{"title":"‘Please don’t insult Dog. He is a loyal friend!’ The use of animal metaphors for evaluation and positioning on a Chinese Political Web Forum","authors":"Long Li, Shoshana Dreyfus","doi":"10.1177/09579265231202619","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study focuses on how animal metaphors are deployed by Chinese social media users to evaluate others and negotiate social positioning in online grassroots political discourse. Animal metaphors are important devices for expressing judgement of human behaviour. This is due, first, to perceived similarities and differences between humans and (other) animals and, second, due to the ‘Great Chain’ idea of human superiority and dominance over animals. Animal metaphors are commonly deployed in communication that is interpersonally volatile, such as on social media, regardless of what language this occurs in. Through an analysis of the interpersonal systems of appraisal and involvement, we found that contributors often adopt highly charged animal metaphors to negatively evaluate each other and to create and maintain a left-right political division.","PeriodicalId":47965,"journal":{"name":"Discourse & Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Discourse & Society","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09579265231202619","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study focuses on how animal metaphors are deployed by Chinese social media users to evaluate others and negotiate social positioning in online grassroots political discourse. Animal metaphors are important devices for expressing judgement of human behaviour. This is due, first, to perceived similarities and differences between humans and (other) animals and, second, due to the ‘Great Chain’ idea of human superiority and dominance over animals. Animal metaphors are commonly deployed in communication that is interpersonally volatile, such as on social media, regardless of what language this occurs in. Through an analysis of the interpersonal systems of appraisal and involvement, we found that contributors often adopt highly charged animal metaphors to negatively evaluate each other and to create and maintain a left-right political division.
期刊介绍:
Discourse & Society is a multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal whose major aim is to publish outstanding research at the boundaries of discourse analysis and the social sciences. It focuses on explicit theory formation and analysis of the relationships between the structures of text, talk, language use, verbal interaction or communication, on the one hand, and societal, political or cultural micro- and macrostructures and cognitive social representations, on the other hand. That is, D&S studies society through discourse and discourse through an analysis of its socio-political and cultural functions or implications. Its contributions are based on advanced theory formation and methodologies of several disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.