Texted messages in China: A pragmatic approach to blessing through mobile phones

On the advent of festivities and national holidays in modern China, one way of conveying regards is to text blessing messages on mobile phones, in addition to mailing cards, calling on ground lines and door-to-door visits. The language of the texted message has become a new way of communication, displaying distinctive features that make it successful in the context of competing communicative media, such as radio, TV, regular telephone, e-mail and internet. The emergence of this form of communication reflects a shift in the cultural values and customs, which, in turn, involves a shifting in the social and psychological approaches to human interaction. This article analyzes the pragmatic aspect of blessing messages on mobile phones, to shed light on the linguistic manipulation and on the social and psychological motivations for speakers’ linguistic options when they formulate such messages

Language Memes in Chinese Blessing Texted Messages

As a form of computer-mediated communication, texting blessing messages is prevalent in the modern Chinese society. This paper analyzes a collection of Chinese blessing texted message in light of Meme Theory. It is argued that certain patterns can be recognized for the generation of these messages, both at the linguistic and at the socio-psychological level. The language memes in Chinese blessing texted messages could be classified as genotypes and phenotypes adapted to the communicators’ sociopsychological motivations of humour, modernity, revering the traditional culture and emotions

A pragmatic analysis of public signs in China

This paper investigates the linguistic and pragmatic features of public signs in three distinct historical stages of the Chinese society. It then focuses on the new features of public signs, in order to shed light on the characteristics of public language and social life in modern China