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Self-Denigration in 21st Century Chinese

  • Dániel Z. Kádár is Chair Professor and Director of the Centre for Pragmatic Research at the Dalian University of Foreign Languages. He is also Research Professor and Director of Research Centre at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

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    Zhou Ling is Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University. Her main research area is intercultural pragmatics, with a special focus on face and (im)politeness.
Published/Copyright: July 8, 2020
Journal of Politeness Research
From the journal Journal of Politeness Research Volume 17 Issue 2

Abstract

The present paper aims to explore the characteristics of the self-denigration phenomenon in present-day Chinese, hence revisiting a key Chinese linguacultural phenomenon from a contemporary angle. We investigate the following understudied phenomenon: Self-denigration has changed together with Chinese interpersonal language use and interactional technologies, and is currently being used in remarkably innovative ways, in particular in the domain of online interactions. While various historical self-denigrating forms have remained in use, significantly more newly invented ones have gained popularity. We argue that the cluster of self-denigrating forms used in present-day Chinese can fulfil a variety of sociopragmatic functions. Some of these functions - such as showing off - paradoxically contradict with the conventional understanding of self-denigration as a ceremonial form of deference behaviour expressing modesty. Our investigation is based on data drawn from computer-mediated communication (CMC), as well as semi-structured interviews.

Keywords: self-denigration; CMC; sociopragmatic functions; present-day Chinese

About the authors

Dániel Z. Kádár

Dániel Z. Kádár is Chair Professor and Director of the Centre for Pragmatic Research at the Dalian University of Foreign Languages. He is also Research Professor and Director of Research Centre at the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Ling Zhou

Zhou Ling is Professor at the School of Foreign Languages, Northeast Normal University. Her main research area is intercultural pragmatics, with a special focus on face and (im)politeness.

Acknowledgements

The first author’s research time was supported by the grant (16BYY179) of the National Funds for Social Sciences, “A corpus-based semantics-pragmatics interface study of mianzi and lian in their conceptual representations”. The corresponding author’s involvement in the project has been sponsored by the Dalian University of Foreign Languages and the MTA Momentum (Lendület) Research Grant of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (LP2017-5).

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Received: 2018-09-21
Accepted: 2019-04-12
Published Online: 2020-07-08
Published in Print: 2021-07-27

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Relational work in dispute: Negotiating norms, negotiating relationships
  4. Non-native EFL teachers’ email production and perceptions of e-(im)politeness
  5. Rejecting consumer complaints in customer encounters on Twitter - the case of English and Polish brand communication
  6. Disagreement among Arabic speakers in faceless computer-mediated communication
  7. Self-Denigration in 21st Century Chinese
  8. From silence to positive self-presentation: gradual emergence of negative face wants in Kǒngguīzú’s (恐归族) intergenerational conflicts with their family elders
  9. Book Review
  10. Chen, Xinren (ed.). 2017. Politeness phenomena across Chinese genres. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing Ltd, Hardback ISBN 978-1-78179-176-9; 291 pp. Price: Hb GBP £75.
https://doi.org/10.1515/pr-2018-0043
Keywords for this article
self-denigration; CMC; sociopragmatic functions; present-day Chinese

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Relational work in dispute: Negotiating norms, negotiating relationships
  4. Non-native EFL teachers’ email production and perceptions of e-(im)politeness
  5. Rejecting consumer complaints in customer encounters on Twitter - the case of English and Polish brand communication
  6. Disagreement among Arabic speakers in faceless computer-mediated communication
  7. Self-Denigration in 21st Century Chinese
  8. From silence to positive self-presentation: gradual emergence of negative face wants in Kǒngguīzú’s (恐归族) intergenerational conflicts with their family elders
  9. Book Review
  10. Chen, Xinren (ed.). 2017. Politeness phenomena across Chinese genres. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing Ltd, Hardback ISBN 978-1-78179-176-9; 291 pp. Price: Hb GBP £75.
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