Wenqian Guo
This study investigates how and why a specific speaker’s linguistic behavioral patterns may differ across channels on the same social media platform. Specifically, this research addresses important components in conversations, such as grammaticality and illocutionary indications, as well as the emoji feature that is exclusive to online media, the Chinese social media platform Sina Weibo in this case. Through comparing speakers’ comments between posts on the state-controlled People’s Daily Weibo channel and the “super-topic” free discussion forum on social, cultural, and political events, it is clear that the topics being addressed and the functions that different channels serve in each case, respectively, contribute to the speakers’ different perceptions of these channels. Additionally, from individual speakers’ responses in interviews during the study, the special censorship nature of social media in China and the exclusively superior accessibility of state-controlled media also complicate speakers’ linguistic choices, emphasizing their consideration of locating “safety” and practical usefulness on social media. As there remains limited previous research focusing on this specific area, this research hopes to offer new insights on exploring sociolinguistic ideologies embedded in Mandarin online communication.
Examples
1. Discussions of Social Events
Event: The China Tax Administration declares its serious attitudes towards the actress Zheng Shuang’s tax fraud and evasion event
- Comments under People’s Daily: mostly well-formed sentences, with either full SVO structures or simplified VO structures with implicit subjects in place, regarding one’s attitude toward the unfair privilege associated with Zheng, along with active and academic-like usage of vocabularies that urge for the government’s investigation. Emojis are more used in illustrative, direct manners.
- Comments under the free discussion forum: fragmented, short phrases popping up randomly; the presence of “four-letter words” associated with negative emotions; pure complaints about unfairness that the general public is subjected to when compared with privileged individuals like Zheng. Emojis are more used in metaphoric and illocutionary manners.
2. Discussions of Cultural Events
Event: Around this year’s Spring Festival, the capital city of the Tang Dynasty, Luoyang, reconstructed the palace city of Tang and held light festivals that also reflected on the glorious past days.
Informal expressions and phrases that lack complete sentence structures appear frequently. As for contents, while comments under both platforms contain recurrent praise for the beauty of the reconstructed ancient city, specifically, among comments under the People’s Daily, there are some noticeable distinctions. For example, there are comments that urge the national government to propagate the replication of such efforts in other cities, as well as comments of local people of Luoyang that take the commenting channel as a place to advertise their cities to potential visitors who come from other cities. This clearly marks the distinctive characteristic that only the state-controlled People’s Daily channel could be entitled to, as being the representation of the government’s voices, the public may consider it as a direct and effective channel to communicate with the government, as well as its easy accessibility and widely accepted popularity makes it appropriate for propagation. On the other hand, the free discussion forum could not similarly reach the government, as well as it may not be entitled to that high level of popularity and accessibility, given that many people would not visit the forum if not necessary or not interested.