Resumen de ‘Yo! Yo! Welcome to 茂名特产秀’: identity construction of a new farmer on the online linguistic landscape of Douyin in China
This study examines the construction and mediatisation of the new farmer identity within the online linguistic landscape (OLL) of a short-video social media platform, focusing on the Douyin account of content creator Lirong Chen from a village in Maoming, China. Drawing on translingual theory, this research highlights how Chen navigates a diverse array of multilingual and multisemiotic resources to present and narrate her identity as a globally connected and resourceful new farmer; viewers reinforce this identity through playful (re)mediations of Maoming, contest it by challenging the legitimacy of her English use and negotiate it through tropes embedded in comments and bullet screens. The nuanced analysis of the collaborative efforts of Chen and viewers in the identity construction on the OLL of Douyin not only enriches the understanding of new farmers community within attention economy in contemporary China, but it also advances the perspective of OLL in sociolinguistic identity analysis by foregrounding its advantage of capturing entire identity formation process in the fluid and porous contexts. Furthermore, bringing translingualism into OLL studies extends its application to the offline Chinese rural context displayed in the online public space, contributing to broader discussions of identity construction and negotiation from a linguistic landscape perspective.
