1. Introduction
[1.1] In the highly competitive entertainment industry of PRC, fandom discussions predominantly take place on Weibo, one of the most popular social media platforms that has been providing a Twitter-like microblogging service since its launch in August 2009 (Han and Jia 2019). Weibo has made an unparalleled contribution in terms of shaping the Chinese social media landscape and the public life of Chinese people, and it illuminates the social transition of post-Olympics PRC and the ubiquitous interplay of political and commercial interests across prosperous social media (Han and Wang 2015; Han 2016, 2020). Home and international celebrities are invited to register accounts with Weibo, which attracts an enormous number of their followers (Han 2019; Yin 2020). The latest statistics released by Statista on May 29, 2020, show that the number of monthly active users of Weibo was approximately 550 million during the first quarter of 2020. Whenever a fan starts a topic about their idol and is joined by many fellow fans, the topic can potentially be recommended on Weibo and appear as a hot topic in a list that showcases real-time updates on the top trending topics attracting interest.
[1.2] To gather data for this research, I observed fandom discussion on Weibo for a period of six months, from January 2020 to June 2020. Data on Weibo is publicly available, and in this paper I have quoted texts extracted from fan posts and comments without including links to the original pieces. I have manually collected fans' posts and comments appearing on Weibo, and data retrieval has been done via three sources: (1) a super topic feature denoting virtual communities developed around hashtags, which are predominantly used by/for celebrities and their fans; (2) a discover function, that is, the comprehensive search engine embedded in Weibo, which can display search results when users enter keywords; and (3) lists of hot searches that show real-time updates on hot topics. Afterwards, I have conducted hermeneutic analysis of representative examples and translated Chinese examples and citations into English.
[1.3] I focus on female-oriented fan circles, especially those idolizing effeminate-looking and delicate-featured young male stars who are collectively labelled as xiao xian rou (little fresh meat), as these male idols have legions of passionate fan girls (Wu 2016; Büchenbacher 2018; Keegan 2018; Gao 2019; Zhang and Negus 2020).
[1.4] In this article, I adopt a linguistic framework to discuss Chinese fandom. Previous research has analyzed Chinese fandom from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including sociology, economy, psychology, and ideology, as well as gender and cultural studies. However, there is a lack of adequate research examining fans' in-group exchange or idol-fan interaction from a linguistic perspective. The style of language and specific expressions that fans employ in their online virtual communities can reflect their communication patterns and interpersonal relationships. More significantly, fan language functions as an indicator of their intention to preserve cofans' face and show politeness, as well as to maintain group identity and enhance in-group rapport with fellow fans. A linguistic approach that analyzes neologisms, speaker self-referring terms, epistemic stance markers, and incomplete turns can serve as an effective tool to reveal fandom behaviors and mindset.
[1.5] In this article I investigate linguistic strategies pertaining to face and politeness in Chinese fandom. In fan circles, there are many online fan discussions and idol-fan interactions to give each other face, show politeness, and maintain or enhance rapport. During in-group conversation with cofans, fans use fandom neologisms to emphasize their shared identity; when interacting with idols, fans use speaker self-referring terms to lower their own position and imply idols' superiority. Syntactic strategies, including use of epistemic stance markers and incomplete turns, are also effective ways to protect interactants' face.
2. Notions of face and politeness
[2.1] Face is a term in the fields of pragmatics and interactional sociolinguistics employed in the analysis of politeness phenomena and to account for various types of interactive style, such as those associated with the expression of distance, deference, or friendliness (Crystal 2008), and this abstract, high-level theoretical construct can be carefully applied to interpersonal communication (Holtgraves 2009). As a multifaceted phenomenon involving cognitive foundations yet socially situated in interaction, face conceptualization and analysis need to adopt multiple perspectives. There is a range of concepts of face. For instance, face is regarded as being related to respectability and/or deference (Ho 1976), public self-image (Brown and Levinson 1987), due recognition to other's social status and achievement (Mao 1994), and interpersonal identity of individuals in communication (Scollon and Scollon 1995). Face comprises positive face—the desire to show involvement with others—as well as negative face—the desire not to offend others (Crystal 2008).
[2.2] The Chinese equivalent of face can be found in two concepts: mianzi and lian (Haugh 2005; Gao 2009; Chang and Haugh 2013). The Chinese mianzi needs to be perceived as a concept with three tiers: individual, relational, and group mianzi, and all three mianzi-sensitive factors contribute to the interpretation of Chinese face (He and Zhang 2011). Furthermore, Kinnison (2017) unravels three distinctive facets entangled in the complex and ambiguous Chinese emic concept of face: (1) power/favor/relation face, denoting social power and connection; (2) moral/honor face, referring to dignity and integrity; and (3) mask/image face, indicating facades to impress others. Kinnison also points out that although moral/honor face and mask/image face are disparate owing to different "incentives and sanctions enforced through subjective and social current perceptions and expectations" (2011, 290), these two facets of face are closely correlated and share similarities in terms of distributing effects and witness, and the distinction between losing these two facets of face is also blurred.
[2.3] Compared with their counterparts in individualistic cultures who focus more on self-face, people in collectivistic cultures are more other-face oriented and tend to display more indirect and other-face concerning conflict behaviors, and this explains why Chinese people value nonconfrontational styles of interaction and tend to adopt obliging and avoidance conflict management styles (Ting-Toomey 1988, 2005, 2009, 2012; Ting-Toomey et al. 1991; Ting-Toomey and Kurogi 1998; Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001; Jia 2007). According to Pan (2000), when engaged in social interaction, Chinese-speaking interlocutors exhibit the social practice of employing face and politeness strategies to address hierarchical order and solidarity. In particular settings where power relationships are crucial, there are four dimensions governing the choice of linguistic politeness:
[2.4] 1. Identification of social relationship
2. Recognition of hierarchical order
3. Identification of power source
4. Application of facework to attend to the social relation and the power hierarchy (149)
[2.5] There is a broad perspective on the strategic management of face based on rapport management, namely, ways in which this (dis)harmony is (mis)managed, including management of three interconnected fundamental components: face sensitivities, perceived sociality rights, and obligations (together with the behavioral expectations associated with them), as well as interactional goals (Spencer-Oatey 2002, 2008; Spencer-Oatey and Franklin 2009). Consequently, face management is correlated with the acknowledgement or emphasis of one's positive attributes and nonacknowledgement or deemphasis of negative ones (Spencer-Oatey 2009). This framework is constituted of three types of face—quality face, relational face, and social identity face (Culpeper 2001, 2011)—as well as two types of sociality rights: equity rights and association rights (Spencer-Oatey 2005). Additionally, this rapport-management framework suggests four categories of rapport orientation:
[2.6] 1. Rapport enhancement orientation: a desire to strengthen or enhance harmonious relations between the interlocutors.
2. Rapport maintenance orientation: a desire to maintain or protect harmonious relations between the interlocutors.
3. Rapport neglect orientation: a lack of concern or interest in the quality of relations between the interlocutors (perhaps because of a focus on self).
4. Rapport challenge orientation: a desire to challenge or impair harmonious relations between the interlocutors. (Spencer-Oatey 2008, 32)
[2.7] Face can be construed in the cultural value patterns of small-large power distance and individualism-collectivism (Hofstede 2001). Face pertains to interactional identity, and facework is related to verbal and nonverbal communication behaviors that protect self, other, or mutual face (Ting-Toomey 1999, 2005), so the role of face and facework strategies vary in accordance with the level of cultural system values (Ting-Toomey and Dorjee 2015). To be more specific, people from collectivistic cultural backgrounds, such as Chinese people, are more other-face oriented than their counterparts in individualistic cultures who place more focus on self-face (Ting-Toomey 1988, 2005, 2017; Ting-Toomey et al. 1991; Spencer-Oatey and Wang 2019). In particular, equity rights, as defined by Spencer-Oatey (2005), play a preponderant role in China-related perception of face and (im)politeness, which might be attributed to a list of reasons (Culpeper et al. 2010). First, the long-lasting influence of Confucianism on Chinese culture has established a Confucian discourse system that emphasizes interpersonal relationships and social harmony (Scollon and Scollon 2001). Second, Chinese culture is marked by a reciprocity principle that advocates equal forms of behaviors and favors (Hwang 1987; Gu 1990; Spencer-Oatey 2002). Third, some Chinese people's perception of impoliteness in terms of equity rights might be correlated with the one-child family-planning policy. Social roles involve specific relational bonds between people with attendant social functions and overlap with relational face (Spencer-Oatey 2007, 2008). The only child in a family is treated with extra affection and hence is more sensitive to changes in their set of equity entitlements (Culpeper et al. 2010).
3. Identity
[3.1] In this section, I discuss face and politeness in terms of identity. In Chinese fan circles, members employ fandom neologisms and speaker self-referring terms to illustrate and strengthen their group identity, thereby maintaining and enhancing the rapport among members within the same fan base and that between fans and their idols.
[3.2] As pointed out by Ting-Toomey (1994), face is an identity-boundary issue, and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich (2013) argues that face is inextricably intertwined with identity. Spencer-Oatey (2007) proposes a face-sensitive approach, analyzing and conceptualizing face through exploring the key features of theories of identity and theory of identity levels (Brewer and Gardner 1996). According to Spencer-Oatey (2009), there are two theoretical approaches to the study of identity that are particularly related to the study of face, namely, self-aspect/attribute approaches to identity (Simon 2004; Jones and McEwen 2000, among others) and self-presentation (Leary 1996; Schlenker and Pontari 2000; Schlenker 2003, among others). The Self-Aspect Model of Identity propounded by Simon (2004) postulates that self-concept comprises beliefs about one's own attributes or self-characteristics, including personality traits, abilities, physical features, behavioral characteristics, religious beliefs, social roles, language affiliation(s) and group memberships. As for self-presentation and impression management, they are defined by Schlenker and Pontari (2000) and Schlenker (2003) as the control of information about self and the goal-directed activity of controlling information to impinge upon an audience's impression of persons, groups, objects, ideas, and events. The interconnection between face and identity lies in the fact that cognitively they are parallel in terms of the notion of self-image comprising individual, relational, and collective perspectives; besides, both face and identity are constituted of multiple self-aspects or attributes (Spencer-Oatey 2007, 2009). Nevertheless, face is not equivalent to identity, in that it is only associated with attributes that are affectively sensitive to the claimant, including positively evaluated attributes that the claimant hopes others to acknowledge explicitly or implicitly, as well as negatively evaluated attributes that the claimant does not hope others to ascribe to them (Arundale 2006; Ruhi 2009).
4. Identity: Neologisms
[4.1] Fans employ fanquan (fan circle) neologisms in their in-group discussion so as to demonstrate their collective identity as their idols' devoted fans and to maintain and/or enhance rapport within their communities. For fans, their identity as a certain celebrity's admirers is a prominent attribute intertwined with their own face and self-image. A significant tool to maintain and strengthen fans' common identity is the use of fandom neologisms.
[4.2] Neologisms, defined as newly coined expressions or novel use of existing expressions, flood social media in PRC and play a robust role in the Chinese cyber lexicon. Neologisms are particularly abundant and ubiquitous in the field of fandom, and fanquan neologisms demonstrate salient characteristics such as semantic opaqueness and alienness. Fans deploy neologisms exclusive to the field of fandom so as to distinguish themselves from nonfans. Moreover, through inventing and sticking to neologisms exclusively belonging to their own fan bases, fans further strengthen their unique identity different from their counterparts doting on other stars.
[4.3] One property of fandom neologisms is semantic opaqueness, the functions of which, I assume, are to intentionally induce understanding mismatch and create distance from nonfans, thereby emphasizing the uniqueness of the collective identity. There is a large number of semantically opaque neologisms adopted by fans that involve metaphor, hyperbole, or abbreviation.
[4.4] First, fanquan neologisms of semantic opaqueness are often correlated with metaphor and can be further categorized into those involving playful metaphors and those involving visual metaphors. Playful metaphors can be divided into two types: one type is referred to as metaphor play or empty metaphor, which plays with sounds yet does not have semantic content; the other type involves playful creation of metaphors, and the playful irony is produced via counternormative unexpectedness (Ritchie and Dyhouse 2008). Both subcategories of playful metaphors can be found in neologisms in Chinese fan circles, with the latter being more prevalent. For instance, erduo huaiyi (ear's pregnant) is coined to playfully describe how enjoyable or sexy a male celebrity's song or voice is; bing (cake; pie) refers to endorsement, acting, entertainment shows, and so on that feed income and fame to celebrities. In terms of visual metaphors, they denote the comparison of a visually depicted object to another based on the visual context (El Refaie 2003; Goatly 2007; Feng and O'Halloran 2013; Feng 2019). An imagery-evoking example combining a fecundity of imagination and a richness of innovative humor/sarcasm is koujiao (to scratch one's own feet), which describes a celebrity with no or very few opportunities for public exposure: a person who stays at home scratching their feet is perceived to be jobless and bored, so the image is vividly used by fans to ridicule in a sarcastic way the idols of rival fan bases who are of limited resources. Another example is huagui (knee slide), which originally denotes (making) a football celebration movement, yet thanks to Chinese fans' innovation, this expression is borrowed into the fandom context and creatively functions as a verb indicating "to apologize swiftly"; this visual metaphor successfully evokes imagery, in that going down on both knees bears resemblance to the kowtow for forgiveness, and the expeditiousness of knee slides matches the promptness of the apology.
[4.5] Second, the semantic nontransparency of fandom neologisms can be realized by hyperbole. As a figure of speech marked by conspicuous exaggeration, hyperbole makes impossible or comparative absolute propositions and achieves the effect by ostensible contradictions (Stanivukovic 2007; McFadden 2012). For instance, baogan (to have one's liver exploded) means "to stay up (increasing idols' social media traffic)," in that according to traditional Chinese medicine, staying up late is detrimental to the human liver, so having an exploded liver is linked to staying up late for idols in an amusingly exaggerated way. A similar example is related to the character 苏 su (to wake up; perilla) that is used innovatively in fandom as an adjective describing male celebrities' charisma and thus the invention of an exaggerated expression su duan tui which means "the charisma breaks others' legs."
[4.6] Third, abbreviation also contributes to the semantic nontransparency of fandom neologisms. For example, an xiang ji is short for anjing de xiang ji (silent as a chicken), which describes low-key fans (note that this neologism is an exemplification of metaphor as well), and another example regarding abbreviation is dingliu that is short for dingji liuliang mingxing (top star.).
[4.7] The other property of fandom neologisms is alignness, predominantly realized by morphological processes such as loanword adaptation and employment of alphabetic words.
[4.8] The provenance of the vast majority of adapted loanwords in fandom is Japanese and English. Fandom in PRC is significantly impinged on by Japanese culture (Chen 2017), such as otaku subculture denoting obsession with animation, comics, and games (ACG) (Azuma 2009; Niu, Chiang, and Tsai 2012; Lin 2016) as well as yaoi (aka Boys' Love or BL) subculture featuring homoerotic relationships between male characters and targeted specifically at a female audience (Yang and Xu 2016, 2017a, 2017b, Wang 2019; Sun 2020). There are, consequently, Chinese neologisms adapted from Japanese culture, such as tong dan (common fan), yingyuan (to support), and so on. Additionally, there are examples concerning English loanword adaptation, such as aidou and fensi transliterated directly from the English words "idol" and "fans" respectively, as well as anti (rival fan) and hu (to become a has-been) which are phonetic loans from the English words "anti" and "to flop." It is worth mentioning that some English expressions are used directly by fans without adaptation, such as "to diss," as in diss sisheng fan (to diss a stan) and diss naocan fen (to diss an insane fan).
[4.9] Apart from loanword adaptation, fans also adopt alphabetic words to generate neologisms with the alignness feature. Alphabetic words denote fully or partially romanized Chinese words that may contain whole foreign morphemes, such as the internet neologism hold-zhu (to hang in there) derived from code-switching. Under some circumstances, alphabetic words may undergo folk-etymological reinterpretation of the original foreign expressions and be used in a different way, such as PK (to compete) originating from the football terminology "penalty kick" (Su and Wu 2013; Hou and Teng 2016; Ding et al. 2017; Huang and Liu 2017; Jing-Schmidt and Hsieh 2019). Typical alphabetic words invented in fan circles include da call (to support), ju gou (judging dog) (i.e. judging person), as well as KY, which in Japanese literally means "cannot read the air," that is, not knowing what is expected in a situation and hence behaving or speaking improperly.
[4.10] Moreover, coining and using neologisms specifically for their own circles can further differentiate cohorts from their counterparts who dote on other celebrities, thereby reinforcing their collective identity. Serving as the embodiment of fan bases' in-group identity, such neologisms are typically exemplified by invented nicknames related to idols' names. To highlight their identifies, fan bases tend to label themselves with nicknames containing a morpheme that is the homonym of the celebrity's given name. For example, tangyuan (sticky rice dumpling) is the nickname of a fan base whose idol's given name is Yuan, and hanbao (burger) is the nickname of a fan base whose idol's given name is Han. As can be seen, these nicknames are food items. According to Han (2011), Chinese online entertainment news frequently uses playful metaphors concerning food, resulting in a formation of a FANS ARE FOOD ITEMS metaphor at the conceptual level. The reason is that food metaphors transfer fans' affection for their idols into news writing, thereby establishing an emotional bond with readers. In line with Han's research, my observation also shows that when labelling themselves, fans normally find names of real-world objects, the vast majority of which are food items. I have also noticed that fans also use cute animals to represent their group identities, such as xiao pangxie (little crab) and xiao fei xia (little chubby shrimp) that might be based on names, hobbies, or gags related to the celebrities.
[4.11] Furthermore, in-group identity formation can be realized through distinctive forms of politeness that symbolically defy norms of deference yet in fact express polite meanings. In other words, unconventional and discursive strategies of politeness are used to define group members as a distinctive group. Such manifestations are similar to mock politeness, which is a politeness strategy with its impoliteness remaining on the surface (Brown and Levinson 1987; Culpeper 1996). In-group ethos manifests itself in in-group language use, especially in terms of mock politeness, thereby appealing to the addressee's face needs and simultaneously functioning as a form of self-representation. It is noteworthy that the choice of discursive register and politeness is not always intentional, and from a cognitive perspective, it is often an unconscious process (Mills 2003; Kádár 2010, 2013, 2019a, 2019b).
[4.12] An archetypical example concerning such unconventional mock politeness among fan groups is xiao biaobei, which is similar in pronunciation to xiao baobei (little baby). What is special about this neologism is that baobei (baby) is a popular way to intimately address each other among young women, yet in this context the first morpheme bao has been substituted by a character 婊 (slut) with a similar pronunciation, biao. As suggested by Jing-Schmidt and Peng (2018), biao is employed sociomorphologically in Chinese cyber lexicon as a gendered pejorative personal suffix to form derivatives such as xinji biao (cunning slut) and shengmu biao (holy-mother slut). I have also noticed expressions like bailian biao (white lotus slut) in fandom. Returning to xiao biaobei, it is not used in a sarcastic or insulting manner but to convey one's closeness to other fan girls in a joking way, as in example 1. Note that anli in example 1 is an internet neologism: as the name of an American multilevel marketing company, it is recently used as a verb to depict the way salespeople promote their products and later the act of promoting or hyping in general. Anli is an example of verbification; although "to anli" and "to google" are parallel in terms of their verbifying process, the former is limited to an internet context, contrary to the latter that has entered the mainstream lexicon. When brought into fandom, anli also entails narrowing of meaning: in fan circles, anli exclusively denotes hyping idols' songs, films, entertainment shows, and so on, which, in a sense, narrows down its generic meaning of promoting anything or anybody.
[4.13] (Example 1) Xiao biaobei men, gei dajia anli ge shipin, ganggang jianji wan, xinxianchulu!
little baby PL to everyone promote CL video just edit finish freshly.produced
"Babies, I'm promoting a video to everyone; I just finished editing, and it's freshly-produced!"
5. Identity: Speaker self-referring terms
[5.1] There are three types of speaker self-referring terms that are frequently deployed in fandom, namely, self-denigrating terms, modesty-featuring terms, and kinship terms. These speaker self-referring terms show politeness, give face to idols, and enhance rapport between idols and fan bases.
[5.2] First, self-denigrating terms, as a subcategory of frequently used formulaic nondeictic speaker self-referring forms, entail the denigration or depreciation of oneself, conveying normative politeness or technically something like a societal metamessage, in that self-denigration is a tool to express politeness in Chinese (Gu 1990, 1992; Kádár 2007, 24, 2019a, 2019b; Chen 2013). For instance, admirers refer to themselves as stars' (ben) zhui xing gou ([this; myself] star-chasing dog), and those who adore stars' looks in particular call themselves (ben) yan gou ([this; myself] face dog). The employment of such self-denigrating speaker self-referring terms embodies the influence of communication exerted by inequality of fandom structures. To be more specific, self-denigrating speaker self-referring terms reflect fans' awareness and public acknowledgement of their inferior position in the fandom hierarchy and the nobility of their idols. An archetypal paradigm recognizing idols' superiority is su shen ze shi (god of charisma illuminates the world), which is used to glorify and worship a pop star by his admirers.
[5.3] Second, as a type of frequently used nondeictic speaker self-referring forms, modesty-featuring terms denote linguistic forms that are used by speakers to show modesty, by means of lowering their own position so as to yield a sense of superiority to the addressees. Owing to the involved deference and anticipation, speaker self-referring forms can help to construct a socially approved image of politeness, though their use is not absolutely normative or highly strategic, as they are not compulsory and their absence does not indicate socially defined rudeness (Haugh 2003; Chen 2013). In Chinese fandom, fans have coined or borrowed a variety of speaker self-referring forms with modesty features. For instance, fan girls refer to themselves as shuju nvgong, which literally means "data workwoman" with "data" denoting celebrities' charts, media, and content traffic. This expression is used by fan girls as a self-ridicule depicting their identity as free labor to generate or fabricate data and semantic information so as to increase their idols' popularity. A derived neologism is tutou nvgong (bald workwoman), which is somehow related to baogan mentioned earlier, as working hard and late is believed to be a cause of hair loss. Fans also use fanquan shechu (fan circle slave) as a speaker self-referring form to express modesty; in this neologism, shechu (corporate slave) is borrowed from Japanese to denote bottom staff and its literal meaning is "corporate's livestock."
[5.4] Third, another nondeictic category of speaker self-referring forms pertains to kinship relationships between addressers and addressees. The use of kinship expressions exhibits politeness, in that they convey a sense of familiarity: kinship in Chinese culture has binding power, in that people in a lower familial position are supposed to venerate and obey those in higher positions, and senior family members have control over junior ones (Chen 2013). In Chinese fandom, it is widespread to call young male stars gege (elder brother), as shown in statements in examples 2, 3, and 4, yet fans are not necessarily younger than the idols.
[5.5] (Example 2) Bei gege shili quan fen le.
PASS elder.brother strength attract fan ASP
"I was irresistibly made a fan by elder brother (you)."
(Example 3) Yi ren xueshu qiu gege chu xiezhen ji.
1 person blood.letter beg elder.brother release photo album
"I'm sending a message written with my blood to beg elder brother (you) to release photo albums."
(Example 4) Hao xiang bei gege fan paizi.
so want PASS elder.brother flip plaque
"I want elder brother (you) to pick my comment so much."
[5.6] Elder brother, as a kinship title with interactional functions, serves to establish emotional affinity between interactants and define social identities within fandom. xueshu (letter written with blood) in example 3 is an amusing way to exaggerate one's eagerness and determination, and it is used in combination with qiu (to beg) to convey the speaker/writer's face-giving practice. It is worth mentioning that fan paizi in example 4 additionally pertains to social hierarchy in premodern China. Fan paizi literarily means "to flip over a plaque" yet it actually means "to be bedded by the emperor," as in ancient China, the emperor chose a concubine for the night by flipping over one of the plaques with her name on it. This playful expression compares the relation between idols and fans to that between an emperor and his countless humble concubines in an imperial context, thereby implying the addresser's intended politeness. Interestingly, such a hierarchy between idols and fans may seem to be reversed, as reflected by some coined or borrowed neologisms: fan girls use qinma fen (biological mother fan) and lao muqin (old mother) to metaphorically describe themselves as mothers who occupy a higher familial position. Nevertheless, these seemingly rude speaker self-referring forms are not to insult idols but endeavor to declare fan girls' devotion and willing sacrifice in that a mother, as a senior family member, is supposed to fulfill the obligation to protect and take care of her son—the idol—who occupies a lower position.
6. Syntactic strategies: Epistemic stance marker
[6.1] When expressing politeness and maintaining and/or enhancing rapport with fellow fans, fan circle members deploy syntactic strategies by resorting to epistemic stance markers and incomplete turns.
[6.2] According to Li (2008, 2009, 2010, 2019), discourse markers such as ma and "you see" and the indexical shift can be employed to construct an expected identity. When Mandarin-speaking conversation participants position themselves in consideration of their interlocutors, they employ wo juede to invite joint assessment (Lim 2009) or to mark their epistemic stance that denotes speakers' indication of their own positioning regarding what they are saying, with respect to how they form the idea or how committed they are concerning the factuality of the idea they are imparting. Wo juede, comparable with I think in English conversation in respect of its invincibly high frequency, is the most frequently attested epistemic stance marker in Mandarin conversation (other common epistemic verbs include zhidao, kan, xiang, and jide), and hence is becoming grammaticalized (Huang 2003). Being employed to modulate social relations with interlocutors, wo juede exhibits distinct functions in various positions of the conversation sequence. To be more specific, wo juede: (1) mitigates conflict at the beginning of a turn, prefacing disagreement or introducing an opinion/new perspective; (2) distances self from own claim in the middle of a turn; and (3) marks closure and solicits response at the end of a turn, introducing conclusion, soliciting agreement, or reclosing a turn after a pause (Goodwin 2007; Endo 2013).
[6.3] The functions of wo juede in turn-initial/medial/final positions can be illustrated by examples 5, 6, and 7 respectively, and these statements are extracted from discussions between fan members of the same communities. In example 5, the statement is made by a fan girl to persuade her cofollower not to lacai (to drag and stamp with feet) (to anathematise) other rival celebrities while advocating their idol. In this situation, the speaker/writer does not neglect the rapport between herself and her cofan. On the contrary, in order not to challenge the rapport owing to the disagreement she is going to express, the speaker/writer resorts to a turn-initial wo juede that can mitigate the potential conflict; additionally, she adds an expression haishi (better still) to further soften the tone. It is equally reasonable to assume that wo juede in example 5 is used to introduce a new perspective or opinion. In this context, it can be risky to introduce a new perspective or opinion, as it is obviously contrastive to that of the previous speaker/writer, so this new perspective or opinion might be face threatening. As a consequence, wo juede has been included to mitigate a possible conflict, and hence to maintain the rapport.
[6.4] (Example 5) Wo juede haishi buyao sibi ba, hui gei gege zhao hei.
I think better.still do.not troll BA will give elder.brother attract attack
"I think we'd better still don't troll; it'll bring attacks to our elder brother."
[6.5] Example 6 contains wo juede occurring in the middle of a turn, distancing the speaker/writer from her own claim. This statement is made when a celebrity is criticized for using bad language in his Weibo posts yet his fans attempt to kongping (empty bottle)—a homophone of kongping (to control comments)—and the statement in example 6 is a comment from a rational fan girl in reply to a post blindly defending their idol with aggressive language. In order not to challenge the rapport with her fellow fan girl, the speaker/writer chooses to frame her opinion with wo juede, so that her suggestion is presented not as an objective fact or an order others must follow but as her personal view that sounds milder. In example 6, the fan neologism bi mai (to turn off the microphone) is a metaphor vividly describing the act of keeping silent or low-profile, and it is often used with another neologism tang ping ren chao (to lie down flat and bear mockery).
[6.6] (Example 6) Mei shenme ke shuo de, qishi wo juede xianzai zuihao dou bi mai.
no what can say DE in fact I think now best all turn.off microphone
"There's nothing to say; in fact, I think now we'd best all keep silent."
[6.7] It is noteworthy that in example 6, in addition to wo juede, an epistemic stance marker qishi is adopted as well. Qishi (actually) and its synonym shishishang (in fact) are commonly used to indicate a contrastive relationship between two propositions or between an utterance and its prior discourse (Traugott and Dasher 2002). Qishi and shishishang are irrelevant to emotive expressivity but indicate the speaker's epistemic inference and offer a rhetorical strategy for expressing the speaker's attitudinal position. In interaction, qishi is addressee-oriented and signals alignment (agreement) or divergence (disagreement), yet shishishang is message-oriented and asserts a proposition with a tone of certainty (Wang et al. 2011). As discourse markers expressing epistemic modality, qishi and shishishang in general could be regarded as signals guiding hearers toward particular interpretations intended by speakers, and their specific pragmatic functions include correcting, informing, and shifting topics. Qishi and shishishang, especially the former, are intersubjective, in that they serve a double function of specifying the rhetorical strategy and indicating concern for addressees' face simultaneously (Wang, Tsai, and Wang 2010). Significantly, when a face-threatening discongruity of expectation arises, qishi and shishishang can help redress face damage by means of signaling disagreement or a violation of expectation: they allow the listener to realize that there is a mismatch between the understanding of current relevance from the speaker and the listener and hence indirectly make reference to a norm (Sperber and Wilson 1996; Wang et al. 2011).
[6.8] In terms of turn-final wo juede, it can be exemplified by example 7 where this epistemic stance marker is employed to introduce a conclusion. The statement is made in a context when a celebrity's dirt is dug out and some fans do not (want to) believe other cofans' clarification and even threaten to tuofen (to stop idolizing), and example 7 is made by a fan girl to persuade such a fan not to be bolixin (glass-hearted), that is, over-sensitive. The speaker/writer marks the closure of the turn by making a conclusive remark ended with wo juede showing that the topic has been completed. Apart from bolixin, there are two more internet neologisms in this statement: heizi and duck bu bi. The verb hei, originally a noun/adjective "black," is widely adopted in fandom to describe the act of attacking celebrities; hei is used as the antonym of fen (fan; to be a fan of), because fen literally means "pink" while the black color is its opposite (Chen 2017). In heizi, the morpheme zi is a suffix nominalizing the verb. The other neologism, duck bu bi, is an alphabetic word with a part romanized into an English word. The original expression da ke bu bi is a fixed idiom, and because the two morphemes in the middle, da and ke, sound like the English word "duck," these two morphemes are substituted, rendering the neologism duck bu bi derived from code-switching.
[6.9] (Example 7) Zhiqian heizi hai shao ma? Yaoshi zhe jiu bolixin le, ni dakebubi wo juede.
before smear.campaigner still few MA if this just glass-hearted ASP you really.no.need I think
"Weren't there enough smear campaigners we've seen before? If you get over-sensitive just because of this, you really don't have to, I think."
7. Syntactic strategies: Incomplete turn
[7.1] When performing socially and interactionally improper acts, speakers may display their sensitivity to the inappropriateness and resort to syntactically incomplete turns as a strategy to put the negative assessment on record without being held accountable for verbalizing it, namely, to leave expressions of negative assessment unproduced. By means of leaving their turns syntactically unfinished, speakers can avoid overtly threatening their interlocutors' face (Li 2016).
[7.2] For instance, the statement in example 8 is made in the same situation as in example 7: after a fan girl expresses her heartbreak and disappointment about her idol's affair, another fan girl endeavors to convince her but fails, so the latter expresses her speechlessness. As can be seen from example 8, the speaker/writer takes her interlocutor's face into consideration and stops her sentence, without finishing it with adjectives more emotional than "speechless" or any other negative assessment. As a consequence, this incomplete turn shows politeness and preserves the listener/reader's face, without challenging her rapport with the speaker/writer.
[7.3] (Example 8) Wujibayu, zhen shi…
speechless really is
"I'm speechless; this is really…"
[7.4] It is worth mentioning that the fandom neologism wu ji ba yu contains a sexually vulgar infix-like word jiba, a slang expression for the male reproductive organ, which is inserted into phrases for emphasis. A number of neologisms contain this infix-like noun, but due to its offensiveness, it is normally written as an acronym of Pinyin (the official romanization system for Chinese adopted in Mainland China), jb. In this phrase, this infix-like noun is inserted into wuyu (speechless) that is constituted of a preposition wu (without) and a noun yu (speech), generating wu jiba yu, which is a homophone for wuji bayu (silkie and mackerel).
[7.5] Cross-culturally and cross-linguistically, circumlocutionary expressions are employed to substitute those construed to be offensive or abysmal (Andersson and Trudgill 1990; Allan and Burridge 2006). Among controversial topics prone to trigger embarrassment, the subject of sex is the most fertile breeding ground for euphemistic substitutes regarding sexual behaviors, as well as associated body parts and clothing in direct contact with these body parts (Rawson 1981; Allan and Burridge 1991; Linfoot-Ham 2005). In addition to lexical euphemism, the other subcategory of euphemism is syntactic euphemism in which the whole sentence is formulated by expressions with no or few negative connotations, often for self-exculpatory purposes (Nash 1995; Burkhardt 2010; Sze, Wei, and Wong 2017).
[7.6] Another example pertaining to both incomplete turns and sex-related metaphors is sibi meaning "to troll" or "trolling; catfight" as mentioned in example 5. In this neologism, the second morpheme is a euphemistic substitute of its homophone bi that is a slang expression for the female reproductive organ, and the first morpheme literally means "to tear," so the whole word literally means "to tear pussies." As can be seen, the neologism is a lexical euphemism, and to further strengthen the euphemistic effect, bi can be substituted with the English letter "b" that is of the same pronunciation, deriving si b. To further reduce the rudeness implied by sibi or si b, the speaker/writer may choose not to finish the turn and only pronounce si, as in example 9 below. In this statement, litao, a frequently used fandom neologism appealing for rational discussions, is a homophone of litao that is short for lixing taolun (to rationally discuss), yet the characters 理讨 are substituted by 李涛 in a playful manner, as the latter forms a common Chinese name. Similarly, renshen gongji is a homophone of renshengongji (to assault) used playfully on the insert, which means "ginseng and cock."
[7.7] (Example 9) Dajia litao ya, buyao renshengongji, buyao si…
everybody rationally.discuss YA, do.not assault do.not tease
"Everybody let's discuss rationally, and don't make assaults or trolling…"
[7.8] In contrast to incomplete turns that are socially and interactionally appropriate, when a negative assessment has been produced in a complete turn, speakers end up threatening their interactants' face and damaging the rapport between them. Take the situation in which examples 7 and 8 occur; the statement in example 10 is added by another loyal fan with less patience, when she sees the speakers/writers in examples 7 and 8 fail to persuade their interlocutor, the hesitant fan. In example 10, the speaker/writer bluntly exhibits her dissatisfaction with the fan who seems to be "deaf and blind" to her, in that the fan turns a blind eye to other fans' clarification of their idol's scandal. In the statement, the speaker/writer employs heavy sarcasm: by claiming that she admires the listener/reader, she actually means the opposite; additionally, she emphasizes the degree of her sarcasm with the expression "to death." Moreover, the speaker/writer further challenges her interlocutor's face by addressing her with an insulting fandom neologism, xiao longxia (little lobster; crayfish), which contains longxia (lobster) as a homophone of long xia (deaf and blind).
[7.9] (Example 10) Zhen shi fusi zanmen fan quan de xiaolongxia le, jiran bu xiangxin gege, jiu tuofen ba!
really is admire.to.death fan circle DE crayfish ASP since not trust elder.brother then stop.idolising BA
"I really admire the deaf and blind fans to death; since you don't trust our elder brother, then stop idolising!"
8. Conclusion
[8.1] Consideration and acts regarding face and politeness are ubiquitous in fandom in PRC, predominantly exemplified by posts and comments on the social media platform Weibo. Owing to the prevailing fandom culture, fanquan generates a considerable number of fan discussions and idol-fan interaction with attempts at giving face, showing politeness, and maintaining and/or enhancing rapport. When engaged in online conversation interaction with idols, fans deploy speaker self-referring terms, including self-denigrating terms, modesty-featuring terms, and kinship terms: via denigration and/or depreciation of oneself, demonstration of modesty, and employment of familial titles, fans manage to convey normative politeness, yield a sense of superiority to the addressee, and convey a sense of familiarity.
[8.2] In the context of Chinese fandom, compared with idol-fan interaction, in-group discussions among fan circle members are more common. When interacting with cofans in the same fan base, participants emphasize their shared identity, thereby maintaining or enhancing the rapport with the interlocutors. By means of using fandom neologisms, fan group members exhibit their collective identity as fans, which is closely related to their own face and self-presentation. To further reinforce their identity as fans of a certain celebrity, fans coin neologisms exclusively for their own fan base, which differentiates them from counterparts doting on other celebrities. Moreover, unconventional and discursive strategies of politeness similar to mock politeness may also be adopted as a significant tool to strengthen collective identity and internal rapport. In terms of syntactic strategies, fans employ the epistemic stance markers qishi and wo jude in different positions of a turn. Additionally, leaving expressions of negative assessment unproduced, namely, resorting to incomplete turns, is also a strategy to protect interactants' face.
[8.3] In future research, I would like to further investigate Chinese fandom and its multifaceted elements, focusing on interaction displaying rapport neglect and rapport challenge in particular. Another interesting point is concerning the employment of epistemic stance markers wo juede (I think) and qishi (actually) in fandom: whether they are used in the same way in fandom and in other nonfandom contexts, and whether their use is more frequent under special circumstances such as when fans are trying to kongping (to control comments). These questions could be further explored in future research.