A Genre Analysis Of Chinese Celebrities' Apologies On Sina Weibo

With the development of Internet technology,human being enters into the era of self-media.Many celebrities from different circles join in Sina Weibo,the most popular self-media platform in China.Sina Weibo has become the palace for Chinese celebrities to promote their works to and establish friendly relationship with the public.In recent years,Chinese government appeals the whole society to cultivate and practice socialist core values and then all Chinese citizens hold higher expectations for celebrities to set good examples for their high name recognition and great influence.Consequently,posting an apology on Sina Weibo has become a significant way for Chinese celebrities to repair relationship with the public,and take on social responsibilities.Linguists have paid great attention to the study on genre and genre analysis;however,studies targeted at apologies posted on Sina Weibo by Chinese celebrities are rare.Based on genre theories of Swales and Bhatia and considering the unique social context,the study has analyzed 30 pieces of apologies from Sina Weibo with qualitative and quantitative methods.This study tends to investigate the move structure,the selection of lexis and grammatical features of apologies posted by Chinese celebrities on Sina Weibo.According to the results,7 moves are included among the apologies,namely,reviewing the incident,describing present situation and personal statement,acknowledging a fault/negative influence,expressing apology/regret,explaining reasons about the incidents,making a promise,calling for forgiving.The optional and obligatory moves have also been calculated,with Move 2-6 being obligatory moves,and Move 1,Move 7 being optional moves.The analysis on the level of lexis shows that the genre is always addressed by first personal pronoun and uses many verbs to apologize,explain reasons and make promise.Besides,on the grammatical level,non-absence of subject and "shi" construction are frequently adopted.This research is a new attempt to apply genre theory to apologies posted by celebrities on self-media platform.Besides,it helps to deepen celebrities' understanding of apologies posted on self-media platform so as to impair their images and more importantly decrease negative social impacts and shoulder social responsibilities.Meanwhile,fan groups and other netizens can further their knowledge of apologies posted by celebrities online and evaluate celebrities and their social influence in a more reasonable and objective manner.