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Performing microcelebrity: Analyzing Papi Jiang's online persona through stance and style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2022

Csilla Weninger Open the ORCID record for Csilla Weninger [Opens in a new window]  and
Danyun Li
Csilla Weninger*
Affiliation:
Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Danyun Li
Affiliation:
Sichuan International Studies University, Chongqing, China
*
Address for correspondence: Csilla Weninger, Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education, Singapore, 1 Nanyang Walk, 637616 [email protected]
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Abstract

Contemporary digital media is characterized by a cultural logic of participation that encourages sharing, confession, phatic communication, and an emphasis on the visual. In this techno-cultural milieu, self-presentation has become a key mode of communication, and has enabled ordinary individuals to attain a measure of celebrity status. A key component of being a microcelebrity entails developing a consistent persona that is recognizable and unique. How such persona can be studied from the sociolinguistic perspective of stance and style is the focus of this article. We combined corpus linguistic and qualitative discourse analytic methods to examine a small corpus of videos produced by Chinese online celebrity, Papi Jiang. The article presents key lexico-grammatical, discourse-level, and non-linguistic resources that are analyzed as stance markers that together contribute to Papi's intense, critical-satirical performative style. The significance of the findings is discussed in relation to performance, performativity, and critique in digital media. (Persona, microcelebrity, style, performance, stance)*

Type
Article
Information
Language in Society , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 2023 , pp. 263 - 294
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

*

We would like to express our gratitude to Chen Yixiong for reading through an earlier version of this article and helping us fine tune our points on Chinese grammar. We also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and encouragement.

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