文字式網路爆紅之「網絡流行體」現象初探 - 政大學術集成

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(1)國立政治大學國際傳播英語碩士學位學程 International Master’s Program in International Communication Studies College of Communication National Chengchi University. 碩士論文 Master’s Thesis 治. 立. 政. 大. ‧ 國. 學 ‧. 文字式網路爆紅之「網絡流行體」現象初探. Nat. io. sit. y. On Text-based Internet Memes:. n. al. er. A Study on Chinese Network Styles. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Student: Xu Qian 許倩 Advisor: Professor Tsung-Jen Shih 施琮仁. 中華民國 103 年 7 月 July 2014.

(2) 文字式網路爆紅之「網絡流行體」現象初探 On Text-based Internet Memes: A Study on Chinese Network Styles. 研究生：許倩指導教授：施琮仁. 立. Student: Xu Qian Advisor: Professor Tsung-Jen Shih. 政治大國立政治大學碩士論文. Nat. er. io. sit. y. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. 國際傳播英語碩士學位學程. al. n. A Thesis i v in Submitted to International Master’s Program n Ch e n g c h i UStudies International Communication National Chengchi University In partial fulfillment of the Requirement For the degree of Master of Arts. 中華民國 103 年 7 月 July 2014.

(3) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES Acknowledgement As the two years’ academic journey in Taiwan finally comes to an end, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. First of all, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to my adviser Prof. Tsung-Jen Shih for his professional guidance and continuous support. His insights and opinions have helped significantly in clarifying my ideas and improving the content of the thesis. Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my committees: Prof. Wen-Ying. 政治大. Liu and Prof. Su-Mei Wang, for offering their constructive suggestions on this thesis. They. 立. asked me good questions to help me think through my problems and make this study more. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. complete.. My special thanks go to Prof. Se-Wen Sun, who gave me the inspiration for this study. y. Nat. er. io. sit. and encouraged me to continue the work. I am also deeply indebted to all the other teachers and staff in College of Communication, NCCU.. al. n. iv n C U my dear Mainland Chinese I also want to thank my classmates,h my eroommates, n g c h i and. fellow friends who offer me their supports and times in listening to me and helping me work out my problems. Above all, I would like to thank my family for their unconditional supports. I dedicate this thesis to my beloved parents and sister.. I.

(4) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES Abstract In recent years, Internet memes went viral on the Internet. Although the image-based Internet memes received much attention both in practice and research, the research on the text-based Internet is only a recent development. Introducing the concept of Internet meme in the study, a content analysis was employed to explore the features of network styles with Zhenhuan style as the exemplification. The study described the phenomenon in terms of users, speech styles, and purposes, and found a strong interaction between them.. 立. 政治大. This study also explored the development and mutation of the network style. First, the. ‧ 國. 學. study observed the life cycle of the phenomenon, and affirmed the important role of the. ‧. originators in deciding the themes and structures of the network style. Contraction and. y. Nat. er. io. sit. mutation would take place throughout the communication of the meme. A significant amount of mutation would lead to the generation of a new network style.. al. n. iv n C Besides, the study found that the popularization h e n g c ofh itheUnetwork style is the result of a. series of synthetic factors, including the huge population of the netizens, the development of the Internet in Mainland China, the uniqueness of the Chinese language, the popular culture, and the promotion of the activities on the websites.. Key words:. Internet meme, memetics, network styles, digital culture. II.

(5) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES Table of Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 1 Text-based Internet Memes in China .............................................................................. 2 An Overview of the Network Styles ............................................................................... 5 Network Styles and Mass Media .................................................................................. 13 Research Motivation ..................................................................................................... 16 Literature Review ........................................................................................................... 19 Network Style Studies at Present .................................................................................. 19 Memetic Studies and Internet Memes........................................................................... 24. 政治大 Internet Memes ............................................................................................................. 27 立 Meme and Memetics ..................................................................................................... 24. ‧ 國. 學. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 35 Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 40. ‧. Pilot Study..................................................................................................................... 44. y. Nat. Measures ....................................................................................................................... 46. er. io. sit. Inter-coder Reliability ................................................................................................... 48 Results .............................................................................................................................. 50. n. al. Ch. i Un. v. Discussion......................................................................................................................... 68. engchi. Features of Zhenhuan Style .......................................................................................... 68 Communication of Zhenhuan Style .............................................................................. 70 Limitation and Suggestions for Future Study ............................................................... 73 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 74 References ........................................................................................................................ 76 Appendixes....................................................................................................................... 88 Appendix A Codebook – English Version .................................................................... 88 Appendix B Codebook – Chinese Version .................................................................... 91. III.

(6) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES List of Figures. Figure 1. Relationship between Network Styles, Netspeak and Internet Memes .................... 13 Figure 2. Types of Meme Purposes .......................................................................................... 32 Figure 3. Theoretical Framework of the Study on the Features of Network Styles ................ 34 Figure 4. The Application of Zhenhuan Style in Public Announcement ................................. 37 Figure 5. Age of the Zhenhuan Style Users ............................................................................. 51 Figure 6. Life Cycle of Zhenhuan Style................................................................................... 62. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. IV. i Un. v.

(7) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES List of Tables Table 1. The Utilization Ratio of Different Social Networks in 2013 ....................................... 3 Table 2. The Number of the Tweets in Zhenhuan Style Created Monthly .............................. 43 Table 3. Results of Krippendorff’s alpha Test of Inter-coder Reliability ................................ 49 Table 4. Test of Goodness of Fit on the Distribution of Authenticated Users ......................... 52 Table 5. Speech Style of Tweets in Zhenhuan Style by Different Users ................................. 54 Table 6. The Speech Styles of the Users of Different Genders ................................................ 55 Table 7. The Speech Styles of the Users of Different Regions ................................................ 56. 政治大. Table 8. Purpose of Microblogs in Zhenhuan Style Tweeted by Different Users ................... 58. 立. Table 9. Speech Style of the Tweets with Different Purposes ................................................. 60. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. V. i Un. v.

(8) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 1. Introduction With the rapid development of communication techniques and the popularization of the computers, the Internet is growing at an astonishing speed in all areas and has gradually become an essential part of the contemporary life. Now, the Internet is considered to be “the fourth medium” (Zhu, 2002), named after newspapers, radio and television. It offers people a brand-new way of communication, namely, Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC). In recent years, a new form of CMC goes viral on the Internet, i.e. Internet meme– the. 政治大. widely-spread concepts or cultural artifacts that are imitated and spread rapidly via the. 立. Internet from user to user (Knobel & Lankshear, 2007; Brunello, 2012). Internet memes. ‧ 國. 學. usually take the forms of text, image, activity1 or video (Mujeebuddin, 2011), with a. ‧. relatively stable marker but various contents. By modifying parts of an original meme, people. y. Nat. er. io. sit. can create their own memes and thus make online communication faster and easier. Although the study of memes began in 1976 with Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, of all the. al. n. iv n C U a recent development, and different types of memes, the focus on Internet h e n memes g c h isi only most of the current studies focused on the image-based Internet meme (Bauckhage, 2011; Milner, 2012; Börzsei, 2013), which is the most popular form among the four forms in the west.. 1. Activity-based Internet memes, also known as “performative Internet memes”, are usually photos, sometimes videos,. of people doing the same thing in different contexts (Banks, 2013), such as “planking”, “photobombing” and “Showing-off Contest”（炫富大賽, see http://bbs.tianya.cn/post-funinfo-4495569-1.shtml）..

(9) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 2. Nevertheless, due to the special attributes of Chinese language and the current situation of SNS in China (Anti,2012; Wang, 2012), a sub-genre of text-based Internet memes, or indigenously speaking, network style (網絡體), is virally spread by the netizens as well. It is a new Internet language form with distinctive features, and is usually originated from a queer post, a collective KUSO or a hot social issue. Once a newly-born network style catches the netizens’ attention, it may go viral on the Internet within a few hours. The recent years has seen a substantial growth in the number of network styles, each leading a. 政治大. sentence-making carnival participated by the netizens (Wu, 2012).. 學. ‧ 國. 立. Text-based Internet Memes in China. If the western countries are the bases of image-based Internet memes, China is a fertile. ‧. sit. y. Nat. field for text-based Internet memes. The Internet users do not need much effort to find a large. io. n. al. er. amount of bizarre words, phrases, sentences or sentence patterns spreading all over the Chinese BBS, SNS, and microblogs.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. The text-based Internet meme booms in China due to the huge population of netizens, the development of the Internet and the special attribute of the Chinese language (Wang, 2012). Till the end of 2013, the number of the netizens has reached 618 million, covering 46% of the whole population of Mainland China (China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), 2014). 91.3% of the whole netizen population age between 10 to 49, and the majority of the netizens (81.1%) are the young and mid-aged people (aged under 39). The population of male netizens is larger than the female with the gender ratio (male to female) of.

(10) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 3. 56:44. 20.9% of the netizens have received higher education above college, and 31.2% have received high school education (including technical secondary school). The urban or suburban residents remain the major group of the Chinese netizens, accounting for 71.4% of the number of the whole netizens. The utilization ratio of the Internet has reached 50% in eight provinces and municipalities, which are all coastal provinces and cities, with Beijing being the highest (75.2%). Moreover, the development of the social networks has provided a platform for the. 政治大. communication of the text-based Internet meme. The netizens actively exchange information. 立. and participate in discussion on various BBS, SNS, and blogs (or microblogs) as well as. ‧ 國. 學. instant messaging. The utilization ratio of different social networks in 2013 is summarized in. a l Number of Internet Users i v n Ch U e(Million) ngchi. n Category. er. io. The Utilization Ratio of Different Social Networks in 2013. sit. y. Nat. Table 1. ‧. Table 1.. Utilization Ratio by Internet Users. Instant Messaging. 532.15. 86.2%. Blog/Personal Homepage. 436.58. 70.7%. Microblog. 280.78. 45.5%. SNS. 277.69. 45.0%. Forum/BBS. 120.46. 19.5%. Note. Cited from The 33rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China (p.40) by China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), 2014, retrieved May 20, 2014, from http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201404/U020140417607531610855.pdf.

(11) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 4. Besides, due to the high information density of the Chinese language, within the same length, the Chinese text can carry more information than that in Western languages (Hoosain, 1991; Chen 1992, 1996; Anti, 2012), which accounts for the particular prevalence of the complex text-based Internet meme in China. In the online communication, where the economy of language is highly valued (Yan, 2009), the high information density would facilitate the transmission of the textual content, especially when the length is limited. For example, the information density of the Chinese language is about three times as high as that. 政治大. of English, so a story that could be told within a Chinese microblog would occupy about. 立. three English tweets, whose maximal length is 140 letters/Chinese characters.. ‧ 國. 學. The origination of the text-based Internet memes in China can be traced back to 2001,. ‧. when the Internet just began to popularize among the Chinese households. At that time, the. y. Nat. er. io. sit. language of Internet was generally referred to as “netspeak”, which was termed by David Crystal (2001). The term “netspeak” is the compound of “net” and “speak”, and is succinct. al. n. iv n C and functional to describe the language h of e the Internet, arising n g c h i U out of its character as a. medium that is electronic, global, and interactive. Based on Crystal’s unary definition, Yu (2001) proposed a binary definition. He believed that netspeak comprises the technical language on the Internet and the natural language used by the Internet users. Later on, Qin (2003) divided netspeak into three categories. The first is the technological terms of the Internet, such as IE, online, chat room, E-mail, IP, URL etc. The second is the language used by the netizens in online communication, i.e. the language used in BBS and chat rooms. The third is the language used in online news, advertisements and net literature. He also noted that.

(12) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 5. netspeak, in the narrow sense, only refers to the natural language used by netizens communicating online. At the very beginning, netspeak (in the narrow sense) is usually referred to the small grammatical items of the Internet language, including numbers (88 = byebye), letters (UFO = ugly fat old women), words (頂(lift)= support, 青蛙(frog) = ugly man), phrases and short expressions (打醬油(buy soy-sauce)= I do not care, 高富帥 = tall and handsome rich young man). The simple and expressive forms of the language, usually referred to as “buzzwords”. 政治大. or “pop netspeaks” (網絡熱詞), could meet the need of the netizens to communicate instantly. 立. online.. ‧ 國. 學. Later on, a form of netspeak on a more complex linguistic level, i.e. clauses, sentences,. ‧. paragraphs and above, went viral on the Internet due to the advent and popularization of new. y. Nat. er. io. sit. online forums or SNS such as Tianya, Renren, Weibo, etc. During the transmission, the overall patterns of these sentences or paragraphs remain stable, and only parts of the contents. al. n. iv n C are changed in different contexts. Theseh sentences i U patterns are indigenously e n g corhsentence. named as “network styles (網絡體)” by the Chinese netizens, and each subgenre is referred to as “xx style.”. An Overview of the Network Styles The replication and variation of network styles could take place within a large range of grammatical levels, from clause to the whole text. Some simple clauses or sentences could be transmitted without or with slight changes, as is in the following examples:.

(13) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 6. Example 1 (clause without word replacement): 膝蓋中箭體：……，直到我膝蓋中了一箭。 (Arrow-in-the-knee style: “……, then I took an arrow in the knee”, which means “I no longer do the same thing.”) e.g. 我以爲綠茶不會導致失眠，直到我的膝蓋中了一箭。（MusicGenie, 2013） (I did not realized that green tea could cause insomnia, then I took an arrow in the knee.) 我一直以爲自己很傻，直到我的膝蓋中了一箭。（Shiqikuangsan, 2013）. 政治大. (I always thought that I was stupid, then I took an arrow in the knee.). 立. Example 2 (sentence without word replacement):. ‧ 國. 學. 元芳體：元芳，你怎麼看？. ‧. (Yuanfang style: Yuanfang, how do you see it?). y. Nat. er. io. sit. e.g. 讀大學納入政府補償範圍，元芳，你怎麽看？ (Taotaobujue, 2013) (Pursuing an academic degree will be included in governmental compensation scale.. n. al. Yuanfang, how do you see it?). Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Example 3 (sentence with word replacement): 寂寞體：哥___的不是___，是寂寞。 (Loneliness style: I’m not dealing with _____, but loneliness.) e.g.哥抽的不是煙，是寂寞。 (CostaCheng, 2012) (I’m not smoking (a cigarette) but loneliness.) 深夜一點。哥吃的不是面，是寂寞。（No.1 Wang Lei, 2012） (It’s one o’clock late at night. I’m not eating noodles but loneliness.).

(14) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 7. Yet in some high-level language structures (i.e. paragraph and text), the variation of the Internet memes would be more salient and complex. Example 4 (paragraph with word replacement): 深夜體：一晚下班回家，一民警迎面巡邏而來。突然對我大喊：“站住！ ____？”我說：“___。”民警：“你可以走了。”我感到很詫異，問：“為什麼問這樣的問題？”民警：“深夜還在街上走，辛苦又寒酸的樣子，不是小偷就是 __。” (Late-in-the-night style: Late at night, when I was on the way home from work, I. 政治大. saw a policeman walking towards me. Suddenly he shouted at me, “Stop!. 立. ____________?” “______.” I answered. “You can go now.” He said. I felt so. ‧ 國. 學. puzzled, “Why did you ask me that?” He said, “Walking in the street late at night, tired and poor, it could be either a thief or a ________.”). ‧ sit. y. Nat. e.g.. io. al. er. 一晚下班回家，一民警迎面巡邏而來。突然對我大喊：站住！民警：int 類型. n. 占幾個字節？我：4 個。民警：你可以走了。我感到很詫異。我：為什麼問. Ch. i Un. v. 這樣的問題？民警：深夜還在街上走，辛苦又寒酸的樣子，不是小偷就是程序員。（Ma, 2011）. engchi. (Late at night, when I was on the way home from work, a policeman approached me. Suddenly he shouted at me, “Stop! How many bites would an int-type occupy?” “4.” I answered. “You can go now.” He said. I felt so wired, “Why did you ask me that?” He said, “Walking in the street late at night, tired and poor, it could be either a thief or a programmer.”) Meanwhile, netizens also create texts with certain distinctive textual “hooks”, i.e. the specific features utilized by users to build on their derivatives (Shifman, 2012). Those texts.

(15) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 8. feature some iconic words or unique structures, such as some key words, special use of punctuations, tones, or formats. One example could be the roaring style (咆哮體), which features frequent use of repetition, rhetorical questions and exclamations throughout the passage. Example 5: Memorial on Sending out the Troops in roaring style (咆哮體版《出師表》) 先帝 tm 才幹到一半就撒手不管了啊！！！！！孤兒寡母就這麽扔給我了！有木有2！！！！有木有！！！. 政治大. 天下分成三塊兒！！！！屬咱們益州這疙瘩最杯具！！！有木有！！！！有. 立. 木有！！！！. ‧ 國. 學. 此誠危急存亡！！媽的就是死到臨頭了你知道不！！！知道不！！！！一群苦逼的忠臣還得為蜀國獻青春！！！！獻完了青春還得獻他娘的子. io. al. n. ……(Zhongjiuri, 2011). er. 都是爲了一把屎一把尿的把陛下您喂養大啊！！！！！. sit. y. Nat. 累死累活！！！！都是爲了給先帝你擦屁股啊！！！！！. ‧. 孫！！有木有！！！有木有！！！. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Some other popular examples of the complex netspeak alike include Zen-master style (禪師體) that often evokes cognitive dissonance to the readers, and Li-hua style (梨花體) featuring mediocre language with frequent line breaks which make the sentences look like poems. Example 6: Zen-master Style. 2. “有木有” is a marker of the rhetorical question..

(16) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 9. e.g. 1) 青年問智者：“我有目標有主見有上進心，誠實正直有才華，爲什麽到現在都找不到對象呢？”智者一言不發帶他來到院子裏，幾棵梅樹正默默地吐露著芬芳。“梅花香自苦寒來...”青年很受感動：“大師！您是想告訴我只要不斷努力就能得償所願嗎？”智者搖了搖頭：“梅前（沒錢）你說個屁。” (Beihardison, 2013) (A young man asks a sage: “I’m ambitious, assertive and motivated, as well as honest, upright and talented, but why can’t I find a girl friend?” Without a word, the sage leads him to the yard, where a few plum trees are in full blossom and emitting. 政治大 winter,” the young man is greatly touched, “Sage, you mean that I could realized 立. fragrance quietly. “Fragrant plum flower goes through hazards and hardships in the. ‧ 國. 學. my dream with continuous effort?” The sage shakes his head: “Without money3, it’s merely a prate.”). ‧. 2) 青年問禪師：“大師，我很愛我的女朋友，她也有很多優點，但是總有幾個缺點讓我非常討厭，有什麽什麽方法能讓她改變？” 禪師淺笑，答：“方法. y. Nat. io. sit. 很簡單，不過若想我教你，你需先下山爲我找一張只有正面沒有背面的紙回. n. al. er. 來。” 青年略一沉吟，掏出一個麥比烏斯環 (The Möbius strip4)。(Zhu, 2012). i Un. v. (A young man asks a Zen master: “Master, I love my girlfriend. Although she has. Ch. engchi. many outstanding qualities, I could hardly bare some of her shortcomings. Is there any way to change her defects?” The Zen master smiles: “It’s easy, but you need find me a piece of paper which only has a front side but no back side before I could tell you.” With a moment’s thought, the young man show him a Möbius strip.) Example 7:. 3. In Chinese, “in front the plum tree”(梅前) is the homonym of “with no money”（沒錢）.. 4. The Möbius strip is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component..

(17) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 10. Lihua Style: 1)天下. There. 本. were. 沒有詩. no poems. 回車鍵. in the world.. 敲. Press. 多了. the enter button,. 就. then. 成了詩 (Yingxuejiaoyang, 2007). 立. 了（Wabishichi, 2007）. sit. y. because. the enter button. al. n. 壞. io. 回車鍵. keyboard,. Nat. 因為. a new. ‧. 了. buy. Ch. is. er. 鍵盤. 學. 換. I need to. ‧ 國. 2)我要. poems. 政治we have 大. i n U i e n g c hbroken.. v. When these new netspeak forms came into being, it was the netizens that referred them as “XX style”, such as Lihua style and roaring style. However, in the academe, they were not recognized as “styles” in a restrict sense at the very beginning. At that time, some scholars referred the new netspeak forms as filling-up catchwords (填充式流行語) (Fu,2007). They believed that most of these memes were free-style phrases or sentences with replaceable components, forming semantic voids when extracted, and retrieving semantic integrity when.

(18) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 11. replaced by new linguistic components for different pragmatic purposes (Jiang, 2004). Similarly, although Cao (2011) referred them as “a new language genre”, he would call the new form of text-based Internet memes as “sentence-making activities” rather than “styles”. Holding a similar opinion, Yue (as cited in Zhao & Lu, 2013) believed that this kind of memes would be more appropriate to be classified as “sentence patterns”. Zhang (2012) also believed that although these memes were referred to as “XX styles”, they were different from the linguistic styles in a strict sense, because these text memes were only temporary discourse patterns.. 立. 政治大. Later, with further research on network styles, scholars began to accept them as a. ‧ 國. 學. language style. Based on an in-depth quantitative analysis of a corpus with 148 entries, Zhao. ‧. and Lu (2013) concluded that the new forms could be named as “network styles”. According. y. Nat. er. io. sit. to the key attributes of styles, i.e. hierarchy, collectivity, and conventionality, the authors believe that network styles are functional speech varieties adapted to the network contexts,. al. n. iv n C with the superior genre as netspeak and h theeinferior as “citation”, n g c h i U “parody” and “imitation”. Although the academic generally agrees on the network style as a new language genre now, scholars have not reached an agreement on the definition of “network style”. Based on the definition of “buzzwords”, Wang (2013) defines network style as a kind of popular netspeak with a stable sentence pattern that is widely spread on the Internet. It is a social production within a certain period, influenced by factors like politics, economics, culture, social contexts and people’s mental activity, with the characters of timeliness, prevalence, and productiveness. In this definition, Wang recognized network style as a sentence pattern,.

(19) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 12. ignoring that some popular styles are more than sentence patterns but a series of distinctive speech style and structures, such as the roaring style and Lihua style. Qian (2011) held a similar opinion that network styles are a creative writing with a stable sentence pattern or iconic words. Each of the styles originated from a prototype, and came into form when replicated and recreated by netizens. Similarly, he did not recognize that a netspeak with a certain stable speech style or format could also be recognized as a network style by the netizens.. 政治大. More comprehensive definitions with different focuses were given in the past few years.. 立. Some stressed on the linguistic register: “Network style is the linguistic forms used in the. ‧ 國. 學. Internet context, such as QQ5 messaging, BBS, online forums, microblog and various. ‧. network literature, with iconic words, sentence patterns or rhythms, conveying certain mood,. y. Nat. er. io. sit. style or atmosphere.”(Huang, 2012; Liu & Cai, 2012) Some emphasized on the character: “Network styles are a kind of popular sentence patterns and expressions on the Internet,. al. n. iv n C concerning rhetorical, linguistic style and h literary e n gform. c h iIt isUreproductive, entertaining,. fashionable, timely, novel and peculiar, so that they are popularized and wide-spread on the Internet.” (Ma, 2011) To sum up, a network style should have the following features: 1. Linguistically, network styles are the netspeaks with higher grammatical structures above words and phrases, ranging from clause, sentence, paragraph to text.. 5. QQ, a popular instant messaging program in China..

(20) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 13. 2. A network style must be widely spread on the Internet, and get popular among the netizens. In the process of the transmission, the netizens are supposed to take an active part in the imitation and recreation of the forms and contents. 3. Each network style has a distinctive hook, i.e. the key feature that should remain in the replication and variation, such as an iconic word, a novel rhetoric, a unique pattern, or an intense emotion. In conclusion, network style is a netspeak in higher grammatical level above phrase, each. 政治大. with a distinctive feature, which is hotly imitated with or without variation by the netizens. 立. and widely spread on the Internet.. ‧ 國. 學. To clarify the segmentation of “network styles” in linguistics and communication. ‧. science, the relationship between the network style, netspeak and Internet meme is. n. al. er. io. sit. y. Nat. summarized in Figure 1.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Figure 1. Relationship between Network Styles, Netspeak and Internet Memes. Network Styles and Mass Media Network styles are mainly originated from the mass media and gained their popularity.

(21) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 14. among the netizens. Once a novel trigger, online or offline, caught the attention of the curious netizens, they would be hotly discussed, transmitted and mimicked online. At the very beginning, when this new form of text-based Internet meme went viral online, it was a tool of interaction among netizens. For example, Lihua style, one of the popular network styles in the early stage, which is known for its colloquial speech and frequent line shifts, was usually used as a format of posting. It originated from a post “Lihua Religion is Ceremoniously Founded under the Wise Leadership of Lord Zhao Lihua!” (Lihuajiao, 2006) in Tianya. 政治大. BBS(天涯論壇), which stirred up a trend to imitate the speech style of poet Zhao Lihua,. 立. whose poems feature mundane themes and colloquial language. Under the original post, the. ‧ 國. 學. netizens replied in Lihua style, showing their distain to Zhao Lihua, who held positions in. Nat. y. ‧. several poet associations and won many awards.. er. io. sit. Later on, network styles not only function as an interaction tool for netizens, but also penetrate back into the online or offline media. As the influence of network styles expands. al. n. iv n C along with time, the application of network media has become an important h estyles hi U n g inc mass. means to get the audience’s attention in the media industry (Li, 2013). They are often seen in the news, advertisements, entertainment programs, and even in governmental announcements. Popular network styles are changing the traditional media. Though the official news media with a serious and solemn style is still holding the dominant role in the current media industry in China, they are inevitably influenced by network styles. In 2010, Rihe style(日和體), which originated from a Japanese animation that features neologisms and hilarious plots,.

(22) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 15. went viral on the Internet, and were often seen in the traditional media. On November 10, 2010, the netspeak “給力(Geili)”, one of the most remarkable hook words of Rihe style, which literally means “giving power”, first appeared in the title “Jiangsu: the ‘Geili’ Cultural Province” on the front page of The People’s Daily (人民日報), the official paper of the Communist Party in China. It marked the milestone of netspeaks’ invasion into the mainstream news media. On November 18, New York Times even published an article introducing the word “Geili” and its popularity, stating that it “had been granted the ‘official. 政治大. seal of approval’.”(Schott, 2010) From then on, more and more popular netspeaks appear in. 立. media by the readers and audiences.. 學. ‧ 國. the mainstream media, which is regarded as a remarkable progress of the serious traditional. ‧. The advertising industry offers an even more fertile field for the application of network. y. Nat. er. io. sit. styles. Although many network styles originated from advertisement, some network styles from other fields could also feed and inject new vitality to the advertising industry. The new. al. n. iv n C form of pop Internet language has even h gone e noffline h i isUwidely used in outdoor g c and. advertisement. Take “Yuanfang style” for example. The hook sentence “Yuanfang, how do you see it?” originated from a line in the TV drama Expert Detective Di Renjie. The famous line soon became a hot network style which is often used to encourage interaction. As an advertising tool, it was frequently used as a slogan in a wide range including the real estate, restaurants, domestic appliances, barbers and public welfare. Yuanfang style advertisements usually take the form of question-and-answer dialogues, with a person enquiring the reason why the commodity is so popular (the question usually ends with “Yuanfang, how do you see.

(23) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 16. it?”) and the other person giving an explanation. The Q&A discourse offers a good template for interaction, making the advertisement more involving and less rigid. Not only Yuanfang style but other styles like roaring style etc. are also widely used in advertising in which their unique features are made full use of. The governmental and official announcements have also witnessed the penetration of network styles. They are frequently used in legal advocacy, admission letter, official job posting, and even wanted posters which are supposed to be written in a serious speech style.. 政治大. On August 01, 2011, Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a job posting in Taobao. 立. style in a friendly tone on its official microblog on Sina Weibo, referring to the readers as. ‧ 國. 學. dear (親), and jokingly finished with “postage is not included.” (不包郵). This post attracted. ‧. a large amount of visits, and consequently the phone of Foreign Affairs Ministry was “blowed. y. Nat. er. io. sit. up” according to the next microblog posted. Roaring style, another network style known for its angry and anxious tone, is used in the security tips by the police in many cities. The. al. n. iv n C U could use Internet phenomenon raised a hot discussion on h whether e n gofficial c h istatement. language that lacks solemnness. Although the young people hold a favorable view towards the lively forms, which, as a young interviewee says, “is more attractive and more impressive to the young people” (Wang & Zhang, 2012), some scholars are worried that the informal speech styles may hurt the authority of the governmental information and made the post “totally a wordplay” (Qiao, 2011).. Research Motivation.

(24) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 17. The naissance of network styles has raised the attention of some academic researchers, public opinion specialists and graduate students (Zhao & Lu, 2012; Yu, 2013; Mi, 2013; Wang, 2013), but due to its newness and culture uniqueness, research in this field is quite flawy (Wang, 2012). First, the definition of network style and its attribution under the existing subject system is undecided yet. The lack of a clear definition of network style leads to the interchangeable use of the different concepts of “network style”, “netspeak” and “Internet language” (Wang, 2012), regardless of the differences among them. Although the. 政治大. linguists have recognized the network styles as a new linguistic genre, the orientation of. 立. network style in communication science is still unclear. Second, there exists a gap over the. ‧ 國. 學. research on Internet memes between the east and the west. The west studies on Internet. ‧. memes are mainly based on image-based memes (Bauckhage, 2011; Milner, 2012; Börzsei,. y. Nat. er. io. sit. 2013), and a few studies are based on video-based memes (Shifman, 2012), while the studies on the other two forms of Internet memes are very rare. In contrast, in China, although some. al. n. iv n C studies have been done on Internet buzzword h e nandg network c h i Ustyles (Wang, 2012; Mi, 2013; Wang, 2013), few studies have introduced the concept of Internet meme (《Meme 潮》, 2012).. In this thesis, a case study on Zhenhuan style, one of the most popular network styles in 2012, will be conducted to examine the Chinese network styles. The aim of the study is twofold. First, the study aims at examining the features of popular network styles from the perspective of Internet meme in order to give an overall picture of the new online.

(25) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 18. communication phenomenon, in the hope of bridging up the gap between the western concept and the eastern cultural phenomenon. A content analysis on 500 tweets in “Zhenhuan style” is employed to explore the features of this popular network style, in terms of speech styles, users, and purposes, which are corresponding to the three components (manifestation, behavior and ideal) of the Internet memes (Davison, 2012). Second, this thesis will observe the development and mutation of Zhenhuan style, hoping to give a tentative explanation on the popularization of network styles, which will allow. 政治大. people to understand more about the newly-generated digital culture transmitted on a new. 立. communication platform.. ‧ 國. 學. By a research on the successful network styles, this study hopes to contribute to the. ‧. appreciation of the Internet cultural phenomenon. The story of network styles is crucial to the. y. Nat. er. io. sit. understanding of digital culture, not only as a characteristic of an Internet subculture, but as a cultural artefact that is gaining new meaning and function as it is breaking more and more. al. n. iv n C U appear frequently in the into the mainstream (Börzsei, 2013). Nowadays, h e n gnetwork c h i styles. news, advertisements, films and television programs, and it is generally believed that media productions successfully inserted with popular network styles are welcomed by the young readers and audiences (Qiao, 2011). On the other hand, the mass media are constantly inspiring the creation of popular new network styles, such as Zhenhuan style and VANCL style6, and thus successfully advertised and promoted their products and works. Hopefully, this study would provide a reference to the cultural and media industry. 6. “VANCL style” is derived from the ad words of the brand VANCL, the largest online own-brand apparel retailer in China..

(26) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 19. Literature Review. Network Style Studies at Present When network style just came into the sight of the academic, some studies treated the netspeaks as a whole, regardless of the differences and uniqueness between the different subcategories. Seldom did researchers take network styles as an independent research object except in some case studies, such as the papers on “Lihua style” (Liu, 2008), “VANCL style” (Cong, 2010) and “roaring style” (Huang, 2011). Such case studies are usually qualitative,. 政治大 and focus on the unique features, the originations, and the rhetoric devices of a particular 立. ‧ 國. 學. network style, as well as their influence on Chinese language.. Later, with the increasing number of network styles and their growing influence, research. ‧. sit. y. Nat. in this field began to concentrate on certain attributes of the network styles, the most common. io. n. al. er. ones being the typology, the features, the influence on the Chinese language and society, and the communication and popularization of network styles.. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Typology. In order to give a systematic description of this Internet cultural phenomenon, researchers try to classify the network styles with different criteria and under different research purposes. He (2012) classified the network styles into three categories, i.e. currentaffair oriented, mood oriented and structure oriented by the types of hooks. With an elaborate analysis on 69 popular network styles, Wang (2013) categorized the network styles into five groups by their originations, i.e. news and contemporary social events, entertainment programs, advertisements, famous remarks by celebrities, and SNS or BBS posts by the.

(27) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 20. grassroots. From a sociological perspective, Wang (2013) classified the network styles into two categories, i.e. public-opinion based and entertainment based. The former is closely related to the social reality or a particular social event, especially if the public crisis is not reduced or quelled in time. In contrast, the entertainment network styles are generated to satisfy the need for entertainment, novelty or the desire for individuality of the netizens, and are usually not related to the social events (Qu, 2012). The main differences of the two categories lie in their. 政治大. social functions as well as the psychology of the netizens. The public-opinion network styles. 立. are usually parodic and ironical, and are used for social commentary purpose and social. ‧ 國. 學. supervision in public discussion. It is closely related to the current society, and sometimes. ‧. could even accelerate the solution of social issues and crisis, while the entertainment network. y. Nat. er. io. sit. styles are usually regarded as a reflection of the pop cultural preference. By making a Kuso of the famous lines of a drama or a literature, the netizens could get a sense of relief from. al. n. iv n C U the two kinds of network their mundane life. Besides, the basic tones h eare n different g c h i between styles. The netizens share entertainment network styles for fun, whereas they created publicopinion network styles to express their frustration, sarcasm and criticism to the society. Features of network styles. A great deal of research has been conducted on the basic features of network styles. The researchers generally agree that humor is a major feature of network styles (Chang, 2006; Zhang, 2011; Zhou, 2012; Yue & Zheng, 2013). Specially, incongruity-based humor is used in the creation of lots of network styles, resulting in an amusing and thought-provoking effect (Zhou, 2012). Colloquialness is another common trait.

(28) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 21. of network styles (Wang, 2010; Zhang, 2011; Yue, 2013), which is determined by the average literacy of the common netizens. Formal written language is rarely seen in network styles unless the netizens create them intentionally. Moreover, netizens often express their opinions implicitly online due to the Internet censorship in China (Qian, 2011; Yu, 2011; Zhang, 2011). Since the Internet culture reflect the real life in the society, the language on the Internet would reveal the reflection by the netizens (Qian, 2011). Besides, like other kind of pop culture, timeliness is also a significant characteristic of network styles: after a sudden boom. 政治大. of viral transmission in a short period, the communication of a network style would gradually. 立. recede, and finally get replaced by new network styles (Yu, 2012; Wang, 2013).. ‧ 國. 學. The influence on the natural language. Network styles are now penetrating into the mass. ‧. media, and their influence on the Chinese language is not to be sneezed at, either. If the. y. Nat. er. io. sit. Internet is a revolution, therefore, it is likely to be a linguistic revolution (Crystal, 2011). Now the network styles, along with other forms of text-based Internet memes, are changing. al. n. iv n C U the network styles are the daily language people are using (Sun, h2011). e n gOnc one h i hand,. enriching and adding vitality to the traditional language, and providing reference to the Chinese literature (Ma, 2011; Sun, 2011). Meanwhile, the negative effect of the Internet language also became a concern of the linguists and schools. For example, Naocan style(腦殘體) 7, or otherwise referred to as “Mar’s characters” (火星文) in Taiwan, has already. 7. Naocan style (Mar’s characters) features the deliberate variation of the shape of the Chinese characters. People can. create Naocan texts by adding dazzling symbols and replacing the radical elements(偏旁部首) of the characters with the ones similar in shape but with more strokes. For example, the verses “山重水複疑無路，柳暗花明又一村” might be converted into “軕¤褈氺復疑嘸〖簬，キ桺 δ 闇婲朙叒弌邨┖” by a Mar’s Character generator on.

(29) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 22. appeared in the writing of some primary school students, which is regarded as a retrogression of language learning and a violation of the traditional language. The “copy-and-paste” use of Internet language also raised the concern of scholars home and abroad. Ushanova (2012) believes that if the tendency develops, people would “lose” the native language. The social function of network styles. The Internet meme, as an online community’s cultural artifact, actually helps to illuminate how they express values and share interests (Chen, 2012). The meme has become a vehicle for expressing ideas in a unique way that can. 政治大. clearly communicate the author’s message (Patal, 2013). Xu (2011) did an elaborate analysis. 立. on Taobao style, roaring style and high-speed railway style, concluding that the. ‧ 國. 學. popularization of network styles offers a new way to enjoy life, release emotion, and express. ‧. thoughts. Thus the popular network styles, especially the public-opinion network styles,. y. Nat. er. io. sit. become a reflection to the social emotion, and are providing important reference to the public opinion experts. Every year, the public opinion research centers in China would take network. al. n. iv n C buzzwords and network styles as significant h e indices i U emotion mining studies (Zhu, n g c inhsocial Shan, & Hu, 2011; Yu, 2013; Xie, 2013). An important means to read the public opinion in the network styles is to observe the. decoding process embodied in the language. The encoding-decoding theory was proposed by Hall in 1973. In the interpretation of the information from the television discourse, or to be more general, the mass media, the audiences take initiative and employ three ways of. http://www.wdnd.cn/huoxingwen/.

(30) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 23. decoding, i.e. 1) dominant-hegemonic position, if the audiences take the connoted meaning from the media full and straight, and decode the message in terms of the reference code in which it has been encoded, 2) negotiated code/position, when the audiences acknowledge “the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations (abstract), while, at a more restricted, situational (situated) level, it makes its own ground rules – it operates with exceptions to the rule (as cited in During, 1999, p. 516)”, and 3) oppositional code, when a viewer probably perfectly understands both the literal and the connotative. 政治大. inflection given by a discourse, but decodes the message in a globally contrary way. He or. 立. some alternative framework of reference.. 學. ‧ 國. she disseminates the message in the preferred code in order to recreate the message within. ‧. More often than not, when it is related to politics and public interests, the audiences hold. y. Nat. er. io. sit. little trust in the encoders and employ oppositional code to interpret the information in the encoded discourses. The more the encoders stress on their own position or proposition, the. al. n. iv n C U totally be immersed in their own more resistant the decoders would be, thus h ethenaudience g c h imay oppositional code and reject the information from the authorities (Li, 2012). The publicopinion network styles are usually initiated when the governmental affairs are not public and transparent, or if the information is asymmetric between the authority and the public, so these network styles usually reflect a collective manifestation of the oppositional code from the netizens. The life cycle of network styles. Huang (2011) examine the communication of network styles in the network context and proposed a linear model of the life cycle of netspeaks. The.

(31) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 24. first step is “trigger and pop out”, when a prototype (a blog, an advertisement, a piece of news or a public event) arouses wide public attention. The second is “go viral on the Internet”, when the network style is reproduced frequently by the netizens. The following step is “attract the attention of the traditional media”, and last, the when people lose interest in the network style, it would “fade out from people’s life”. Like most popular netspeaks, the network styles show their timeliness and short-lived nature in their life cycle.. Memetic Studies and Internet Memes. 立. Meme and Memetics. 政治大. ‧ 國. 學. The studies on network styles as well as other Internet memes have been employing. ‧. diverse theories as their theoretical framework. Related discussion on memetic theories has a. Nat. sit. y. long history in network style studies.. n. al. er. io. Based on Darwin’s evolution theory, the memetic theories are used to explain the. Ch. i Un. v. evolution rule of culture. Meme, the key concept of Memetics, first appeared in Richards. engchi. Dawkins’ (1989) The Selfish Gene. In the book, Dawkins writes about the concept of a meme, or, a mind virus, and defines the meme as a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. It is another kind of “gene” which has great significance in explaining human behavior and cultural evolution. Susan Blackmore (1999) even broadened the definition of meme to any forms of imitation of information, or any information that can be imitated then replicated. A meme can take in the form of a single meme or a memeplex, which is a set of memes.

(32) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 25. that can be replicated at the same time (Chen & He, 2006). In order to survive in the competition, memes combine with others to form memeplexes. Dawkins pointed that in certain special conditions, if the elements of memeplexes can integrate themselves with the dominate memes in a way, they may survive (as cited in Blackmore, 1999). Blackmore (1999) believes that the memes as the elements of memeplexes will be more easily replicated than as single ones in that the memeplexes are more influential. Shortly after Dawkins put forward the concept of meme, numerous scholars wrote. 政治大. papers to expound the meaning and rule of meme. The major schools of memetics take four. 立. different perspectives, i.e. information processing (Lynch, 1991; Dennett, 1995), thought. ‧ 國. 學. contagion (Gatherer, 1998), cultural evolution (Gabora, 1997), and semiotics (Deacon, 1999).. ‧. Memetics, as a theory tightly related with biology, psychology and culture as well, can. y. Nat. er. io. sit. not only be employed in cultural and social studies, but also be employed in the field of linguistic and non-literary studies. Tserdanelis (1999) believes that language, like the human. al. n. iv n C beings or animals, changes through natural h eselection. i Uand Seidel (2005) explored how n g c hHeath language memes such as slogans, metaphors, and stories can serve as coordinating mechanisms in organizations. As both a linguistic and cultural production, network styles are recognized as memes in nature. Francis Heylighen (1998) examined on the process of meme replication and put forward four stages of meme replication. The first stage is assimilation, in which a meme must be able to "infect" a host (human being), and enter into its memory. In order to be assimilated, the current meme should be noticed, understood and accepted by the host. The second stage is.

(33) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 26. retention, when the meme must be stored in the host’s memory for a period of time and get ready for replication. Then the meme is reproduced in the step of expression. Speech is the most useful way of expression and other common ways of meme expression are pictures, texts and behaviors. And last, a physical carrier or medium transmits the expression accurately in the step of transmission. The physical carrier could be a book, a picture, a CDROM, etc. Since the Internet emerges, transmission becomes more and more convenient. The Internet becomes the most important and greatest medium for transmission. Nevertheless, not. 政治大. all memes can survive in the process, which is also another kind of natural selection.. 立. To survive through the process, three values become essential to memes, i.e. longevity,. ‧ 國. 學. fecundity and copying-fidelity. Longevity is about the model of replication, the longer the. ‧. model exists, the more the memes will be generated. Books, magazines, hard disks and. y. Nat. er. io. sit. photos are the best models to keep the longevity of memes. Fecundity indicates the speed of replication: as soon as the replication of memes is successful, they can be spread to others.. al. n. iv n C U because of the necessary Lewis (2012) believes that the Internet memes h e nwent h i globally g c viral speed which characterizes the Internet and upon which this cultural phenomenon’s reach depends. With one click, bloggers could post rants, raves, or demands, and sign a petition and send it on to everyone they know. Copying-fidelity means that the replicators need to have the high-fidelity during the process of replication. For example, the popular old poems and proverbs usually have their high-fidelity when people recite them and tell them to others. However, it does not necessarily mean that the replicator would be exactly the same with the original meme. For a linguistic meme, the less complicated it is, the more easily it is to be.

(34) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 27. replicated, thus the more probably it will be transmitted. Generally speaking, when the memes are qualified for the three survival values, they can be successful memes in the culture. The theories of meme communication and survival values have been widely employed to explain the popularity of network styles along with other forms of netspeak styles. Many researchers (Zhang, 2012; Zhao, 2012; Li, 2013) believe that the common features of network styles conform to the three survival values of memes and thus facilitate the communication. 政治大. and popularization of network styles. Meanwhile, some other researchers cast doubt upon. 立. their claims. Zhou (2011) elaborated on the propagation of network styles. In his observation,. ‧ 國. 學. the three survival values of meme are paradoxical to the popularization of network styles. As. ‧. a relatively complex language phenomenon, network styles are timely and variable in nature,. y. Nat. er. io. sit. which could not be supported by longevity or copying-fidelity, and thus only fecundity functions as the key driving force in the propagation of network styles. Correspondingly,. al. n. iv n C Wang (2012) examined the transmissionhofe11 popular network n g c h i U styles by distilling the hooks as the key memes, supporting that the transmission of network styles is in essence the transmission of the key memes. However, she did not specify how these key memes conform to the survival values in the memetic theory.. Internet Memes While meme has been the subject of numerous studies, the Internet meme has just entered the academic domain recently..

(35) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 28. Different definitions of Internet memes exist among scholars. When Internet memes went viral in 2007, Knobel and Lankshear (2007) defined the new memes as “a popular term for describing the rapid uptake and spread of a particular idea presented as a written text, image, language ‘move’, or some other unit of cultural ‘stuff’ (p. 202)” among the Internet insiders. Davison (2012) broadened the definition of Internet meme to “a piece of culture, typically a joke, which gains influence through online transmission” (p.122). In a recent study, Börzsei (2013) even broadened the definition to “a piece of content spreading online from user to user. 政治大. and changing along the way. (p.2)” With different focuses, i.e. the diversity of forms, the. 立. humorous nature, and the variability, the researchers generally agreed that the Internet memes. ‧ 國. 學. are the widely-spread concepts or cultural artifacts that are imitated and spread rapidly online.. ‧. Although the definitions take into account various forms of Internet meme, such as. y. Nat. er. io. sit. image, video, text and activity (Mujeebuddin, 2011), the image-based meme receives the majority of attention both in academic studies and in practical use (Bauckhage, 2011;. al. n. iv n C Brunello, 2012; Milner, 2012; Davison, h 2012; i U Even Davison (2012), who e nBö c h 2013). grzsei, extended “Internet memes” to any cultural unit online, based his study on a corpus of image memes. Research on the communication of Internet memes has taken a wide ranges of perspectives. Levinson (2012) believes that imitation is essential to the lifespan of an Internet meme. As long as image memes are being copied with new captions or different assemblage, the memes can survive. Brunello (2012) argues that the composition of Internet memes entails much more than simple imitation; rather, they are a result of individuals playing.

(36) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 29. creatively with memetic elements within the aesthetics of postmodernism. It involves using familiar ideas and previous knowledge in order to make creative unfamiliar combinations, thus creating something original out of something that has been copied. Similarly, Buchel (2012) investigated into the impact of popular culture on the popularization of Internet memes. He points out that the popular culture has at least two very important aspects in regard to Internet memes. First, the popular culture serves as the reference systems of Internet memes, which could be one of the deciding factors that determine the success of the. 政治大. propagation of the memes. People need reference systems to express themselves and to be. 立. understood by others, so they look for something widespread to form a basis for. ‧ 國. 學. understanding each other. Consequently, a large number of Internet memes are related to the. ‧. latest news, well-known movies, or popular TV dramas. Meanwhile, an Internet meme acts as. y. Nat. er. io. sit. a form of agency, a means to react to the contents of popular culture, and to express opinions about it or use it for people’s purposes as it suits their needs when they are looking for. n. al. i n C U amusement, good comparison or symbolic h ereference. ngchi. v. Some researchers examined the evolution and mutation of Internet meme. Based on the observation on “First World Problems” -- a popular image-based Internet meme, Patel (2013) concludes that memes begin with originators -- “people who create new memes or the underlying images that will become memes at someone else’s hand. (p.250)” The originator’s work is then taken by derivative authors who create new work that is similar but maybe slightly different from the original memes. From this point on, future derivative authors build either on previous derivative authors’ work or the original author’s work, and create memes.

(37) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 30. ultimately connected to the original meme. Some mutations are built in the general direction of the meme and its previous versions, while others change the meme drastically. Some memes change so drastically that an entirely new meme emerges. Ultimately, something becomes a meme when it reaches significant volume and is easily recognizable by the Internet community. In order to specify “what exactly is being copied or changed (p.123)” in the formation of the derivative memes, Davison (2012) proposed three components of Internet memes, i.e. the. 政治大. manifestation, the behavior, and the ideal. The manifestation of a meme is its observable,. 立. external phenomena. It is the set of objects created by the meme, or, the records of its. ‧ 國. 學. existence. The manifestation indicates any arrangement of physical particles in time and. ‧. space that are the direct result of the reality of the meme. For a network style, the. y. Nat. er. io. sit. manifestation is presented in the form of language -- the final literal product that we can read on the online forums, SNS and blogs, etc. The behavior of a meme is the action taken by an. al. n. iv n C individual in service of the meme. The behavior h e n gofcthehmeme i U creates the manifestation. In other words, it is the action taken by people to create the derivatives. For example, if the behavior is writing a reply to a certain topic in the typical poetic format of Zhao Lihua on Tianya Forum, the manifestation would be presented in the form of a non-sense sentence. segregated into a few lines, which seems like in the format of a modern poem. The ideal of a meme is the concept or idea conveyed. The ideal dictates the behavior, which in turn creates the manifestation. If the manifestation is a funny imitation in Lihua style and the behavior is posting it on Tianya Forum, then the ideal is something like “Zhao Lihua’s poems are absurd”.

(38) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 31. or “Lihua style is funny”. As long as one of the three components is passed on, the meme is replicating, even if mutating and adapting. The three components could be applied in the analysis of an Internet meme in general or a specific creation of an Internet meme. The manifestation, which is the external presentation, could be observed by the forms or features that a meme possesses. For example, for the network styles, the manifestation is the language used by the netizens, thus could be described in terms of the speech styles or literary forms of the language. The behavior. 政治大. involves the action how the meme is created. For the Internet memes in the same form (i.e.. 立. video, image, text, etc.), the behavior is much the same. For the image-based memes, most of. ‧ 國. 學. them are made by using two functions at maximum: cut-copy-paste and text tool (Börzsei,. ‧. 2013), while for the network styles that only involve imitation on the text, would be even. er. io. sit. y. Nat. simpler.. The ideal of an Internet meme may be the most abstract and complex. It involves why. al. n. iv n C people create and spread a meme. Knobel & Lankshear i(2007) he n g c h U analyzed the purposes for. which people spread image-based Internet memes. The purposes could be sorted into four general categories, i.e. social commentary purposes, absurdist humor purposes, Otaku or manga fan purposes and hoax purposes. Each category could even be divided into more specific sub-categories (Figure 2). The purposes of image-based Internet memes could provide a reference to the study of text-based Internet memes though, there are still differences in the ideals of the two different.

(39) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 立. 32. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. n. er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. Ch. engchi. i Un. v. Figure 2. Types of Meme Purposes Note. From “Online Memes, Affinities, and Cultural Production” by Knobel, M., & Lankshear, C.,2007, A New Literacies Sampler, p.218. New York, NY: Peter Lang Publishing. Copyright 2007 by Peter Lang Publishing..

(40) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 33. types of Internet memes. For example, the otaku purposes are applicable to video, image and activity memes but not text memes because manga itself is visually based. Manga fans may photoshop a funny scene of a comic (image-based), re-dub a video clip (video-based), or cosplay a character (activity-based), but cannot create a meme of pure text type. Besides, text-based Internet memes may be created to encourage interaction among netizens. Such purposes could be illustrated in “Yuanfang Style”. Moreover, as discussed in previous section of this chapter, the ideals behind the public-opinion network styles and the entertainment. 政治大. ones could be very different. The former are commonly seen as a vehicle to convey one’s. 立. concern about the current affairs and the absurdity in the society, while the latter are usually. ‧ 國. 學. created for fun. Even within the same style, the purposes of different imitations created by. Nat. y. ‧. different netizens may also differ with one another.. er. io. sit. In general, when it is concerned with a certain imitation of network styles, the manifestation could be illustrated by the speech styles of the language, which is the most. al. n. iv n C observable part of the meme. The ideal is hcorresponding e n g c h i toUthe purposes for which netizens imitate and spread the meme. Although the behavior of the network styles is generally the same, i.e. imitation, or copy-paste and modifications, the behavior may be different due to the traits of the users, and hence the difference in the ideal as well as the manifestation. In other words, the behavior is most closely related to the users of the Internet memes. According to the analysis on the correspondence between Internet memes and network styles above, the theoretical framework of the study on the features of network styles is demonstrated in Figure 3, and two research questions are proposed as below:.

(41) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 34. Manifestation. Speech Style. Behavior. Origination. Ideal. Purpose. Internet Memes. Network Styles. Figure 3. Theoretical Framework of the Study on the Features of Network Styles Research Question 1 What are the features of popular Chinese network styles in terms of speech styles (manifestation), users (behavior) and purposes (ideal)? Research Question 2. 立. 政治大. Are there any interactions between speech styles (manifestation), users (behavior) and. ‧ 國. 學. purposes (ideal)?. ‧. Besides, the thesis would employ a diachronic study in order to explore the development. sit. y. Nat. of a network style and the features of its communication. The previous literature focused on. n. al. er. io. the communication of the image-based Internet memes, in terms of the origination, life cycle. Ch. i Un. v. and development of an image-based Internet meme, as well as the driving forces of its. engchi. popularization. This thesis would take a preliminary study on the communication of the popular network style from the above-mentioned aspects. Hence a general research question is proposed as below: Research Question 3: How is a network style developed over time? Specifically, this research question explores how a network style is originated, its life cycle pattern, its mutation and the driving forces of its popularization..

(42) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 35. Methodology This thesis employs a case study to explore the features as well as the communication of the popular network styles. The study is divided into two parts. First, the study examines the features of the network style by means of an exploratory content analysis. Second, in the meantime of the content analysis, the author would trace the life cycle of the network style, observe the mutation and development of it, and try to find the driving forces in the communication of the network style.. 政治大. The selection of the case for analysis is based on the criteria proposed in a study of. 立. Knobel & Lankshear’s (2007), by which they selected successful Internet memes on the basis. ‧. ‧ 國. 學. of whether. n. al. er. io. email, websites, online discussion forums, chat spaces); and. sit. y. Nat. 1) the meme was more or less wholly transmitted via electronic vehicles (e.g.,. i Un. v. 2) could be deemed “successful” in respect of being sufficiently strong and salient. Ch. engchi. to capture online and offline broadcast media attention in the form of full-blown reports through to side-bar mentions in newspapers, television news reports or talk shows, widely read trade publications or general-audience magazines. (p.204). Based on these criteria, the study takes “Zhenhuan style” to exemplify popular network styles, which is derived from a costume TV drama -- The Legend of Zhen Huan, or Hou Gong Zhen Huan Zhuan (《後宮·甄嬛傳》). The drama has enjoyed great popularity and good reputation in China, and has even broken the records of ratings in several provincial.

(43) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 36. televisions (Zhang, 2012). The TV drama was even introduced into the overseas markets such as the United States8 and Japan. The language of the drama features the frequent use of the ancient personal pronouns of the royal family and the servants (“本宮”9, “臣妾”10, “小主”11, “奴才”12,etc.), as well as the unique colloquialism commonly seen in ancient Chinese literature , such as “必是極好的 (That is really good) ”, “不負恩澤 (Your good will be appreciated)”, “承蒙聖恩 (I am deeply grateful to your kindness) ”, etc. The drama has derived quite a lot of Internet memes. 政治大. of various forms, including catchphrases, network styles, image-based Internet memes, and. 立. so on.. ‧ 國. 學. Among all the Internet memes derived from the drama, Zhenhuan style stands out as one. ‧. of the most popular memes. It was ranked into “the top 10 popular network styles of 2012”. y. Nat. er. io. sit. by the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Center (He, 2013), and was listed as one of “the most popular netspeaks of the year 2012” in The Report on Chinese. n. al. i n C U Social Opinion and Crisis Management(2013) h e n(Xie, hi g c 2013).. v. Since it came into being, Zhenhuan style has raised the attention and interest from both the netizens and the media. According to Baidu search engine, the discussion on Zhenhuan. 8. It was announced in 2013 that the drama would be exported to the U.S and re-edited into six TV movies and broadcasted. on mainstream TV channels in the U.S., and the title of the drama would be officially translated as Empresses in the Palace. 9. “Ben Gong”, the way that the empress and the concubines call themselves when talking to the people inferior to them.. 10. “Chen Qie”, the way that the empress and the concubines call themselves when talking to those who are superior to them.. 11. “Xiao Zhu” (your highness), the way that the servants call the concubines.. 12. “Nu Cai”, the way that the servants call themselves..

(44) A STUDY ON CHINESE NETWORK STYLES. 37. amounts to about 1,120,00013 pieces, 84,20014 among which are related reports from the online and offline media. Apart from news, the meme is also frequently used in advertisements and public announcements. For example, in 2013, Shandong Traffic Radio aired a PSA in Zhenhuan style, calling for food conservation; in 2014, the Traffic police in Jinan City set an announcement in Zhenhuan style, reminding the passengers of the road construction ahead (Figure 4). Moreover, the meme even appeared in a cross talk in the 2014 Spring Festival Gala of CCTV and become well-known throughout the country.. 立. 政治大. ‧. ‧ 國. 學 er. io. sit. y. Nat. al. n. iv n C Figure 4. The Application of Zhenhuan h Style in Public Announcement by the Traffic Police engchi U in Jinan City, Shandong Province, April 24, 2014.. Note. The board reads “方才得知前路施工，想來必是寸步難行，如君至此南行，午飯當變晚飯。轉，東沿旅游路出彩石達西營至柳埠，景好路暢心不堵；西至國道 104，過大學城至五峰轉南山盛景地，心情想必是極好的！”. 15. 13. Retrieved on May 17, 2014, from Baidu web search engine (www.baidu.com).. 14. Retrieved on May 17, 2014, from Baidu News search engine (news.baidu.com).. 15. The main idea of the board is as follows: “I just heard that the road ahead is under repair, so the traffic must be. inconvenient. If you insist on going south along the road, you will be enjoying your lunch at supper time. If you turn eastwards, drive along the Lvyou Road through Caishi Town, Xiying Town and Liubu Town, you will enjoy the clear road, beautiful scenery and a relaxed mood; or you may drive westwards across the college town along the national road and pass through Wufeng Mountain Scenic Area, there you will surely feel delighted!”.