Jocular flattery in Chinese multi-party instant messaging interactions

Qiu, Jia; Chen, Xinren; Haugh, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2021.03.020

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…This approach draws on an interactional linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen and Selting, 2017), particularly ethnomethodological conversation analysis and work on multimodality in human interaction. We analyzed the social actions performed by hisses by building collections of recurrent co-occurrences between hisses and particular pragmatic contexts, and analyzing in detail how sequential position and turn design lead to action formation (Qiu et al, 2021). Going beyond conversation analysis (which traditionally is not a field that concerns itself with politeness, Culpeper, 2011b), the integrative framework allows us to look at how these social actions have the potential for generating politeness-related social meanings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

2022

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This paper explores the politeness-related functions of an ingressive hissing-like sound that occurs frequently in Korean and which is typically transcribed as ssup. This nonverbal sound is produced by drawing air alongside the tongue or between the teeth and may appear either before the production of a turn, or during turn production. Previous studies have shown that Korean speakers produce more frequent hisses when addressing status superiors. This suggests a politeness-related function, particularly given the importance of marking social distance toward elders and superiors in Korean culture. In the current paper, we explore the pragmatic functions of these hisses in three distinct datasets (oral discourse completion task, dyad recordings, drama interactions). Our analysis shows that hisses perform four types of social actions: displaying delicacy, activity shift, word search, and conveying skepticism. Hisses occur at interactional or relational trouble spots to delay the progression of talk, while allowing the speaker to initiate or maintain their turn. They co-occur with other verbal and multimodal markers of hesitation. We thus see the underlying core meaning of hisses as being related to difficulty, uncertainty and hesitation, and the conveyance of reluctance to perform the problematic talk. The increased frequency of hisses and multimodal hesitation in interactions with status superiors shows us that speakers are trying to show more care and effort when interacting in situations where social distance exists. These results contribute toward our understanding of politeness as a multimodal and holistic phenomenon that is expressed across multiple verbal and nonverbal dimensions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is It Polite to Hiss?: Nonverbal Sound Objects as Markers of (Im)politeness in Korean

2022

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“…Based on its two main functions, WeChat is best described as a cross between WhatsApp and Instagram, allowing users not only to exchange instant messages but also to share graphic content, known as ‘Moments’ (Peng, 2019: 265). However, compared to the studies exploring the use of digital technology in creating instant messages in WeChat chats (e.g., Qiu et al, 2021; Sandel et al, 2019), studies that investigate how technology enables self-presentation on WeChat Moments are much fewer. In fact, Moments differs from Weibo in several ways: first, Moments lacks the function of posting under a topic with a hashtag.…”

Section: Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘Versailles literature’ on WeChat Moments – humblebragging with digital technologies

Zuo

2023

Discourse & Communication

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Versailles literature is a newly emerged phenomenon on Chinese social networking sites. It is in essence an indirect form of self-praise. Despite its popularity on social media, there is little research on this phenomenon. This study investigates the pragmatic strategies for performing VL on WeChat Moments. The results showed that Versailles literature often includes strategies such as implicit self-praise, modified explicit self-praise, and self-praise through comments and replies, among which the tactics that have not been observed before, such as bragging in a foreign language, creating false ‘question–answer’ or ‘compliment–response’ interactions and commenting to the adverts. These strategies are implemented in various ways by virtue of the technological affordance of WeChat Moments, in order to balance the disclosure and the dissimulation of the object of praise. The study also discusses the distinctive features of VL and explains the absence of some frequent strategies of self-praising in Versailles literature.

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“…Tao (2020) describes how multiple follow-up NPs can be produced by respondents in Mandarin conversation to elaborate on an other-produced referent and serve to help co-construct an affiliative stance, where the added NP(s) often display a creative, playful quality. Finally, Qiu et al (2021) explore the use of jocular flattery in Chinese multi-party instant messaging, an increasingly important genre of everyday communication.…”

Section: Creative Language Use In East Asian Languagesmentioning

confidence: 99%