Countering COVID-19-related anti-Chinese racism with translanguaged swearing on social media - De Gruyter
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Multilingua 2020; 39(5): 607–616 Hongqiang Zhu* Countering COVID-19-related anti-Chinese racism with translanguaged swearing on social media https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0093 Abstract: The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a spectacular rise in social media communication and an unprecedented avalanche of global conversation. This paper traces the emergence of the racist term “Chinese virus” used by the President of the United States, Donald Trump, on the Western social media platform Twitter and its reception and recontextualization on Chinese social media. Creative bilingual responses fusing English and Chinese resulted in a popular searchable meme “#用中式英语跨文化交流#” (“#Chinglish used for cross-cultural communication#”), on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. Such linguistic creativity involves a variation of swears to mock and condemn the racist phrase. Formally, linguistic practices such as self-coinage, transliteration, verbal repetition, and acronyms can be observed. Functionally, the recontexual- izations evidence a defensive ideology linked to nationalism and modernism. Ultimately, combatting the English racist term “Chinese virus” with a creative mixture of English and Chinese demonstrates how English has become ever more decentered during the COVID-19 pandemic. Keywords: multilingual linguistic creativity, Chinese-English translanguaging, Chinglish swearing, COVID-19-related racism 1 Introduction As the 2020 outbreak of COVID-19 has developed into a global pandemic, senti- ments 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 dis- courses associated with COVID-19 are shaped and perpetuated. The phrase “Chi- nese virus” is one example, where the use of “Chinese” to label the disease equates *Corresponding author: Hongqiang Zhu, Jinan University, College of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China, E-mail: hongqiangzhu@163.com
608 H. Zhu
Figure 1: Screen capture of the Weibo topic with the initial Twitter repost.
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 varia-
tions of swearing or cursing to play with the racist phrase. Here I draw on Wain-
ryb’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 com-
munity have become very adept at finding ways to insult people without using
explicitly “dirty” words. The demand for profane language has developed into aCOVID-19 609
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).
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 esca-
lated 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 in-
teractions 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-Chinese610 H. Zhu
racism in the West, which is most recently embedded in geopolitical tension be-
tween 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 – some-
times referred to as “Chinglish” – which has become a form of resistance to En-
glish, 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 con-
fidence, 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 ex-
pressions 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 pro-
hibited or violated in social or cultural situations. Second, the linguistic charac-
terization of swearing is constrained by structural attributes and non-literal
meanings or emotive orientations (Ljung 2011: 4). Third, a continuum of theCOVID-19 611
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 so-
ciopolitical structures” (García and Wei 2014: 43). Likewise, Weibo users select
features and resources from one linguistic repertoire, blurring the boundary be-
tween two languages (English and Chinese) to make sense in digital communica-
tion. 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 methodo-
logical 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: acro-
nyms, transliteration/translation, coinage, verbal repetition, and other. Some
users use acronyms to express attitudes. For instance, the short form of the612 H. Zhu
Table : Types of translanguaging swearwords.
Type Number Percentage
Acronym .%
Transliteration (including literal translation) .%
Coinage .%
Verbal Repetition .%
Other .%
Total %
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 trans-
literation 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 some-
one’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.
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-spaceCOVID-19 613
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 ele-
ments through bilingual verbal play.
3.2 Discourse functions of translanguaging swears
As suggested earlier, swearing involves speech acts expressing attitudes or feel-
ings 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 trans-
literation 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 swear-
ing, and they are realized through various translanguaging strategies. First,
translanguaging swears as linguistic creativity has shown the potential of in-
dividuals using language in digital communication to engage with political or
social subjectivities in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. Second, the trans-
languaging 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 of614 H. Zhu
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 lin-
guistic 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 lan-
guage or discourse representation is a local constituent of Chinese digital sub-
culture, featuring the Zu’an culture popular with young netizens. However, the
discursive power of translanguaging swears also involves many other sociocul-
tural factors. This is because “any given internet meme inheres ideological prac-
tice, 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 so-
ciopolitical 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 fol-
lowers, and were echoed among Weibo users. On the one hand, interaction amongCOVID-19 615
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 domi-
nance 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 stra-
tegies 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 pro-
fane 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 con-
ventional 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.
Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Prof. Ingrid Piller and the project team for
their support and encouragement; our reviewers and the editor for their valuable
feedback. This project is supported by the research projects granted by Guangdong
Social Sciences Project (GD18WZX32: GD16WXZ30) and by Jinan University (JNU-J-
CXGCWY2017005). Also, thanks go to the RA students, Miss Bingbing Wang, and
Miss Chunyang Wang for their kind assistance with working on the data
processing.
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