning by creating opposition, through negation, between the two propositions involved”. Thus, when juejuezi is used as a means of irony that may look like praise, but often is just a thinly-veiled way to ironize, then, the blogger’s criticism, negation, opposition as well as dissatisfaction are underpinned in the collected posts. The following examples elucidate this discursive feature.
5.3.1Description + Irony
In the collected posts, the bloggers are more inclined to combine description of speech acts with irony in actual use, particularly, through implicit conversational acts, indirectly exposing the intention to ironize. This strategy takes up a comparatively higher percentage of the modest strategies (11%).
#上海大雾#哈哈哈早上一开窗，以为自己进入了寂静岭，这能见度真是绝绝子！
#shàng hǎi dà wù# hā hā hā zǎo shàng yì kāi chuāng, yǐ wéi zì jǐ jìn rù le jì jìng ling, zhè néng jiàn dù zhēn shì jué jué zǐ!
#the heavy fog in Shanghai# Ha-ha-ha! When I open the window this morning, I think maybe I am in Silent Hill. The visibility is really awesome (juejuezi)!
Example (14) describes the low visibility of Shanghai that is enveloped with thick morning fog. Then, analogy is used by the blogger to draw a parallel between Shanghai’s foggy environment and the drilling atmosphere shown in the American thriller Silent Hill, emphasizing the incomparable low-visibility created by morning fog. At the end of the post, the statement juejuezi allows the blogger to show actual intention below the surface, ironizing the deteriorated environment rather than praising the amazing impressions.
5.3.2Description + Comparison + Irony
Alternatively, in online communication, ironic utterances are also illustrated through specific comparison, then showing the negation and opposition silently. The following Example (15) helps explain this strategy.
@申通快递官微，太牛了申通快递，本市内的快递既然运了四天还没到，绝绝子，比我从新疆买东西配送时间都长，太绝了！厉害，年度最“快”快递！
@shēn tōng kuài dì guān wēi, tài niú le shēn tōng kuài dì, běn shì nèi de kuài dì jì rán yùn le sì tiān hái méi dào, jué jué zǐ, bǐ wǒ cóng xīn jiāng mǎi dōng xī pèi sòng shí jiān dōu cháng, tài jué le ! lì hài, nián dù zuì “kuài” kuài dì!
@STO Express official blog, it’s so bravo! The city’s express delivery has not arrived for 4 days, it’s marvellous (juejuezi)! Actually, this delivery time is much longer than the express from Xinjiang! Impressively, STO Express can be crowned as the “fastest” express of the year!
In Example (18), at first glance, it seems that the blogger praises the speed of STO Express. However, there is a twist. A sense of dissatisfaction, complaint as well as negation is displayed by ironizing the speed of STO Express. To be more specific, as the blogger’s account information presented, the account’s location belongs to Jiangsu province, which is far from Xinjiang. And then the poster compares the delivery from Xinjiang with her city’s express sent by STO, making a dig at the lower operating efficiency of STO Express by depicting it as “the fastest express of the year”. Notably, in this post, the blogger displays the official blog of STO Express, which may to a large extent pose potential face threats on this corporate, and in this sense, the deployment of juejuezi reinforces the face-threatening act.
5.3.3Irony + Description + Comparison + Self-deprecation
The final modest pragmatic strategy that characterizes juejuezi is the combination of irony, description, comparison and self-deprecation. In internet-mediated communication, irony is reconstructed and built by using the contrastive strategy and self-deprecation. Within the pragmatics, Kim (2015Kim, Mary Shin 2015 “The Complexity and Variability of Self-deprecation in Korean Conversation.” Pragmatics and Society 6 (3): 398–420. , 398) argues that self-deprecation refers to “the act of belittling or undervaluing oneself and one’s abilities”, hence, self-deprecation may serve as the distillation of the producer’s potential intention to downplay, humble, belittle or denigrate oneself the specific context (Walkinshaw et al. 2019Walkinshaw, Ian, Nathaniel Mitchell, and Sophiaan Subhan 2019 “Self-denigration as a Relational Strategy in Lingua Franca Talk: Asian English Speakers.” Journal of Pragmatics 139: 40–51. ), which may reinforce the face-threat to the target, to illustrate this point, considering the following Example (16).
绝绝子，这群人为了博士学位真的太拼了！这才几节课，已经抱上了导师的大腿！还玩起了饭圈那套，买周边要签名！天了噜，是我格局小了！
jué jué zǐ, zhè qún rén wèi le bó shì xué wèi zhēn de tài pīn le! zhè cái jǐ jié kè, yǐ jīng bào shàng le dǎo shī de dà tuǐ! hái wán qǐ le fàn quān nà tào, mǎi zhōu biān yào qiān míng! tiān le lu, shì wǒ gé jú xiǎo le!
It’s so unbelievable (juejuezi)! Those people really work hard for their PhD. There are only several classes, and they have shown flattery for the doctoral advisor, even use the channels from fanquan, such as buying accessories and seeking advisor’s signature! My god, my life picture is so small!
In this post, the given example does justice to this strategy referring to irony. At first sight, it appears that the blogger praises “those people”, who are sweating over their advanced study on doctorate. Then, ironically, the blogger employs juejuezi denoting the opposed and ironic attitudes towards the subsequent speech acts that they are racing to get the recognition of doctoral advisors for their own sake by seeing themselves as the devotees of their mentor, in particular, the ways learned from fanquan (used to describe passionate fan groups devoted to particular celebrities). Meanwhile, the blogger belittles their personal life picture via self-deprecation, to be more specific, by giving a negative self-assessment, hinting the mutual differences through indirect comparison. In this respect, it can be speculated the real intention of the blogger is to deepen the irony and criticism towards the flattery acts.
To sum up, investigating the pragmatic strategies pertaining to juejuezi in specific contexts provides us with channels to figure out how this internet buzzword conveys a chain of connotations, emotions, and attitudes, in particular, praise, complaint plus irony towards certain situations in everyday work, study and life at a micro level. It’s equally possible that, the stride of society, for example, the change of culture, technology, politics, economy, can also be revealed through elaborating language changes at a macro level. Moreover, the wide spread around this term in online and offline communication contributes to reaching its zenith for a time, which allows the public, especially the young generation, to express the most human qualities like the need to gain self-identity, social identity, integration into mainstream culture, release from burdens, venting of negative emotions and entertainment in the realm of social media, as well as finding purpose in life.
6.Conclusion
This study mainly delineates the employment of a trending internet buzzword inspired by its high saliency and frequency in everyday life (Peng 2018Peng, 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. ), starting with three types of word-formation of “xx-zi”. Since juejuezi is the most innovative and budding word derived from “adj.+zi”, this study takes it as the focus to further investigate embedded pragmatic strategies in conveying emotions based on 200 blogs sourced from Weibo. With respect to the pragmatic strategies, particular focus is put on the praise, complaint, as well as irony connotation of juejuezi. Thus, examining how bloggers, via the statement juejuezi, display an array of speech acts plays a pivotal role in revealing the rich connotations of internet buzzwords that are widely accessible to the general public and in mirroring the social changes. Overall, through an in-depth analysis of “xx-zi” and juejuezi, four points stand out.
The first point helping explain the structure of “xx-zi” centers on its three types of word-formation. Specifically, “n.+zi” words are deployed to refer to specific people or things, thus indicating positive or neutral sense when seen as a means of self-reference and other-reference. Another relates to “v.+zi” type of words, and they abound in Chinese regional dialects, referring to household tools or other instruments. The third structure “adj.+zi” highlights producer’s attitudes towards certain events or specific people, showing appreciation and negation overtly.
Secondly, with regard to the pragmatic strategies of juejuezi, praise is illustrated as a means of communication, thus denoting admiration and recognition, approvingly of particular individuals or specific things and recasting good public-images or media personas on the internet. Meantime, the producer, via overt praise for others, self-praise, self-mockery, comparison between two propositions created by the statement juejuezi, enriches the connotation of this buzzword.
The third point raised at certain events is concerned with the complaint strategy. The analysis of juejuezi in the collected posts mirrors the fierce education, brutal work culture as well as burden-ridden life, showing the young generation’s a host of complaints, grievances and grinding about the difficulty in work and life.
Fourthly, the pragmatic strategy of irony is also underlined in the analysis. Broadly speaking, irony is widely used in online conversations, and in particular, juejuezi is regarded as a figurative means of social communication to air negation and opposition directly by comparison and self-deprecation, thus exposing the intention to ironize particular people or specific things.
In sum, as for the pragmatic significance, the examination of Chinese internet buzzwords can be characterized as a window to witness the social changes, public perceptions and efforts of ushering in the new age, although the present study is limited in that it relies on Weibo posts, which are limited and time-based. Therefore, future research could broaden the research scope to other online contexts and justify whether the present analysis is replicable to other internet-based instances pertaining to juejuezi. Also, it’s worthy of investigating how social media users’ gender influences the buzzword’s usage in virtual communities. In addition, the present study doesn’t take the emoji shown in posts into consideration. Thus, the further study can diversify the collected data and put more weight on the combination with multimodality elements, especially the deployment of emoji (Yang and Liu 2021Yang, Xiren, and Meichun Liu 2021 “The Pragmatics of Text-emoji Co-occurrences on Chinese Social Media.” Pragmatics 31 (1): 144–172. ), emoticons, GIFS and so on.
Funding
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful to the editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive suggestions and feedback.