Functional perspective of Chinese learners’ language use on social media Book Chapter

Wang, S. (2018). Functional perspective of Chinese learners’ language use on social media . 171-189. 10.4324/9781351208673

cited authors

  • Wang, S

authors

abstract

  • This study explored the types of language functions intermediate learners of Chinese perform when conducting social communication in Chinese on Facebook. A qualitative approach was adopted to analyze the discourse functions utilized by the students. The samples of the participants’ discourses consisted mainly of their Facebook posts, which were collected over the course of one semester. A computer- mediated discourse analysis method was employed to analyze those posts. Findings revealed that 22 types of discourse functions were used, the most frequently employed of which was asking questions. The use of this function as well as 21 others emerged as a result of real-life situations and was for communicative purposes, which demonstrated Facebook offered students an optional platform to practice situational use of the target language.

publication date

  • January 1, 2018

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

International Standard Book Number (ISBN) 13

start page

  • 171

end page

  • 189