Options
The use of disagreement strategies on Chinese Forums: Comparing Hong Kong and Mainland China
Author(s)
Date Issued
2019
Publisher
The Open University of Hong Kong
ISBN
9789888439607
Citation
Yang, Y. (2019). The use of disagreement strategies on Chinese Forums: Comparing Hong Kong and Mainland China. In The Open University of Hong Kong (Ed.). 2018 International conference on bilingual learning and teaching e-proceedings. 2018 International conference on bilingual learning and teaching, Hong Kong (pp. 26-31). The Open University of Hong Kong.
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Disagreement refers to the expression of a different view from that of a previous interlocutor.
Prior research on disagreement has mainly focused on its negative impact and has
consequently suggested that disagreement should be avoided in communication. Regarded as
a negative speech act, disagreement is rarely studied in computer-mediated communication,
particularly in the Chinese context. Adopting the interactional approach, this project pioneers
the investigation of how disagreement strategies are used on online forums in Hong Kong and
Mainland China, in the hope of providing insights for a better understanding of disagreement
in the Chinese online context and shedding light on politeness theory in intercultural
communication among Chinese people. One popular forum from each region was chosen and
two threads with similar topics were selected, from which 400 comments (200 per
thread) were collected and annotated for further analysis. The data annotation framework,
which is based on previous studies and our own data, consists of the following five
strategies of disagreement: ( 1 ) giving facts; (2) giving negative comments; ( 3) giving
opposite opinions; ( 4) making ironic statements; and ( 5) raising questions. Our results
show that, instead of being a face-threating act, disagreement maintained and enhanced the
interlocutors’ face and advanced the communication of information within each thread.
Moreover, the distribution patterns of disagreement strategies were similar on the two forums,
but there were significantly more disagreement tokens and negative comments on the Hong
Kong forum. This divergence is interpreted as resulting from the different degrees of
collectivism-individualism in the two regions, the Internet censorship in Mainland China, and
the nature of the two forums selected. Directions for future research are provided to confirm
the proposed explanations.
Loading...
Availability at HKSYU Library
