“Zhuge Kongming becomes reborn as a clownish partygoer!”: Linguistic carnivalization, critical metapragmatics of danmu, and mediatized neoliberal (inter)subjectivity

IF 2.3 2区 文学 Q1 COMMUNICATION
Zhixin Liu
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Abstract

The Chinese video-sharing platform of bilibili experiences a ‘Kongming fever’, wherein danmu commenters collectively parodize the historical figure Zhuge Kongming, a pre-existing indexical of Confucianist value beliefs institutionalized by the official authority. Drawing upon Bakhtinian carnivalesque (‘free and familiar contact’ and ‘parodic profanation’), the present study proposes the analytical framework of ‘linguistic carnivalization’ as a critical metapragmatic approach (i.e., subjectivity-oriented). The multimodal analysis of danmu comments reveals how digital users appropriate multiple semiotic resources to construct carnivalesque, including vulgar linguistic varieties from media culture, netspeak genre, poetic patterns of textual repetition, and inversive sign vehicles and rescripting. As a discursive-affective effect of such carnivalization processes, Kongming’s ‘serious’ Confucianist personae and indexed ideological expectations become playfully mediatized, profaned, and transformed into new images of personhood (‘livestreaming microcelebrity’ and ‘hedonic partygoer’) according to mass popular culture. In so doing, the Chinese netizens metapragmatically negotiate existing sociocultural hierarchies and reposition themselves as neoliberal subjects. This paper further suggests that the ‘inside-out’ and ‘down-to-earth’ power of linguistic carnivalization does not simply reside in creating aesthetic humor within a local cybercommunity, but importantly owns critical implications for illuminating variegated forms of neoliberal discourse and (re)production of neoliberal subjectivity under large-scale political economic conditions.

"诸葛孔明转世为小丑!":语言狂欢化、丹青的批判元语用学和媒介化的新自由主义(主体间性)。
在中国的 bilibili 视频分享平台上,出现了一股 "孔明热",在这股 "孔明热 "中,评论者们集体戏仿历史人物诸葛孔明,而诸葛孔明是官方权威制度化的儒家价值信仰的先在指标。本研究借鉴巴赫金式的狂欢("自由而熟悉的接触 "和 "戏仿亵渎"),提出了 "语言狂欢化 "的分析框架,作为一种批判性的元语用学方法(即主观性导向)。通过对丹木评论的多模态分析,我们可以发现数字用户是如何利用多种符号资源来构建狂欢化的,其中包括媒体文化中的粗俗语言变体、网络语言体裁、文本重复的诗意模式以及反转符号载体和重写。作为这种狂欢化过程的话语-情感效应,孔明 "严肃 "的儒家人格和索引化的意识形态期待被游戏化、亵渎化,并根据大众流行文化转化为新的人格形象("直播微名人 "和 "享乐主义派对狂")。在此过程中,中国网民对现有的社会文化等级进行了形而上的协商,并将自己重新定位为新自由主义主体。本文进一步指出,语言狂欢化的 "由内而外 "和 "脚踏实地 "的力量不仅在于在本地网络社区中创造审美幽默,更重要的是,它对于揭示大规模政治经济条件下新自由主义话语的各种形式和新自由主义主体性的(再)生产具有重要意义。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Discourse Context & Media
Discourse Context & Media COMMUNICATION-
CiteScore
5.00
自引率
10.00%
发文量
46
审稿时长
55 days
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