The tactic of the Weak

Abstract

This dissertation connects the study of media discourses of gender in East Asia with how globalization influences consumption of popular culture. It explores the ways in which femininity is framed in different layers of discourse through a speech act called "sajiao," a native term in Mandarin for persuasive talk that generally means to talk or behave like a child for persuasive purposes. This ethnographic study of feminine persuasion includes data from everyday communication and from interactions among online communities. The media texts and fieldwork data are compared to reveal how the dominant ideology that all women have to express femininity in the form of babyish cuteness influences native speakers' understanding of the speech act among Mandarin speakers in Taiwan. This dissertation introduces the issues of sajiao and the relation to gender, culture, and communication. I analyze the sajiao performance conducted by female entertainers in Taiwan, the sajiao discourse in the newspaper, and the discussion about sajiao on TV. These data are compared with the daily practice of sajiao. I describe who does sajiao, how people sajiao, when sajiao happens, and why people sajiao. By detailing the sequential procedure of sajiao, I explore the persuasive dimensions and its cultural implications in the Taiwanese context. In addition, a comparison of sajiao practices between Taipei and Shanghai is offered. In conclusion, I explain why this project is critical and how it contributes to both the interpretive and the cultural studies traditions. Some limitations of this research and its potential development for communication studies in general are discussed. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES v CHAPTER I. SAJIAO-A CULTURALLY SITUATED PERSAUSIVE PERFORMANCE "People Sajiao All the Time" 1 I choose the mostly circulated pinyin system to transcribe Chinese characters into Roman alphabet. However, if people or artifacts mentioned in this dissertation have already had an English name, a nickname, or a preferred name known to the public, I will use it. sajiao style. The sajiao style has been mentioned in other projects as well. For example, Ho (1989) mentions children's sajiao as the negative feature in the process of Chinese socialization. Goodwin (2008) explores children's peer negotiations through sajiao. Studies on children's education often mentions sajiao as a typical children's communication to plead things, but this feature seems to be neglected in the literature of gender and language. Farris is the first person who studies specifically and thoroughly the semantic meaning of sajiao. In Farris' (1995) observational study, sajiao has several linguistic features, and she views the set of behavior as a gender mark. However, in her earlier research on how preschool children interact with each other, she mentions several features beyond the gender category. For example, she notes the power relations between preschool teachers and children, and the code-switching practiced by the teachers, between baby-talk and voice of authorit...

“He sounds like a bureaucrat”: Variation of voice quality in stylistic performances

“…It was also described as diasheng diaqi, or naisheng naiqi "nasally and childlike", as a way of "attention seeking purposely for certain demands from the boyfriend". The "cute" voice of Childish Girl, much like how a young woman in South Korean engaging in the aegyo (Moon 2017), enables the woman who does it to put on a docile and subordinate guise to enter a negotiation, where the childlike weakness turns into a persuasive power (Yueh 2012).…”