Politeness Phenomena across Chinese Genres - Xinren Chen
6. Relational Acts and Identity Construction by Chinese Celebrities on Weibo
Politeness Phenomena across Chinese Genres - Xinren Chen
Doreen D. Wu [+]
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong
Doreen Wu is Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her major research interests and publications have been in the areas of Chinese sociolinguistics and comparative discourse studies of media. Among her works are: The Discourses of Cultural China in the Globalizing Age (2008); co-editor of Media Discourse in Greater China, special issue for Journal of Asian-Pacific Communication (2009, vol. 19, 2); co-editor of Media Discourses & Cultural Globalisation: A Chinese Perspective, special issue for Critical Arts (2011, vol. 25, 1). Her recent projects and publications include: Language Use of the Youth on the Internet, and Researching Human Interactivity and Relational Communication on Chinese New Media.
Minfen Lin [+]
Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Minfen Lin is a PhD candidate in Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. She is an active practitioner in the field of Communication and Media, and her research interests focus on sociolinguistic study of New Media Communication.
Description
Doreen Wu and Minfen Lin examine the types of facework made possible by the Chinese celebrities in the performance of various kinds of relational acts on Sina Weibo, the leading Social Network Service Site (SNS) in the Cultural China region. They argue that the reputable individuals used these relational acts as well as related features to build relational connectedness with their followers. They discover that such SNSs have formed a new literary practice that reflects both traditional and new ways of constructing facework (see Davies 2012; Wu and Feng 2015; Zhao, Grasmuck and Marin 2008).