{"title":"Ta as an emergent language practice of audience design in CMC","authors":"Kerry Sluchinski","doi":"10.1075/ni.21049.slu","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n This study examines the use of ungendered third person Chinese pronoun ta in digital first-and-third\n person voiced discourses (i.e. small stories). The study asks what implications the script choice ta, as opposed to\n gendered 他 ta ‘he’ and 她 ta ‘she’, has for audience design and the facilitation\n of character empathy. The study draws on 131 digital texts from celebrity verified accounts on social media platform Sina Weibo in October\n 2015. From a Discourse Analytical perspective focused on deixis relative to the notion of empathy in storytelling, the study investigates\n emergent practices which involve the orthographic manipulation of gender. The study proposes that ta is an interpersonal\n resource whose deictic properties as a non-standard spelling are exploited as a property of audience design to facilitate an appeal to\n empathy. This facilitation is advanced by the script choice which offers a wider scope of reference, and thus targets a wider audience.","PeriodicalId":46671,"journal":{"name":"Narrative Inquiry","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.9000,"publicationDate":"2021-10-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Narrative Inquiry","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.21049.slu","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"COMMUNICATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
This study examines the use of ungendered third person Chinese pronoun ta in digital first-and-third
person voiced discourses (i.e. small stories). The study asks what implications the script choice ta, as opposed to
gendered 他 ta ‘he’ and 她 ta ‘she’, has for audience design and the facilitation
of character empathy. The study draws on 131 digital texts from celebrity verified accounts on social media platform Sina Weibo in October
2015. From a Discourse Analytical perspective focused on deixis relative to the notion of empathy in storytelling, the study investigates
emergent practices which involve the orthographic manipulation of gender. The study proposes that ta is an interpersonal
resource whose deictic properties as a non-standard spelling are exploited as a property of audience design to facilitate an appeal to
empathy. This facilitation is advanced by the script choice which offers a wider scope of reference, and thus targets a wider audience.
期刊介绍:
Narrative Inquiry is devoted to providing a forum for theoretical, empirical, and methodological work on narrative. Articles appearing in Narrative Inquiry draw upon a variety of approaches and methodologies in the study of narrative as a way to give contour to experience, tradition, and values to next generations. Particular emphasis is placed on theoretical approaches to narrative and the analysis of narratives in human interaction, including those practiced by researchers in psychology, linguistics and related disciplines.