A Tentative Study On Disagreement And Impoliteness In Sina Weibo Interaction

This study aims to explore the disagreement phenomenon in relation to impo-liteness of Sina Weibo interaction. Though researchers have greatly accomplished thestudies on both of them in face-to-face communication and in the last decade theyhave turned their attention to computer-mediated communication, such as QQ, blog,forum, etc., the research on disagreement and impoliteness in CMC discussion is stilllacking. In addition, Weibo, as a newly bourgeoning platform, is overwhelminglypopular with Internet users owing to its distinctive medium features (celebrity strategy)and interactive pattern，it is thus of interest to look into such a context. Motivated bythe dearth of empirical study in that field, this research investigates four posts con-cerning social issues in Sina Weibo and attempts to answer the following three ques-tions:(1) How do Sina Weibo users express disagreement?(2) How do Sina Weibousers (browsers in this study) assess impoliteness and inappropriateness of the disa-greement?(3) What are the factors influencing the expression of disagreement?Instead of following the traditional politeness model of Brown and Levinson, thisstudy has adopted the discursive and interactive approaches to probe the researchquestions. To start with, the disagreement expressions are indentified according to thedefinition. Fifteen types of disagreement strategies are sorted out in total and six ofthem are particularly explored in this study, which are further validated by threesecond raters. Then a questionnaire that consists of three parts, i.e., basic informationof the respondents, assessment of disagreement expressions in the parameters of im-politeness and inappropriateness, and judgment of factors influencing those expres-sions, is addressed to sixty Sina Weibo browsers with relevant linguistic knowledge.Twenty respondents are required to attend a follow-up interview for the purpose offurther interpretation.This study has revealed that each post is characterized by specific dominating devices, and the top three disagreement strategies among the four posts are raisingrhetorical questions (17%), using short vulgar phrases (15%) and reprimanding (10%).Referring to the judgment of the browsers (lay-participants) of Sina Weibo interaction,we find that impoliteness and inappropriateness are differently assessed. The fact thatboth of their average ratings are lower than the medium level (2.80and2.97respec-tively) demonstrates that Sina Weibo users prefer to use the direct and unmitigateddisagreement strategies.Furthermore, the questionnaire shows that the influencing factors for disagreeingdevices include anonymity, non-proximity, the nature of topic, venting emotion, gain-ing conversational power, appearing superior, etc.. However, the medium factors, i.e.,anonymity and non-proximity, turn to be the most significant factors, which thereinaccount for the direct and impolite features of Sina Weibo interaction.This study broadens the research scope of disagreement and politeness in com-puter-mediated communication, which may provide some enlightenment for SinaWeibo users and browsers. Meanwhile this thesis validates the applicability of thediscursive and interactional approaches to the analysis of disagreement and(im)politeness in CMC.