“Chinese Internet Vernacular,” a complex of novel language varieties associated with the Chinese internet, is usually thought to consist of an increasing host of linguistic memes currently or once virally spread. Focusing on the vernacular’s most prominent character—meaning change, this book attempts to account for the different dimensions and aspects that contribute to the memes’ meaning and function variations, based on the quantitative and qualitative data meticulously collected by following and recording the various memes’ diffusions on Chinese social media over four years. Through the discussion of four comprehensive case studies, what we experience as noticeable meaning change throughout a viral meme’s diffusion may in fact be indexical to, under different circumstances, interpersonal communicative effects, collective identities, and community affiliations, as well as larger sociocultural values and ideologies, all of which can be reflexively performed, enacted, and calibrated in social media interactions. With such efforts, this book hopes to do justice to the complexities and dynamics of the “Chinese Internet Vernacular” as a holistic sociolinguistic phenomenon.

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Content
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Introduction
  • 1.1 Chinese internet vernacular
  • 1.2 Structure of the book
• Chapter 2 Methodological Preliminaries
  • 2.1 Rationale
  • 2.2 Critical issues
  • 2.3 Summary of data
• Chapter 3 Meaning change in CIV neologisms: The case of three ‘very X very XX’ phrases
  • 3.1 It all starts with
  • 3.2 The three phrases
  • 3.3 Research questions
  • 3.4 Description of the collected data
  • 3.5 Analysis
    • 3.5.1 Rhetorical use
    • 3.5.2 Expanded use as meta-utterance
  • 3.6 Discussion
    • 3.6.1 Elevated subjectivity in CIV neologism
    • 3.6.2 Pragmatic orientation and expanded use
    • 3.6.3 Possible subjectification and pragmatic change?
  • 3.7 Concluding remarks
• Chapter 4 Meaning change in virality and viral diffusion as meaning- making: The case of ‘duang’
  • 4.1 Introduction
    • 4.1.1 Overview of ‘duang’s’ virality
    • 4.1.2 Preliminary observations
    • 4.1.3 The data
  • 4.2 ‘Duang’s’ meaning variation as a viral meme
    • 4.2.1 Categorization and coding scheme
    • 4.2.2 Tentative framework of meaning variation
    • 4.2.3 Illustration of the categories
    • 4.2.4 Meaning variations
  • 4.3 ‘Duang’s’ variations throughout virality
    • 4.3.1 Initial period (February 20-23)
    • 4.3.2 Pre-peak period (February 24-25)
    • 4.3.3 Viral peak (February 26-March 1)
    • 4.3.4 Post-peak period (March 2 onwards)
    • 4.3.5 Distributions and conventionalization
    • 4.3.6 More observations about post-viral ‘duang’
  • 4.4 Communities in virality
    • 4.4.1 In-group diffusion
    • 4.4.2 ‘Boundary-crossing’ nodes
    • 4.4.3 Out-spread of the meme
  • 4.5 Virality of ‘duang’ as meaning-making processes
    • 4.5.1 Collective negotiation of meaning
    • 4.5.2 Meaning transformation in interaction
  • 4.6 Concluding remarks
• Chapter 5 Enregisterment of an innovated phrase: Languaging and identities of Chinese fans of Thai TV .128
  • 5.1 Introduction
    • 5.1.1 Fandom of Thai TV in China
    • 5.1.2 Sites of fandom
    • 5.1.3 The ‘fuxiang’ (‘rotten’) genre
    • 5.1.4 The Thai TV series
    • 5.1.5 Languaging and enregisterment
  • 5.2 Methods and research questions
    • 5.2.1 Online participatory observation
    • 5.2.2 The innovation of ‘chesaika’
  • 5.3 Languaging around the innovated phrase
    • 5.3.1 Linguistic components
    • 5.3.2 Pragmatic functions
    • 5.3.3 Sociolinguistic status
    • 5.3.4 Contestation on languaging
  • 5.4 ‘Chesaika’ as a social voice
  • 5.5 ‘Chesaika’ as a group marker
  • 5.6 Concluding remarks
• Chapter 6 Chinese Internet vernacular (re)defined
  • 6.1 Introduction
    • 6.1.1 Internet vernacular, memes, and online culture
    • 6.1.2 Between ‘internet’, ‘standard’ and ‘popular’
    • 6.1.3 Relationship with the ‘mainstream’
    • 6.1.4 Using CIV as reflexive social processes
  • 6.2 Methods and data
    • 6.2.1 Online data
    • 6.2.2 Offline data
  • 6.3 Construction of the value-boundary: The case of vulgar
    • 6.3.1 Irreconcilable disagreement
    • 6.3.2 Self-valorization
    • 6.3.3 Trope of personae
  • 6.4 Negotiation of baselines: The case of deficient
    • 6.4.1 Clashes of orientations
    • 6.4.2 Differential invocations of baselines
  • 6.5 Performance and interactional microspaces: The case of memes
    • 6.5.1 Meme practice as nexus of rapport
    • 6.5.2 ‘Stop doujiling’: Negotiation of power relations
  • 6.6 Endless spinning of reflexivity: The case of sarcastic
    • 6.6.1 HRYTC in use
    • 6.6.2 Indexical values of HRYTC
    • 6.6.3 2nd-order indexicality: Playful resistance and subversion
    • 6.6.4 3rd-order indexicality: In-group marker
    • 6.6.5 Endless spinning
  • 6.7 Concluding remarks
• Chapter 7 Conclusion
  • 7.1 Locating the flows
  • 7.2 Following the flows
  • 7.3 Zooming in on the flows
  • 7.4 Looking over the flows
  • 7.5 Theoretical highlights
    • 7.5.1 On virality
    • 7.5.2 On communities and online sociation
    • 7.5.3 On reflexivity
• 7.6 Payoff of the Remix Approach
• References
• Appendices