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Multilingual creativity on China's Internet
Author(s) -
ZHANG WEI
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/weng.12135
Subject(s) - microblogging , government (linguistics) , china , popularity , the internet , social media , code mixing , creativity , identity (music) , public relations , code (set theory) , sociology , political science , set (abstract data type) , media studies , world wide web , linguistics , computer science , code switching , law , philosophy , physics , acoustics , programming language
Previous research in China has shown that Chinese‐English code‐mixing is gaining popularity on China's online social network sites. This study investigates the practice of multilingual language play on Shanghai Release , an official microblog account set up by the municipal government of Shanghai. Based on the observation of the day‐to‐day weather messages on Shanghai Release , as well as the comments posted by the participating netizens over a period of two years, the study reports on a range of strategies employed in the practice of multilingual language play, that involves bending, breaking, and blending the conventional ‘rules’ of Putonghua, English, and Shanghai dialect usage. The findings suggest that through such practices the municipal government web microbloggers posting on Shanghai Release have constructed a distinct new professional identity, which aims to establish rapport with its audience, through the ludic construction of mixed‐code messages to its Internet public.