Ms. Gloria Dou 

In this talk, I investigate the direct communication that takes place between sellers and buyers on Carousell, an online classified platform in Hong Kong. Drawing upon digital ethnographic and discourse analytic methods, I demonstrate how Carousellers contest and rework the language ideologies of Hong Kong by positioning themselves as Cantonese-speaking, ‘legitimate’ holders of authenticity whilst othering those who are accused of being ‘inauthentic’ in their speech because they insist on typing in English or simplified Chinese in mediated transactions. Exploring the co-occurrence of pride and profit in the discourses of globalized new economy, typically situated in the global-local nexus, I discuss how this bottom-up approach adds to the current literature. 

Mr. Xuekun Liu 

In this talk, I introduce one case study from my PhD research project where I examine how some protesters perceived LGBT rights during the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protest movement. Discourse analysis is deployed to scrutinize one discussion thread on the online forum LIHKG, a thread mainly addressing the topic of an event announced as “protesting with you on Hong Kong tongzhi parade”. The analysis focuses on how participants in the discussion thread evaluate and represent the event, LGBT rights, and the dyads of supporters/opponents of the activity, pro-democracy/pro-establishment Hong Kong citizens, and Hong Kong/Mainland people. The findings illuminate that while most participants use the discourse of freedom and democracy to express their support for LGBT rights and contest hegemonic heteronormative and heterosexist values, they largely enact and reproduce homonationalist and homocolonialist discourses, which, I argue, can potentially limit the LGBT rights movement in Hong Kong. 

Zoom link: https://hku.zoom.us/j/97785689803?pwd=eC9NT2R5bm53ZElrN3BhYmRvVk5tZz09 

Meeting ID: 977 8568 9803
Password: 815580

Live broadcast will be available in Room CRT-7.45, 7/F, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU.