The 9th International Conference on English Language Teaching (ELT) In China (ELT2020)

WeChat is a multi-functional mobile phone app developed by Tencent, China, which functions messaging, social media, payment, reading, etc. WeChat memes, pictures of Joint Picture Group (JPG), Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) or other picture formats, are one of the most favourite element in people’s chatting. In memes, images, words, and/or any kind of signs and symbols can be combined to convey certain meanings. Memes can be sent to a WeChat contact or group or shared in Friend Circle as common symbols or nonverbal symbols, expressing and implying meanings. It is because memes are combination of variety of information convey systems e.g. linguistic forms, notations, movie character images, etc. that it is naturally multimodal. Some memes, however, seems “more than” multimodal. This study aims to explore “musical memes” – WeChat memes involving musical symbols and notations. Firstly, some typical musical memes are described and interpreted. For example: Through multimodality discourse analysis (MDA), meaning and construction of this musical meme are explained from perspective of Translanguaging and multimodality: it is an instance of Translanguaging and resemiotisation that combines two modes – musical notations and Chinese characters – to convey a Chinese proverb “make a fortune quietly”. Secondly, by observing the use of musical memes and interviewing group members in two WeChat groups of musical communities of practice (CofP), sociological meanings of musical memes are also explored. There are three main findings in this study: (1) the intertwining of musical symbols and other elements endows musical memes with the qualities of Translanguaging and multimodality; (2) the use of musical memes could be an index of social identity and creates critical Translanguaging Space in which identities are reinforced and new identities are constructed; (3) Translanguaging and multimodality could be thresholds preventing outsiders of musical CofPs from entering, which is one reason of why nowadays people have multiple identities but they seldom overlap. Apart from musical memes, chemical, mathematic, physical, etc. memes have similar construction and Translanguaging and multimodality features. WeChat meme is a dynamic Translanguaging Space which is noteworthy in this new social media era. Concepts of Trans- and languaging may be even broadened and updated through studies on WeChat memes.

multimodal discourse analysis