A Study Of Miànzi-related Metapragmatic Comments On Sina Weibo

Studies on the Chinese face have focused on the conceptualization of “miànzi”and “liǎn” and that in oral communication.However,little research has examined the issue of Chinese miànzi on social networking sites.This study explores the Chinese miànzi on Sina Weibo,a popular Chinese micro-blogging site,from the perspective of metapragmatic comments.Data were collected from Sina Weibo users’ postings with a self-designed python program,yielding a dataset with 49542 tokens.A total of 53micro-blogs were identified as containing miànzi-related metapragmatic comments.The researcher analyses the forms,features,functions of the miànzi-related metapragmatic comments,and the factors that influence these comments’ usage.In terms of the forms of miànzi-related metapragmatic comments,verbs and adjectives co-occurring with miànzi reveal the micro-blog users’ sensitivity,as in face demanding,face possessing,face-saving and face giving,when they are used to evaluate the language practice triggering their face-sensitivity.VOB(verb-object)is the primary syntactic relation in miànzi-related metapragmatic comments.SBV(subject-verb)has the least concurrence,exhibiting the lack of subjects in miànzi-related metapragmatic comments produced by micro-blog users,which may be indicative of referential vagueness.As for the features of miànzi-related metapragmatic comments,this study finds that the majority of miànzi-related metapragmatic comments are other-directed while only a small portion of the metapragmatic comments are self-directed,reflecting micro-blog users’ sensitivity to others’ face.Also,micro-blog users tend to use more metapragmatic comments at the end(retrospective comments)or in the middle(mid-message comments)of their blogs as commentaries or re-emphasis on previously stated propositional contents or speech acts.In addition,the speech acts in miànzi-related metapragmatic comments mainly include stating,questioning,reporting,complaining,requesting,advising,asserting,and vowing,among which the most frequent ones are stating,questioning,and reporting.This study also finds that micro-blog users use miànzi-related metapragmatic comments to achieve positive or negative evaluations through performing different speech acts.In terms of the factors that influence the usage of miànzi-related metapragmatic comments,this study finds that the usage of miànzi-related metapragmatic comments is influenced by factors mainly from the social and the mental world.Micro-blog users take social roles and power relations into consideration as they make miànzi-related metapragmatic comments.Factors from the mental world include self-esteem,respect,desire,emotion,and personality,all of which are essential to interpersonal relations.This study offers implications in three ways.Theoretically,this study provides new evidence to face studies by probing into miànzi in the Chinese computermediated communication context as well as providing a new perspective-metapragmatic comments.Methodologically,it incorporates computational tools in data collection and data analysis,bringing a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach to face studies.Practically,it helps foreigners,especially foreign learners of Chinese,better understand miànzi in Chinese socio-culture and may promote cross-cultural communication and understanding.