The Linguistic Landscape of Visitor Messages at the Tombs of Iconic Chinese Historical Figures: An Analysis Based on the Corpus from Three Kingdoms Figures
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.70088/twskkv94Keywords:
Linguistic Landscape, Peripheral Linguistic Landscape, Theory of Speech Genres, Discourse Function, Emotional Projection, Discursive Practice of Visitor Messages at Celebrity TombsAbstract
This paper uses a corpus of 150 notes deposited at the tombs of five Three Kingdoms historical figures. Drawing on Bakhtin’s speech genre theory, scholarship on address terms, and speech act theory, it carries out a coded analysis to explore how young people stage dialogues with these historical figures across three analytical axes: genre, address terms, and discourse function. The results show that the interplay of these three dimensions creates a stylistic continuum from reverent to informal. Genre establishes the formal boundaries of the message, address terms encode underlying assumptions about the writer’s imagined relationship with the figure, and discourse function defines the speech acts the writer performs. This whole practice operates like an “emotional projection mirror”, laying bare young people’s urge to find steady, unshifting emotional anchors amid an unpredictable present.References
R. Landry and R. Y. Bourhis, "Linguistic landscape and ethnolinguistic vitality: An empirical study," Journal of Language and Social Psychology, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 23–49, 1997.
E. Ben-Rafael, "A sociological approach to the study of linguistic landscapes," in Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery, E. Shohamy and D. Gorter, Eds. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2009, pp. 40–54.
B. Spolsky, "Prolegomena to a sociolinguistic theory of public signage," in Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery, E. Shohamy and D. Gorter, Eds. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2009, pp. 25–39.
G. Shang and X. Zhou, "Types, characteristics, and research perspectives of peripheral linguistic landscapes," Language Strategy Research, no. 4, pp. 37–47, 2020.
X. Zhou, "A re-examination of the origins of Bakhtin's theory of speech genres," Eurasian Humanities Studies, no. 3, pp. 4–9, 2021.
J. Ling, "A review of Bakhtin's theory of speech genres," Chinese Russian Teaching, no. 3, pp. 48–54, 2000.
B. Xin, "Whorf, Bakhtin and critical discourse analysis," Foreign Languages and Their Teaching, no. 2, pp. 10–18, 2016.
Z. Hu, "Bakhtin and social semiotics," Journal of Peking University (Philosophy and Social Sciences), no. 2, pp. 49–57, 1994.
F. Hu and Y. Hu, "A re-understanding of the modern Chinese address system: Based on the 'new speech act analysis' theory," Contemporary Rhetoric, no. 3, pp. 51–60, 2024.
R. Brown and A. Gilman, "The pronouns of power and solidarity," in Style in Language, T. Sebeok, Ed. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 1960, pp. 253–276.
C. Yin, "Changes in meaning and identity of kinship address terms on tombstones: An investigation of a cemetery in Beijing," Foreign Language Research, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 13–20, 2022.
J. R. Searle, Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1969.
Y. Liu, "Construction of a linguistic landscape analysis framework based on speech act theory: An empirical study of three villages in Jixi, southern Anhui," Applied Linguistics, no. 2, pp. 89–101, 2025.
A. Bell, "Language style as audience design," Language in Society, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 145–204, 1984.
M. Li, "An overview of research directions on Chinese address terms," Applied Linguistics, no. 3, pp. 75–82, 2010.
Z. Jin, "A review of foreign theoretical research on address terms," Journal of Qilu Normal University, vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 83–93, 2021.
Q. Shen and Y. Sun, "On the interactive view of space and symbols in urban linguistic landscapes," Journal of Shanghai Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 70–77, 2023.
H. Tian, "Style research in variationist sociolinguistics: Also on its mutual reference with rhetorical style research," Contemporary Rhetoric, no. 4, pp. 11–21, 2022.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Hui Ju (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
