Countering COVID-19-Related Anti-Chinese Racism with Translanguaged Swearing on Social Media

Autor/in	Zhu, Hongqiang
Titel	Countering COVID-19-Related Anti-Chinese Racism with Translanguaged Swearing on Social Media
Quelle	In: Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication, 39 (2020) 5, S.607-616 (10 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0167-8507
DOI	10.1515/multi-2020-0093
Schlagwörter	Prevention; Racial Bias; Language Usage; Chinese; COVID-19; Social Media; English; Translation; Sociolinguistics; Language Dominance; Resistance (Psychology) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Prävention; Vorbeugung; Racial discrimination; Rassismus; Sprachgebrauch; China; Chinesen; Soziale Medien; English language; Englisch; Soziolinguistik; Sprachliche Dominanz; Resistenz
Abstract	The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a spectacular rise in social media communication and an unprecedented avalanche of global conversation. This paper traces the emergence of the racist term "Chinese virus" used by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, on the Western social media platform Twitter and its reception and recontextualization on Chinese social media. Creative bilingual responses fusing English and Chinese resulted in a popular searchable meme "#[foreign characters omitted]#" ("#Chinglish used for cross-cultural communication#"), on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. Such linguistic creativity involves a variation of swears to mock and condemn the racist phrase. Formally, linguistic practices such as self-coinage, transliteration, verbal repetition, and acronyms can be observed. Functionally, the recontexualizations evidence a defensive ideology linked to nationalism and modernism. Ultimately, combatting the English racist term "Chinese virus" with a creative mixture of English and Chinese demonstrates how English has become ever more decentered during the COVID-19 pandemic. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01