The use of animal classifiers as a stance negotiation strategy in Cantonese interactional discourse

Abstract

Abstract This study adopts the idea of ‘stance triangle’ and ‘double dialogicality’ and examines the use of animal classifiers for human referents in the stance negotiation process in Cantonese. Drawing on the data from a Corpus of Mid-twentieth-century Hong Kong Cantonese, this study explores how participants deploy two animal classifiers (i.e., tiu4, a classifier for fish, and zek3, a classifier for animal) to express their negative stance towards another person. The present study specifically analyzes three examples where the relationships between the stance subjects (SS1-SSn) and stance objects (O) are different: O is present in the interaction in one instance, and absent in the other two instances. My analysis suggests that upon the display of negative stance towards O by the original stance subject, other stance subjects can deny the ‘joint attention’ to avoid establishing any alignment link with the original stance taker as a way of negotiating their stance. I propose an extended model of ‘stance triangle’ which better captures the fluidity and dialogicality in the stance negotiation process.