This book examines language and communication in a novel area of digital health. Situating itself within the sociocultural paradigm of literacy research, the book proposes a discourse-oriented approach to genetic literacy and applies it to the study of public engagement with direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing—an emergent biotechnology operating at the intersection of personal genomics, consumer culture, and online health. The author draws on a rich dataset comprising marketing materials from a leading genetic company in China, interviews with genetic test users, and online forum interactions involving consumers and members of the genetic company. Using in-depth analyses of authentic discourse data, the book examines how key stakeholders in DTC genetic testing discursively construct and negotiate socially situated knowledges about genetics and health to pursue a range of interactional goals. Challenging the static and cognitive view of genetic literacy as a set of decontextualised knowledge and skills in scientific and medical fields, this book argues for a reconceptualisation of genetic literacy as a dynamic and socially situated discursive practice. Building on key insights from medical sociology, the author discusses genetic literacy within the context of broader societal shifts, including the biomedicalisation of health and the rise of neoliberal ideologies and practices in contemporary healthcare. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book will appeal to researchers and students working in the areas of sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, and health communication. It will also be of particular interest to practitioners in genetics and health, as well as members of the general public seeking to understand the social aspects of public engagement with genetics and health.

This paper explores health literacy mediation in Chinese online medical consultations (OMCs). Adopting a social practice view of (health) literacy, the study examines naturally occurring instances of health literacy mediation in which caregivers act as “mediators” by initiating and receiving online medical services on behalf of their family members who may have limited health literacy. The analysis focuses on the discursive and interactional strategies through which these mediators participate in OMCs, articulate their family members’ illness experiences, and support the management of their health. The findings show that literacy mediation serves as a powerful means of addressing health literacy barriers, promoting inclusion, and empowering linguistically and digitally marginalised groups to achieve better health outcomes through the support of others. Drawing on the view of health literacy as shared resources, knowledge, and expertise distributed across individuals’ social networks, the paper argues that, apart from an emphasis on independent mastery of health-related texts and practices by an individual, literacy mediation provides an alternative pathway to enhancing health equity for less-advantaged groups, by mobilising the resources of people who help them with navigating challenging digital health texts.

Home-based care has become a predominant mode of elderly care in China amidst rapid population aging. This paper draws on a ‘narratives-as-practices’ approach (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2012; De Fina, 2021) to analyze storytelling in naturally occurring, face-to-face interactions in four Chinese families. We examine the types of narratives that are told, how they are constructed, and the interactional functions they serve in home-based eldercare. Two primary modes of storytelling were identified: 1) collaborative storytelling that involves interactions between older persons and their caregivers; and 2) unilateral storytelling where narratives are constructed by older persons alone, with limited participation or engagement from the listeners. Three narrative types were further distinguished, namely, personal, collective, and vicarious narratives. All three types of narratives were observed in the collaborative mode of storytelling, whereas the unilateral mode of storytelling exclusively features vicarious narratives. We show that these narratives were produced to perform a range of interactional goals in home-based eldercare, including fostering caregivers’ understanding, advocating generational values, conveying expectations, and sustaining social bonds. By revealing the narrative patterns in home-based eldercare communication and how they reflect and constitute the ‘power-solidarity’ dynamics in the family, this study sheds light on the complexities of intergenerational communication in the emerging context of home-based elderly care in China.

Social media has emerged as an important channel for mental health education, allowing health educators to communicate mental health knowledge to the public via short-form videos. Drawing on critical multimodal discourse analysis, this paper examines the use of multimodal metaphors in animated depression educational videos on the Chinese social media platform Bilibili.com and considers the broader social implications of these metaphors for understanding and managing depression. The findings show that multimodal metaphors are employed to represent the nature of depression, its symptoms, potential causes, and treatments. Conventional metaphors (e.g., Experiencing Depression is Being Engulfed by a Blanket of Darkness) transform mental distress into a visible and embodied presence, thereby validating the sufferers’ illness experiences; creative metaphors (e.g., Depression is the Grim Reaper and Depression is a Black Dog) reframe depression as external agents, while also attributing a certain level of agency to individuals and combating social stigma. Moreover, by personifying brain chemicals and simplifying neurological mechanisms, multimodal biomedical metaphors make complex knowledge more understandable to the audience. While these metaphors play an important role in removing barriers to public understanding, by prioritizing a biomedical account, they also risk dehumanizing and overmedicalizing individuals who are affected by depression. Therefore, we argue that a more balanced approach that incorporates both biomedical and psychosocial aspects of depression is needed for a more holistic and socially oriented mental health education.

This paper investigates the appropriation of offline linguistic landscapes (LLs) on Chinese social media, with a particular focus on how these LLs are creatively deployed for playful mockery and disruption of existing social order. Specifically, we present detailed analyses of a blog post and its comments to illustrate how Weibo users creatively appropriate offline LLs to playfully mock universities. Drawing on frameworks of Geosemiotics and ?ambient affiliation?, we examine the semiotic mechanisms through which the playful mockery is realized and how such mockery is perceived by the audience. The findings show that the creative appropriation of offline LLs is realized via three strategies ? resemiotization, emplacement, and homonym. Some users align with the ?mockery? bond by showing their amusement, whereas others promote the bond by posting similar cases of mockery to engage potential readers in the digital practice. We argue that these creative semiotic practices not only reflect users? agency of exploiting the playful potential of social media for expressing their sentiments, but may also deconstruct the general portrayal of universities as the ?ivory tower? of talent cultivation and knowledge production. This may, in turn, diminish the prestige of universities and risk creating an opposition between the public and these institutions.

This study examines a widely used yet underexplored digital affordance specific to the Chinese social media platform WeChat, i.e., the “tap-tap” (拍一拍) function, with a particular focus on users’ metacommunicative reflections on its role in online communication. Adopting a discourse-centered online ethnographic approach that combines analyses of naturally-occurring instances of “tap-tap” use and interviews with these users, this study explores the creative ways in which participants exploit the communicative potential of “tap-tap”, and how they interpret the role of this technological affordance in their online interactions. Drawing on the concept of ‘metacommunicative reflexivity’ in sociolinguistics and communication studies, as well as ‘interpretative flexibility’ in the sociology of science, we highlight the agency of users as active adaptors of the ‘intended scripts’ of digital technologies for meaning-making and interpersonal connection. The study shows that “tap-tap” is inherently interactive, which is evident not only in its content design but also in users’ active deployment of this function for self-representation, interpersonal alignment, and conversation management. By emphasizing users’ metacommunicative reflections on a digital affordance specific to WeChat messaging, this study offers contextualized insights for understanding the complexity and creativity involved in contemporary digital communication.

This paper proposes a discourse-oriented approach to genetic literacy. The increased availability of genetic testing requires a certain level of genetic literacy among the public. This is important to understand the benefits and the risks of genetic testing. In this paper, we suggest that genetic literacy is not just a set of knowledge and skills that people have, but something that they do. It is discursively accomplished, and socially and culturally constitutive. We illustrate our approach using a genetic counseling consultation for Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome (SADS). We examine how in this consultation, through careful orientation to the clients? understanding of genetic information, extended explanation-giving and education on genetics, the geneticist supports the clients in their decision about genetic testing. We discuss our findings in relation to clinical and non-clinical genetic contexts and highlight the importance of genetic literacy and professional support in diverse situations where genetic testing is considered.

Previous research shows that men who experience erectile or sexual dysfunction may feel uncomfortable discussing their sexual experiences in face-to-face clinical encounters. Part of the reason is the stigma and embarrassment associated with discussing private sexual matters. This study examines how e-patients, or more precisely advice-seekers, and doctors communicate about sexual dysfunction in online medical consultations (OMCs). We conducted a Theme-Oriented Discourse Analysis of relevant OMCs on CH Doctor, a Chinese medical consultation website, to understand how individuals with perceived sexual dysfunction articulate their conditions and how doctors on the platform respond and provide recommendations to these individuals. Our analysis reveals that OMCs afford advice-seekers a place to openly discuss their sexual health issues and gain empowerment from doctors who assist in mitigating the associated social stigma. Upon detailed discourse analysis, however, we find that individuals seeking advice often interpret their sexual experiences as symptoms of illness that requires medical intervention. In response, doctors tend to validate these advice-seekers’ preliminary self-diagnoses by treating their conditions as medical issues and characterizing them as psychosocial problems caused by stress and anxiety. Aligning with a critical sociological perspective that views sexual dysfunction as socially constructed problems referenced against dominant norms of sexual functioning, we argue that the medicalization and psychologization of certain sexual behaviors by doctors and advice-seekers discursively reinforce and legitimize essentialist views of hetero-coital sexual interaction. Such views reify penile-vaginal intercourse and ejaculation as the only standard, successful, and desirable form of sexual activity. This may further induce fear and anxiety among adult men whose sexual behaviors do not realistically align with these norms.

本研究以“死亡话语素养”和“叙事定位”为理论框架，以主题导向的话语分析为方法，考察生前预嘱推广活动中讲者的叙事话语和听众反馈，探究其中的死亡话语素养实践。语料为三场分别针对大学生、安宁志愿者、养老院住户的宣讲活动。研究发现，通过对故事中医患及家属的决策话语权关系、讲者与听众的权势或等同关系、对宏观传统话语之挑战的叙事定位，讲者呈现和建构了以生前预嘱来规划临终阶段医疗决策、掌握生命自主权的相关知识和积极态度，践行了死亡话语素养。听众增强了对生前预嘱的了解和积极态度，部分人随即采取了相关（话语）行动；部分人对生前预嘱的法律效力持怀疑态度；也有部分人对谈论此议题持消极逃避态度。在讲者与听众的互动过程中，死亡话语素养得以实践和发展。

This chapter takes a discourse analytic approach to examine communication of genetic knowledge in an online forum in Mainland China. The data corpus consists of 270-plus forum interactions among clients who have used direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing, staff members of a genetic testing company, and individuals who are interested in but may not yet have used genetic tests. Our analysis reveals that the forum interactions demonstrate complex hybridity and blending of various discourses and communicative practices. Specifically, the online mode of communication enables the participants to engage in direct health advice-seeking and open discussion of sensitive genetic health topics. The forum also allows the participants to contest the ‘authoritative’ versions of genetic knowledge advanced by the genetic test company. Through these discursive practices, the participants actively engage in constructing and negotiating the meanings of an emerging genetic technology. Such increased public engagement with genetic science reveals a blurring epistemological distinction between experts and lay people in the modern society where access to genetic information has been democratized through various digital platforms.

基于对医疗领域“死亡素养”和社会语言学“新素养研究”的文献梳理，提出“死亡话语素养”概念，并阐释其内涵。死亡话语素养即人们使用各种话语形式谈论死亡（和濒死）相关议题，参与社会实践，探索和积极建构生命意义的能力与过程。随后以生前预嘱为例，论述死亡话语素养如何在具体社会情境中养成和实践。死亡话语素养是人们为争取死亡质量需要投入的一种文化资本，其养成和实践有利于促进人们的生命福祉，推动新的谈生论死话语惯习的形成。

The emergence of social media has expanded the traditional landscape of health communication research. This study applies the framework of “ambient affiliation” in Systemic Functional Linguistics to a digital health context. Specifically, it explores how viewers of medical consultation videos on Bilibili.com, a Chinese online video-sharing platform, discursively negotiate alignments and construct bonds of shared values and knowledge in their online comments. Discourse analysis of the comments shows that ambient affiliation among viewers is formed in relation to four main types of interaction (i.e., evaluating the participants of medical consultations, sharing illness experiences, seeking health-related advice, and negotiating medical knowledge), through recurrent deployment of communing and dialogic affiliation strategies that act upon particular ideational-interpersonal couplings in the online comments. We argue that ambient affiliation in this digital discourse reflects the interest- and content-focused interactions in the ‘affinity space’ offered by the social media platform. Our study expands the existing knowledge on ambient affiliation by situating it in a digital health context. It also provides insights into how medical practitioners and health educators can more effectively disseminate health knowledge and enhance public health literacy on social media.

Although antecedents of teacher identity have been well investigated over decades, the role of demographic variables in teacher identity variance has received relatively little research attention. The study explored how teacher identity (grounded in a four-indicator model comprising occupational commitment, teacher self-efficacy, job satisfaction, and motivation to teach) might differ on three key demographics: gender, taught subject, and grade level taught. To reduce possible noise from other demographic constructs (e.g., age, tenure, and job level), participants were recruited from a cohort of 464 first-year school teachers in Mainland China. Using multiple analytic techniques, findings indicated that female teachers were less committed to the teaching occupation than were male teachers. Those teaching social sciences in primary schools showed lower levels of occupational commitment and teacher self-efficacy than did those teaching sciences at secondary schools. Implications and suggestions are provided.

本文基于大量史料，梳理了北京大学外国语学院外国语言学及应用语言学的学科发展史。所涉及的专业范围主要是以英语为背景的语言学教学与研究，时间范围为20世纪70年代末到2021年年底。40多年的史料梳理显示，外国语言学的研究和教学生长于外语教学这片土壤，萌芽于改革开放初期对国外语言学和语言教学理论的学习。经过在“英语语言文学”学科框架内较长时间的生存和缓慢发展，学科独立性逐渐增强，完成了从“语言”到“语言学”的转变。当下学科发展势头很好，但也面临着一些有待思考和解决的问题。梳理学科的发展是对历史沿革进行的一次较为全面的记录，希望为我国相关学科建设提供北京大学视角下的历史注脚和反思。

本研究以癌症患者发布在豆瓣网“癌症日记”互助小组的网帖为语料，以“主题导向的话语分析”为方法，考察癌症患者的期望话语表达，探讨其背后所体现的生死观念。研究发现患者表达了五类期望：即生的渴望、正常生活轨迹、顺其自然、人际联结、减轻家庭负担。大部分癌症患者仍对病情好转抱有期待，在接受癌症可能无法治愈的事实与渴望生存之间摇摆，其话语表达呈现矛盾性。从生死观念来看，患者的期望表达在很大程度上受到中国传统文化“只谈生不谈死”话语惯习的影响，距离公开讨论自己的善终问题仍有较大差距。 不过，部分患者对癌症激进疗法的排斥以及对缓和疗法的偏好与安宁疗护理念相吻合，这表明新的生死观念与传统话语惯习之间亦存在对话空间。基于话语分析结果，研究对面向癌症患者的社会心理支持提出了实践启示。

本文基于大量史料，梳理了北京大学外国语学院外国语言学及应用语言学的学科发展史。所涉及的专业范围主要是以英语为背景的语言学教学与研究，时间范围为20世纪70年代末，到2021年年底。40多年的史料梳理显示，外国语言学的研究和教学生长于外语教学这片土壤，萌芽于改革开放初期对国外语言学和语言教学理论的学习。经过在“英语语言文学”学科框架内较长时间的生存和缓慢发展，逐渐增强了学科的独立性，完成了从“语言”到“语言学”的转变。当下学科发展势头很好，但也面临着一些有待思考和解决的问题。梳理学科的发展是对历史沿革进行的一次较为全面的记录，同时也希望对我国相关学科建设提供北京大学的历史注脚和反思。

This paper uses a narrative inquiry approach to investigate how genetic testing companies in Mainland China strategically construct narratives of vicarious experience (NoVE) about their clients to market genetic tests on social media. Ten stories about clients undergoing genetic testing are examined to identify the forms that NoVE take and the functions that they perform in relation to the companies' promotional agendas. Two types of NoVE are identified: ‘compound narratives’ that combine elements of narratives of personal experience (NoPE) and NoVE, and ‘NoVE proper’ that are narratives told in the third person throughout. The NoVE demonstrate long Complication and explicit Evaluation, which together with specific discourse devices foreground their authenticity and enhance their tellability. Authenticity of the narratives is primarily foregrounded through heteroglossic interplay of the ‘voice of medicine’ and the ‘voice of the lifeworld’ and tellability is enhanced through extreme case formulations. These discourse and rhetorical strategies are powerful tools to facilitate the companies' marketing agendas by better enabling the target audience to relate to the stories. At the same time the strategies conceal the explicit involvement of the companies in the production of the narratives, raising ethical questions about the commodification of genetic tests in the emerging consumer market.

In this article we examine commodification and marketisation of genetic testing by companies offering direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing to the general public through online platforms in Hong Kong. Recently, offers of genetic testing have expanded from scientific and clinical genetic settings to general medicine (e.g. in hereditary cancer) and non-medical domains (e.g. aptitude tests). The wider availability of tests, however, has raised concerns about the currently available scientifically proven utility of these tests. Using theme-oriented discourse analysis, we analyse the specific discursive modalities through which the DTC companies in Hong Kong make inflated claims about the value of genetic tests to pursue their marketing agenda. We show that in this way the companies are selling ‘more’ than specific products to consumers: they are selling ‘hope’ and ‘increased autonomy’, that is, an opportunity to buy commodities online that promise consumers control of their health and wellbeing.

以评价理论为话语分析方法,收集腾讯网民对2014年高考英语改革的评论为语料,探索并呈现中国网民的英语语言态度。研究发现,大部分网民的语言态度比较消极;对英语工具性价值的强调和英语威胁母语文化认同的担忧是网民英语语言态度的重要特征。然而有迹象表明,部分网民超越了"工具"与"文化"二元对立的思维方式。对他们而言,英语的价值不再局限于工具,而是参与全球实践共同体的必要纽带。鉴于网民英语语言态度的积极转变,研究呼吁建构英语学习新话语,以促进中国英语教育的长足发展。