Funny Racist Memes of Chinese People

1 Introduction

As the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19 has developed into a global pandemic, sentiments and responses expressed by social media users have created a spectacular linguistic/semiotic landscape in digital communication. The impact of the pandemic has, moreover, generated global conversations in which racist discourses associated with COVID-19 are shaped and perpetuated. The phrase "Chinese virus" is one example, where the use of "Chinese" to label the disease equates the nationality with an illness. This racist meaning can be contextualized by the growing geopolitical tensions between the United States and China. However, Chinese netizens are engaging with this racist phrase and responding critically on social media.

After President Trump's initial use of the racist phrase "Chinese virus" for the coronavirus in a tweet on March 17, 2020, a Twitter user responded by tweeting "Yes, Chinese virus is right." This tweet drew the response "Right your mother right" from another Twitter user. "Right your mother right" is a literal translation of the Chinese "对你妈的对," a profane expression which is used in similar ways to English expressions such "damn it" or "bullshit." This exchange was soon reposted on the Chinese Weibo platform, where it quickly ballooned into a searchable meme "#用中式英语跨文化交流#" (#Chinglish used for cross-cultural communication#). The meme went viral on Weibo and reached 17 in the ranking of popular memes in China overnight. Over 20,000 Weibo users responded with various playful comments, reflecting linguistic creativity involving formal variations of swearing or cursing to play with the racist phrase. Here I draw on Wainryb's use of swearing and cursing as largely interchangeable, where cursing can be seen as a specific type of swearing, often in combination with insults, which metaphorically wish harm on the receiver (Wajnryb 2005: 17–20). This linguistic creativity of Weibo users evolved into a participatory hysteria of the so-called Zu'an culture ("祖安文化"), a digital subculture that literally means to extend "an insult by addressing one's ancestry." The term Zu'an ("祖安") comes from the online game "League of Legends" ("英雄联盟"), which does not actually permit the use of straightforward swearing. Therefore, players in the Zu'an virtual community have become very adept at finding ways to insult people without using explicitly "dirty" words. The demand for profane language has developed into a word game with a swearing syntax, and thus it has cultivated a digital subculture. Echoing Zu'an culture, the emergence of the verbal exchange from Western Twitter was recontextualized to Chinese Weibo to form a participatory culture among Weibo users (see Figure 1).

Figure 1:

Screen capture of the Weibo topic with the initial Twitter repost.

In short, calling the coronavirus the "Chinese virus" represented an escalated form of Western anti-Chinese racism, which gained significant traction with an official tweet by US President Trump. It was not only Western audiences who engaged with this blatant COVID-19-related racism but the term also circulated widely in Chinese media, where it was, inter alia, recontextualized from Twitter to Weibo. The purpose of this study is to examine this recontextualization of racist discourse and, in particular, to investigate how social media users challenge COVID-19-related anti-Chinese racism. To explore how the racist English phrase "Chinese virus" was recontextualized and challenged in Chinese social media discourse, this paper examines the formal variations of the resulting swearwords and profane expressions as a type of linguistic creativity, together with their discourse functions in recontextualizing the verbal elements within digital participation.

2 Theoretical background and data collection

We examine this sociolinguistic case through two lenses. One is a broader perspective to frame the language challenge related to the COVID-19 crisis within socio-cultural tensions between the United States and China. The other is linguistic creativity as the internal analysis of cultural discourse, as the translanguaging of profanities on Weibo involves the creative use of language.

2.1 COVID-19 related anti-Chinese racism and language challenge

Donald Trump's tweet calling COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" represents an escalated form of anti-Chinese racism, as the action of associating COVID-19 with China is a process of racializing a public health crisis (Briggs 2005). Indeed, this racism is rooted in a long Western history of anti-Chinese stereotypes. Anti-Chinese racism has been historically conceptualized over social-economic and cross-cultural interactions between China (the East) and the United States (the West), which has evolved from concepts such as the "Yellow Peril" in the 1890s to the "China Threats Theory" or "China Toughness Theory" during the Cold War period and which continues today. Thus, over time and in many forms, there has been anti-Chinese racism in the West, which is most recently embedded in geopolitical tension between America's loss of status as unquestioned world leader and the rise of China in the world system (Guan 2015: 8–9).

COVID-19-related racism is now being challenged through the medium of a uniquely and explicitly Chinese variety of English, i.e., translanguaging – sometimes referred to as "Chinglish" – which has become a form of resistance to English, itself a territory in which hierarchical relationships between English and Chinese, but also between the United States and China, are being challenged.

In China, English enjoys a high status in the private and public education domains, and the linguistic superiority of native English speakers over Chinese English speakers has been widely accepted (Zhang 2011, Ch. 4). Chinese varieties of English, often labeled as "Chinglish" have been widely regarded as inferior versions of English, with Chinese users stereotyped as poor English speakers. However, the rise of China has empowered its citizens with a new cultural confidence, while simultaneously allowing Chinese as a major language "other than English [to] play an increasingly important role in vital field of modern use such as science, [the] economy, the media, the Internet, education, and diplomacy" (Zhang 2011: 223; see also Li, Xie, Ai, and Li, this issue). Therefore, the rise of China in the global world system and the response to the anti-Chinese racism on social media is asserting a new Chinese self-confidence that challenges Trump's racist framing not only within Chinese discourse, but also through a new global discourse that incorporates English and Chinese.

2.2 Understanding translanguaging swears as linguistic creativity

Swearing can act as a form of linguistic creativity involving the use of offensive language to express feelings or attitudes (Ljung 2011). The use of swearing in everyday social communities is usually regarded as bad behavior, often labeled "unpleasantness," "impoliteness," or even "vulgarity." Thus, sociolinguists are interested in how people use swearing in their social lives, its linguistic creativity and its effects on social constructions (Andersson and Trudgill 1990; Crystal 2001; Hughes 1991; Ljung 2011; Montagu 1967). In general, swearwords and profane expressions reflect four criteria. First, they are culture-specific, because they are thematically intertwined with taboo topics that are "religious, scatological, sexual, and insulting to (especially female) family members" (Ljung 2011: 35) and prohibited or violated in social or cultural situations. Second, the linguistic characterization of swearing is constrained by structural attributes and non-literal meanings or emotive orientations (Ljung 2011: 4). Third, a continuum of the functions of swearing appears in situated contexts. Although swearing involves speech acts such as curses, oath, insults, and interjections, swearwords and profane expressions mainly connote positive or negative feelings or attitudes. Moreover, they "can be ranked in order of strength" (Briechle and Duran Eppler 2019: 391–392).

In the context of COVID-19, the swearing on Weibo appears to be linked with translanguaging. Translanguaging involves using multiple linguistic and/or non-linguistic resources to make meaning in social interactions (García 2014; García and Wei 2014; Otheguy et al. 2015). Translanguaging in bilinguals is not simply switching between two languages, but discursive acts of idiolect based on speakers' bilingual knowledge (García and Wei 2014). Thus, functionally, translanguaging can "transform not only semiotic systems and speaker subjectivities but also sociopolitical structures" (García and Wei 2014: 43). Likewise, Weibo users select features and resources from one linguistic repertoire, blurring the boundary between two languages (English and Chinese) to make sense in digital communication. Thus, this paper explores how Weibo users engage with the challenging racist naming of the "Chinese virus" through translanguaging swears.

2.3 Data and data collection

Weibo discourse was collected for one week by using the hashtag "#用中式英语跨文化交流#" ("#Chinglish used for cross-cultural communication#") following its initial emergence on March 17, 2020 at 16:21 until March 24, 2020 at 16:00 (BJT) to compile a raw corpus of searchable talk (Zappavigna 2012). On this basis, a sub-corpus of translanguaged swearing was developed in 1,366 posts. The methodological approach is both qualitative and descriptive. First, the sub-corpus of 1,366 tweets was examined to identify swearing according to the four criteria (Ljung 2011: 4), excluding wordless reposts. This left 889 posts in the sub-corpus. These were then sorted into five categories based on their linguistic features. Finally, five discourse functions of the posts were determined.

3 Analysis and results

3.1 Textual description of translanguaging swear

The linguistic features of the swears in the corpus fall into five categories: acronyms, transliteration/translation, coinage, verbal repetition, and other. Some users use acronyms to express attitudes. For instance, the short form of the username "xswl" stands for the initial Pinyin letters of 笑死我了(xiào sǐ wǒ le; "This is really funny"). Some users transliterate or literally translate Chinese swearwords. The username "Funny mud pee" is a transliteration of the idiom 放你妈的屁(fàng nǐ mā de pì), which literally means "make your mother fart" or "bullshit." Similarly, the username "deal lay low more high" constitutes a transliteration of the Cantonese offensive expression (丢你老母嗨/ diū nǐ lǎo mǔ hai), which means "fucking your old mother."

Another strategy is coinage, which entails more creative verbal play to mock or insult. For example, "Wait here, don't move. I will buy some orange for you" is a creative parody, referring to a well-known Chinese narrative, which recalls a father expressing love for his son by buying some oranges before departing at the train station. In this case, the insult arises from the speaker being addressed as someone's "father", which from a Chinese mentality is shameful because by recognizing another as his senior family member he shows disrespect or no filial piety to his ancestors.

In verbal repetition, Chinglish forms are intertextual to the recontextualized verbal events. For example, the initial use of "right your mother right" was alluded to in postings such as "Right your grandma's fxxking leger" or "right your right." Using the symbol of is a translanguaging practice, a play on the Chinese Pinyin "ma" for two Chinese Characters "马(mǎ/horse)" and "妈(mā/mother)". Thus, "mother" in the original posting being creatively shifted with "horse" shows a semantic tension from "people" to "animal".

The proportional distribution of these five types of Chinglish swears is in Table 1.

Table 1:

Types of translanguaging swearwords.

Type	Number	Percentage
Acronym	59	6.64%
Transliteration (including literal translation)	604	67.94%
Coinage	121	13.61%
Verbal Repetition	98	11.02%
Other	7	0.79%
Total	889	100%

The five types of translanguaging swears clearly demonstrate strategies for expressing feelings and attitudes in Weibo discourse. Among them, transliterating Chinese swearwords is by far the most popular way for Weibo users to respond to the speech event, accounting for 67.94%. There are two reasons for favoring transliteration. First, transliteration is an easy way to perform "trans-space subjectivities" (García and Wei 2014: 137). The initial tweet of the transliteration "right your mother right" motivated Chinese Weibo users into extensive and highly creative ripostes. Second, through transliteration, Chinese Weibo users are able to counter the initial insult by simultaneously communicating Chinese cultural elements through bilingual verbal play.

3.2 Discourse functions of translanguaging swears

As suggested earlier, swearing involves speech acts expressing attitudes or feelings in social encounters, which can be ranked in order of strength (Briechle and Duran Eppler 2019: 391–392). The translanguaged swears perform a range of functions in Weibo communication, which form a continuum of speaker attitudes realized through different linguistic strategies. These discourse functions range from strong swears such as insults across a cline to criticizing and mocking

Insults are highly negatively charged and an evil wish of punishment is intended. The example "Zu'an is a big stage, where you can perform if you have mother". This insult is passed on the Twitter user by indicating he is a son of his mother who will be subject to many potential verbal insults or verbal attacks in the "stage" of Zu'an gaming. Another example of a insult is "R.I.P" ("Rest in peace"), which wishes someone dead, even if at the same time wishing them ironically a peaceful death.

Somewhat weaker than an insult are return insults, which turn the tables by replacing "Chinese" with "American": "I am inclined to call it American coronavirus or American white-lung disease". Another user similarly poses the rhetorical question "So HIV is US virus?" The utterance "I give u face you don't wanna face" seems to criticize this racist description of COVID-19 as shameless and faceless. Weaker yet are mocking comments such as "How made winds", which is a transliteration of the Chinese Pinyin 好美的文字(hǎo měi de wén zì, i.e., what beautiful words), to mock speech by appreciating the use of swearing in Chinglish. In another example, "laugh die me" is a literal translation of 笑死我了(xiào sǐ wǒ le) to ridicule what happens online.

Overall, the discourse functions can be differentiated along a cline of swearing, and they are realized through various translanguaging strategies. First, translanguaging swears as linguistic creativity has shown the potential of individuals using language in digital communication to engage with political or social subjectivities in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Second, the translanguaging swears blur the linguistic boundaries between standard Chinese and English. The resulting fluidity of linguistic practices which fuse Chinese elements into English creates a form of Bakhtinian heteroglossia. Third, the fusion of Chinese swears with English performs a translanguaging practice for Weibo users to resist the asymmetrical power between these languages as well as between the United States and China.

4 Discussion and conclusions

In the context of COVID-19, various creative uses of translanguaging swears in relation to a meme within Chinese Weibo discourse have triggered a unique linguistic landscape. Indeed, the formal variations of translanguaging swears, along with diverse discourse functions in the digital context interacting or even aligning with Weibo users, has become a participatory culture. On the surface, such language or discourse representation is a local constituent of Chinese digital subculture, featuring the Zu'an culture popular with young netizens. However, the discursive power of translanguaging swears also involves many other sociocultural factors. This is because "any given internet meme inheres ideological practice, especially if the meme expresses a view that is critical (even in an overtly humorous way) of the political, social, economic, cultural, etc., spheres" (Wiggins 2019: 25). Digital representation and recontextualization of the verbal conflict from Twitter to Weibo appears to be a way of showing the critical concerns of contemporary sociocultural or even political-economic practices. This can be further discussed from three perspectives.

First, translanguaging swears is a new way of representing cultural and sociopolitical subjectivities in Chinese digital communication. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is an epistemic consensus among Chinese netizens that giving a virus a nationality is irresponsible and incorrect. The initial clash between "Chinese virus" and translanguaging swears on Twitter, which ignited a Weibo discussion almost immediately (March 17, 2020), shows this. In particular, Weibo users criticized, condemned, or even attacked this speech action. However, in this crisis, such translanguaging provides a space for speakers to "release the[ir] buried histories or produce the[ir] conflicting knowledge" (García and Wei 2014: 43). When cross-cultural communication between West and East causes a verbal clash of values, translanguaging swear on Weibo not only serve as a new way of meaning making to produce contesting knowledge, but also resist the asymmetries of power that languages produce.

Second, since the initial conflict started on Twitter, many users have adopted translanguaging swears as a defensive stance to rebuke the spread of the racist expression "Chinese virus." The preferred type of translanguaging swears is transliterated Chinese, mainly idiomatic insults which resonated with many followers, and were echoed among Weibo users. On the one hand, interaction among users on Weibo is maintained through a known defensive stance; on the other hand, this defensive ideology has been backed up by nationalism and patriotism.

Third, this digital practice of language creativity may decenter the dominance of English as a lingua franca. For example, the use of translanguaging swears by Chinese netizens shows an attitude of playing with English through transliterating Chinese elements, self-coined English, or other means. The strategies of multilingual creativity also involve bending, breaking, and blending the conventional rules of Putonghua, English, and dialect usage (Zhang 2015). The process of Chinese translation or transliteration into various forms of profane language has two consequences for the dominance of English. First, bending, breaking, or blending may potentially deconstruct the structural rules of English. Second, the initial swearwords and profane expressions go viral, thus involving a process of relexicalization and possibly spreading "Chinglish" globally. These linguistic practices have the potential to undermine the conventional rules of Standard English and, in the process, call the very dominance of Standard English itself into question. In short, with its formal variations and diverse functions in a Chinese digital subculture, translanguaged swearing fosters a defensive stance of nationalism while riding roughshod over language purism.

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Source: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/multi-2020-0093/html

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