“(scream)(wriggle)(dismally crawl)” – parentheses as semiotic resources for translanguaging and trans-semiotic practices on Chinese micro-blogging

Abstract

ABSTRACT While extensive research has explored translanguaging practices online in relation to named languages, written signs, such as punctuation, are under-researched despite their creative, multifunctional, and playful potential. This study investigates the use of parentheses on a Chinese micro-blogging site, Weibo with a translanguaging lens. We explore how online users exploited parentheses for innovative meanings and functions and how creative adoptions of parentheses facilitate the translanguaging practices featured with trans-boundary communication. Data were collected using Python with keywords “parenthesis literature” – a cyberliteracy in which parentheses are often used in ways that deviate from its conventional usages, along with manual data cleaning. We identified four types of trans-semiotic practices, including trans-scenarios, trans-semiotizing for new punctuation marks, trans-modality for stylizing emoticons, and conventionalizing parentheses for indicating speech acts. We argue that online users engage in trans-semiotic practices via fluid controls of parentheses, during which they turn a conventional punctuation into translanguaging cues, rendering extra-linguistic resources important components in meaning-making in digital communication.