3.1The continuum of cooperation and egocentrism

While the relevance is both cognitive (from the hearer’s side) and pragmatic (from the speaker’s side) in RT, it is considered exclusively as a pragmatic effect in SCA, because SCA proposes that the observation to relevance is related to the speaker’s intention, which should be classified in the social traits. Agreeing that cooperation and egocentrism are not antagonistic but interactive, we suggest not abandoning the cognitive nature of cooperation or relevance, because to be relevant is not an optional step in the communication but a cognitive mechanism that both the hearer and the speaker observe. The speaker gives an ostensive stimulus that encourages the hearer to presume that it is relevant enough to be worth processing. Based on an ostensive stimulus, the hearers will follow the path of least effort when assessing cognitive effects and stop when their expectations of relevance are satisfied (Sperber and Wilson 1995Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1995 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1995 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.; Wilson and Sperber 2004Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber 2004 “Relevance Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory L. Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber 2004 “Relevance Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory L. Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.). The hearers’ pursuit of relevance is based on their cognitive environment, which is a set of all the facts that are manifest to them, a function of their physical environment44.Note that the influence of physical environment is included in the automatic cognitive process, which is different from the conscious assessment of the actual situation to decide whether to be more cooperative or not. and their cognitive abilities (including memorized information) (Sperber and Wilson 1995Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1995 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1995 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell., 39). As a result, we assume that both cooperation and egocentrism have a cognitive base: “relevance” for cooperation and “salience” for egocentrism. The salience includes not only the frequency, familiarity, or conventionality of knowledge tied to the situation but also the interlocutors’ knowledge based on prior experience and the availability of attention (Kecskes 2012Kecskes, Istvan 2012 “Is There Anyone Out There Who Really Is Interested in the Speaker?” Language and Dialogue 2 (2): 283–297. Kecskes, Istvan 2012 “Is There Anyone Out There Who Really Is Interested in the Speaker?” Language and Dialogue 2 (2): 283–297. , 286). Both relevance and salience are rooted in interlocutors’ cognitive experience and influenced by the context in an automatic and passive manner.

Aside from the unavoidable cognitive impact of the pursuit of relevance and the salient knowledge in an individual’s cognitive environment, cooperation and egocentrism are also influenced by the actual situational context: interlocutors actively and consciously assess the actual situation before deciding whether to be more cooperative or more egocentric. In this respect, there is no absolute cooperation completely driven by relevance; this is why misunderstandings or miscommunications exist. Also, there is no absolute egocentrism completely guided by salience; this is why communications are always possible. The continuum of cooperation and egocentrism also explains the coexistence of relevance and salience as two cognitive traits.

The active assessment of the actual social situation is a conscious and intention-oriented act rather than an automatic, inevitable cognitive influence. Although prior experience may still have an effect on a person’s appraisal of the actual situation, its interaction with the present social situation is far less automatic than the context’s automatic influence (Kecskes 2019Kecskes, Istvan 2019 “The Interplay of Prior Experience and Actual Situational Context in Intercultural First Encounters.” Pragmatics and Cognition 26 (1): 112–134. Kecskes, Istvan 2019 “The Interplay of Prior Experience and Actual Situational Context in Intercultural First Encounters.” Pragmatics and Cognition 26 (1): 112–134. ). Before investigating interlocutors’ assessment of the actual social-cultural situation, it is important to demonstrate clearly how cooperation and egocentrism interact differently from the perspectives of the speaker and the hearer.

3.2From the hearer’s perspective

The hearer’s pursuit of relevance is in nature an automatic and subconscious treatment of the speaker’s utterance. This process is simultaneously driven by the hearer’s salient knowledge extracted from his/her prior experience and the availability of the attentional resources in the actual situation. In brief, the hearer’s interpretation is the result of the interaction of relevance and salience as two cognitive mechanisms under the “automatic influence of the context”, as shown in Figure 1:

The “unawareness” of the hearer processing has already been highlighted in previous studies (Mercier and Sperber 2011Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber 2011 “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 57–74. Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber 2011 “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 57–74. ; Padilla Cruz 2017Padilla Cruz, Manuel 2017 “Interlocutors-Related and Hearer-Specific Causes of Misunderstanding: Processing Strategy, Confirmation Bias and Weak Vigilance.” Research in Language 15 (1): 11–36. Padilla Cruz, Manuel 2017 “Interlocutors-Related and Hearer-Specific Causes of Misunderstanding: Processing Strategy, Confirmation Bias and Weak Vigilance.” Research in Language 15 (1): 11–36. ; Wilson and Sperber 2004Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber 2004 “Relevance Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory L. Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber 2004 “Relevance Theory.” In Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory L. Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.). It has been argued that “people may be aware of the output of an inferential process, but they are never aware of the process itself. All inferences carried out by inferential mechanisms are intuitive” (Mercier and Sperber 2011Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber 2011 “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 57–74. Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber 2011 “Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34 (2): 57–74. , 58).

However, the “unconsciousness” of the inference process does not exclude all the conscious acts from the hearer’s side. It is shown in Figure 1 that the hearer’s individual assessment of the social-cultural situation could come after his/her recognition of the speaker’s intention. To be more precise, directed by the pursuit of relevance, the hearer intuitively interprets the speaker’s utterance based on his/her own cognitive environment and draws an implicated conclusion of the speaker’s intention, but s/he may not be sure about this conclusion. When the hearers doubt the informative intention inferred by themselves, they will decide whether to reinterpret the speaker’s utterance based on their assessment of the actual social circumstance. They may proceed in a somewhat cooperative manner after assessing the actual social context by reinterpreting the speaker’s utterance with more consideration of the speaker’s mental state. They could also act in a relatively egocentric way by not reinterpreting the speaker’s words.55.The decision to reinterpret the speaker’s utterance or not is based on the hearer’s active assessment of the current circumstances, whereas the process of reinterpretation is impacted by the hearer’s cognitive environment. The aforementioned spurious non-hearing and pretending not to have heard illustrate the hearer’s active egocentrism: having completed his/her automatic inference of the speaker’s intention, the hearer decides not to cooperate with the speaker any longer.

3.3From the speaker’s perspective

Cooperation and egocentrism interplay in a different way on the speaker’s side. On the one hand, the individual assessment of the actual social situation does not come after the “automatic influence of the context”. Instead, the expressing process involves both the “automatic influence of the context” and the “active assessment of the actual social situation”. The expression is driven by salient knowledge subconsciously, depends on the availability of attention, and also complies with the conscious assessment of the actual situation, as shown in Figure 2:

When giving an ostensive stimulus that the hearer would presume relevant enough to be worth processing, the speakers are subconsciously guided by the salient knowledge in their cognitive environment. They also consciously choose, based on their assessment of the actual situation, whether to exert greater effort to make their intention more obvious to the hearers. When speaking to a superior, for instance, they might be more circumspect in their word choice than when speaking to a friend, as the repercussions of being misinterpreted by each would differ. They may also make more efforts to find an appropriate expression when they make a difficult request than just telling the time. Note that the speaker also has the option to reiterate their intention or not by assessing the actual situation. This is nevertheless not illustrated in Figure 2, because the speaker does not always have a chance to re-express his/her intention. For instance, in a news report, the speaker has just one chance to make their point. They may evaluate this as one aspect of the actual situation.

On the other hand, salient knowledge influences the speaker’s conscious selection of words, expressions, syntactic organization, stylistic features, etc. This is different from the hearer processing, which involves automatically extracting the salient knowledge from the hearer’s cognitive environment. According to Kecskes (2008Kecskes, Istvan 2008 “Dueling Context: A Dynamic Model of Meaning.” Journal of Pragmatics 40 (3): 385–406. Kecskes, Istvan 2008 “Dueling Context: A Dynamic Model of Meaning.” Journal of Pragmatics 40 (3): 385–406. , 401), for the speakers, there is primarily an inter-label hierarchy: they select words or expressions in a hierarchy from the best fit to those less suited to the idea they are trying to express. In contrast, for the hearers, the intra-label hierarchy is in force: the label uttered by the speakers hierarchically triggers the history of that particular label as used by the hearer.

To conclude, there are two distinct sorts of social-cultural influences on expression and interpretation, one of which involves the conscious decisions made by the interlocutors after assessing the actual social situation and the other is automatic and inevitable. Additionally, the “active assessment of the actual social situation” functions in different manners in the speaker processing and the hearer processing: it interacts with the automatic influence of context in the speaker’s expression but only happens after the speaker’s intention is recognized by the hearer. In the next section, through three examples, we will analyze how the interlocutors assess the actual social situation and how the procedural difference between the speaker processing and the hearer processing results in emotive miscommunications.

4.1Female nurses’ dedication

A local media named Gansu Daily reported that a team of nurses got shaved before heading for the epidemic area for medical aid. In a one-minute video, this report showed the shaving-head scene and the images of female nurses crying and refusing to look at their cut hair. A very succinct spoken presentation was provided by the report to describe the context of this video: “For the convenience of work, fifteen medical care personnel collectively shaved their hair”. The following list of common criticisms illustrates how this report elicited unpleasant emotional reactions:

In the social context of the epidemic, we can assume that Gansu Daily intended to speak highly of the nurses’ courage and dedication. Its “affective intention”  – i.e., the intention to influence the addressee’s feelings or impressions and to manage the interpersonal relations (Zuo 2018Zuo, Baiyao 2018 “Emotive Misunderstanding within an Extended Relevance Theory.” Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (5): 627–650. Zuo, Baiyao 2018 “Emotive Misunderstanding within an Extended Relevance Theory.” Intercultural Pragmatics 15 (5): 627–650. , 628) – is to arouse the respect and admiration for the nurses. In fact, there were some other media having the same affective intention, but they gave more contextual information and made the nurse’s own voice heard. For example:

These reports showed the shaving procedure quickly and focused more on the medical crew’s tenacity (the Gansu Daily report also showed the well-prepared medical team in high spirits and ready to support the front line, but only in the final seconds of the report). After browsing the comments section of these reports, we found that these reports did not evoke many undesirable emotive reactions.

If the intention could be expressed in a more appropriate way, how to explain Gansu Daily’s choice? According to the cooperation-egocentrism interplay model from the speaker’s side (Figure 2), the expression is guided by the speaker’s salient knowledge, but she/he can modify his/her expression after assessing the actual social situation. The most salient assumption extracted by the media may be that “the shaving-head scene exemplifies the selflessness, courage, and dedication of the medical team”. Displaying this scene was also regarded as relevant enough to the audience, which was one of the reasons for which they did not provide much contextual information. However, since “it is disrespectful to publish someone’s unflattering image despite his/her reluctance” is a widely held belief in modern society, the media should also be aware, based on prior experience, that the nurses sobbing and refusing to look at their cut hair could cause negative emotive reactions. Despite this potential offense, Gansu Daily still chose an energy-saving way to display the hair-cut scene without any expert medical justifications. Which aspects of the social condition may this media evaluate and subject to its active egocentrism?

The first parameter provided by Spencer-Oatey (2008)Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum. is the rapport-orientation. She indicates that when speakers are more concerned about their own sociality rights and interactional goals than about maintaining interpersonal rapport, they will hold a rapport-neglect orientation (Spencer-Oatey 2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum., 32). In this case, to manage the rapport with the audience was obviously not the goal of the media. So, their choice of expression manner should be based on the assessment of other facets of the social situation. More details are provided in the following paragraphs.

The “context variables” may be the most essential characteristics influencing the media’s choice in this case; the key elements of the context variables are studied below.

1. Participant relations: Power and distance are two principal metrics of participant relations. In the first place, the news media has the freedom to decide what and how to report. As a “storyteller”, the news media has a powerful position, whereas the audience has a weak position because they can only passively take the information processed by the media. In the second place, the distance between the news reporter and the audience – which is measured by length of acquaintance, frequency of contact, social similarity/difference, like-mindedness, and positive/negative affect (Spencer-Oatey and Franklin 2009Spencer-Oatey, Helen, and Peter Franklin 2009 Intercultural interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. Berlin: Springer. Spencer-Oatey, Helen, and Peter Franklin 2009 Intercultural interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. Berlin: Springer. , 106) – is so uncertain that it is impossible for the reporters to evaluate every audience’s cognitive environment. The assessment of relative power and distance between the media and the audience could be one of the reasons that the media chose to be more egocentric.

2. Message content: According to Spencer-Oatey (2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum., 37), messages can have “costs” or “benefits” associated with them and have a major influence on the choice of rapport management strategies. The news report in question gave new information to the audience and did not force them to do anything; therefore, it was rather “beneficial” than “costly” for the audience. This evaluation could also make the reporter ignore the potential negative emotive effects.

3. Social/interactional roles: People frequently adopt well-defined social roles while interacting with one another, which assist in clarifying the rights and obligations of each role member (Spencer-Oatey 2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum., 37). As media, Gansu Daily had a duty to raise public awareness of the virus and to encourage respect and appreciation for the medical staff in the context of the epidemic. As such, they must show the public the bravery of the nurses, despite their awareness of the possible undesirable reactions from the audience. Additionally, the medical team also took on the role of a national hero, with the obligation to battle COVID-19 in order to protect the people and the right to be supported by the general population. Given this recent shift in social obligations and rights, Gansu Daily may believe that this report will be regarded as socially acceptable.

4. Activity type: “The culturally specific conventions and ideals of activities influence how participants compose and interpret talk” (Spencer-Oatey 2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum., 38). News reports are expected to be truthful and objective, which have been fulfilled by the report in question. Moreover, because turn-taking in ordinary communication does not exist in news reports, it is impossible for the media to adjust their expression in time according to the audience’s feedback. This may also be one of the reasons that the media did not care much about its expressing manner.

At last, the “pragmatic convention” of shaving women’s heads is worth discussing. Although shaving the head was a punishment for women in some countries,99. https://​baijiahao​.baidu​.com​/s​?id​=1658861210980026007​&wfr​=spider​&for​=pc it is less likely to have a negative connotation in the actual situation because shaving the head for medical reasons signifies a personal sacrifice. China is often regarded as a collectivist society in which people make decisions based on the group to which they belong (Hofstede 1980Hofstede, Geert 1980 “Culture and Organizations.” International Studies of Management & Organization 10 (4): 15–41. Hofstede, Geert 1980 “Culture and Organizations.” International Studies of Management & Organization 10 (4): 15–41. ; Oyserman et al. 2002Oyserman, Daphna, Heather M. Coon, and Markus Kemmelmeier 2002 “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 128 (1): 3–72. Oyserman, Daphna, Heather M. Coon, and Markus Kemmelmeier 2002 “Rethinking Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 128 (1): 3–72. ); as a result, collectivism and personal sacrifice are highly valued in Chinese culture. According to this viewpoint, Gansu Daily may believe that their report reflects values shared by all Chinese people rather than revealing inappropriate scenes, and hence refrain from providing further justifications for shaving the nurses’ heads.

All of the aforementioned elements could help to explain Gansu Daily’s active egocentrism. As discussed in the preceding section, emotive miscommunication may be evoked because the hearers do not consciously assess the situation as the speakers do. The hearers’ interpretation is firstly guided by their most salient knowledge extracted to find the relevant interpretation of the speaker’s utterance. In this case, many audiences knew little about professional anti-infection measures, which hinders the extraction of “shaving the head could lower the risk of being infected” as a piece of salient information. Without expert medical explanations, the most important information for many audiences may be that “shaving women’s heads is offensive” and “the tears demonstrate the nurses’ reluctance”. As a result, they intuitively reached a conclusion that contradicted the reporter’s affective intention.

As shown in the precedent section, the hearer’s active assessment could come after completing the inference of the speaker’s intention. Some audiences have seriously reconsidered the social context and posed several questions: “Did the nurses volunteer to have their heads shaved? Is this hygienic precaution truly necessary? Is it appropriate to include female nurses in such a picture?”1010.The same source as note (7). After the reconsideration of the sanitary needs of shaving female nurses’ heads (the pragmatic convention) and the change of social obligations of the media, the medical staff, and the public (the social roles), some audiences have reinterpreted the media’s intention. For example:

It should be noted that the negative comments were face-threatening to the hospital mentioned in this report. People’s claims of identity face are based on the positive social values that they associate with their various self-aspects (Spencer-Oatey 2005Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2005 “(Im)politeness, Face and Perceptions of Rapport: Unpackaging Their Bases and Interrelationships.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 95–119. Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2005 “(Im)politeness, Face and Perceptions of Rapport: Unpackaging Their Bases and Interrelationships.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 95–119. , 104). Sensitivities develop around the self-aspects ‘important’ to their identity in a given context. The hospital’s involvement in the medical aids ought to have enhanced their face, but the media’s inappropriate reporting style called into doubt the hospital’s professionalism and its treatment of its own medical staff. Nevertheless, these two characteristics are crucial to the hospital’s identity, particularly in the context of fighting against COVID-19. Therefore, the hospital defended its identity by saying that “shaving heads is a voluntary gesture of the nurses, which could facilitate self-cleaning. Shaving the head also aids in preventing infection because infection is more likely to happen if loose hair and aerosols combine”.1111. https://​baijiahao​.baidu​.com​/s​?id​=1658890293734373481​&wfr​=spider​&for​=pc

To conclude, this example shows that the change in sociality obligations will influence the communicator’s assessment of the actual situation and his/her expression of intention. Conversely, the addressee’s interpretation is conducted by the most salient knowledge without assessing the actual social situation, but whether or not to reinterpret the communicator’s utterances is based on their active assessment of the actual situation.

4.2The medical expert’s advice

The second case involves the advice of Dr. Zhang Wenhong, one of the most eminent Chinese medical experts on COVID-19 prevention and control. In a public conference, he suggested to Chinese parents: “Never give your children junk food, be sure that they eat high-nutrient, high-protein food. Prepare enough milk and eggs every morning. Don’t eat rice porridge in the morning!”1212. https://​baijiahao​.baidu​.com​/s​?id​=1664653125509045120​&wfr​=spider​&for​=pc (10)–(17) are also derived from this source. This advice was certainly relevant to the addressees in the actual situation, but it was inconsistent with some addressees’ prior experience. As rice porridge is one of the most popular traditional breakfasts in China, some people doubted the doctor’s suggestion and even criticized him for being a fan of foreign lifestyles. The typical critics are shown below:

This conference’s primary objective was to provide expert guidance on COVID-19 prevention and control. In this situation, the doctor’s advice may be the most salient information that he extracts from his cognitive environment. However, it is not difficult to realize that this advice would go counter to some traditional opinions. Why didn’t the doctor use an expression that would have been more appropriate for the audience?

First, when the speakers’ attention is fully focused on task matters, they will have little concern for the quality of the relationship between the addressees and themselves and thus hold a “rapport-neglect” orientation (Spencer-Oatey 2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum., 32). In this case, it is very probable that the doctor kept his mind on giving useful advice and neglected the emotive effects that his advice would evoke.

The “context variables” should still be considered as the main factors influencing the speaker’s assessment in this case.

1. Participant relations: The conference aiming at providing medical advice was very similar to a medical consolation, in which the doctor-patient relationship is essential. As has been claimed by many previous studies, doctors are in a powerful position vis-à-vis the patients, since they possess medical, scientific, and professional authority (Freidson 1970Freidson, Eliot 1970 Professional Dominance. Chicago: Aldine.Freidson, Eliot 1970 Professional Dominance. Chicago: Aldine.; Lukes 1978Lukes, Steven 1978 “Power and Authority.” In A History of Sociological Analysis, ed. by Thomas B. Bottomore, and Robert A. Nisbet, 633–676. London: Heinemann.Lukes, Steven 1978 “Power and Authority.” In A History of Sociological Analysis, ed. by Thomas B. Bottomore, and Robert A. Nisbet, 633–676. London: Heinemann.; Ruusuvuori 2000Ruusuvuori, Johanna 2000 Control in the Medical Consultation: Practices of Giving and Receiving the Reason for the Visit in Primary Health Care. Tampere: Tampere University Press.Ruusuvuori, Johanna 2000 Control in the Medical Consultation: Practices of Giving and Receiving the Reason for the Visit in Primary Health Care. Tampere: Tampere University Press.). On the other hand, the doctor did not know any of the audience at the conference. Because of the great interpersonal distance between them, the doctor was unable and unwilling to care more about the audience’s emotional responses.

2. Message content: For certain audiences, following Dr. Zhang’s suggestion will be more costly than beneficial because they will have to make a significant effort to modify their food habits, and the outcome would be uncertain. As a result, offering this counsel in an authoritative tone is not the ideal option. However, the doctor did not change his expression; his decision should be founded on an appraisal of other aspects of the social context.

3. Social/interactional roles: As previously stated, this public conference was like a medical consolation, with doctors required to provide useful counsel to patients based on their professional medical knowledge. Furthermore, Zhang has considerably expanded COVID-19 control in China and is well respected by the Chinese; he undoubtedly has the right and obligation to provide the recommendations that he finds valuable.

4. Activity type: The goals of participants constitute a key element of activity type (Thomas 1995Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995 Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995 Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman., 190). Previous studies point out that the doctor does not regard the consultation as an action soliciting sympathy, but as a request for help (Ruusuvuori 2000Ruusuvuori, Johanna 2000 Control in the Medical Consultation: Practices of Giving and Receiving the Reason for the Visit in Primary Health Care. Tampere: Tampere University Press.Ruusuvuori, Johanna 2000 Control in the Medical Consultation: Practices of Giving and Receiving the Reason for the Visit in Primary Health Care. Tampere: Tampere University Press.; Stevanovic and Peräkylä 2014Stevanovic, Melisa, and Anssi Peräkylä 2014 “Three Orders in the Organization of Human Action: On the Interface between Knowledge, Power, and Emotion in Interaction and Social Relations.” Language in Society 43 (2): 185–207. Stevanovic, Melisa, and Anssi Peräkylä 2014 “Three Orders in the Organization of Human Action: On the Interface between Knowledge, Power, and Emotion in Interaction and Social Relations.” Language in Society 43 (2): 185–207. ). Providing and receiving medical care are the major objectives of medical consolation, thus the doctor does not want to create any emotive effects (Lupton 1997Lupton, Deborah 1997 “Doctors on the Medical Profession.” Sociology of Health & Illness 19: 480–497. Lupton, Deborah 1997 “Doctors on the Medical Profession.” Sociology of Health & Illness 191: 480–497. ). Similarly, in this conference, Zhang was more concerned with his informative intention (to provide relevant and professional counsel to the public) than with his affective intention (to avoid eliciting any unexpected emotional reactions). This interactional purpose saved him the effort of trying to find a more acceptable expression. Additionally, it is also important to keep in mind that this conference differs from a genuine medical consolation in that turn-taking of conversation does not exist. In a medical consolation, patients can reduce or erase their worry or doubt by promptly asking questions and receiving answers; however, this was not the case at the conference in issue.

At last, the pragmatic convention of “don’t eat porridge” is worth discussing. Although this advice is not consistent with some traditional opinions, it does not implicate “the occidental food is better than the traditional Chinese food”. This may be one reason for why Zhang did not take seriously the inconsistency between his advice and someone’s dietary habits.

From the addressee’s side, for those who do not have any knowledge of nutrition, the most salient knowledge activated after hearing Zhang’s suggestion may include some traditional opinions rooted in their cognitive environment, such as “the porridge is easy to digest and thus good for the stomach”, “eating light is eating healthy”, “rice porridge has been popular for a long time, its nutrition is self-evident”. According to our model of cooperation-egocentrism interplay from the hearer’s side (Figure 1), the hearer infers the speaker’s intention in an intuitive and subconscious manner. Driven by their most salient knowledge mentioned above, these addressees may conclude that Zhang despised the traditional Chinese food and thus felt offended. Conversely, the addressees having some knowledge of nutrition came to a completely different conclusion. For example:

Furthermore, some of the addressees had a second interpretation after assessing the professionalism and the authority of Zhang (participant relations, social/interactional roles), the nutritious knowledge and the critical situation of virus-fight (message content, activity type, and pragmatic convention).

In addition, professionalism is an important social aspect sensitive to a doctor’s identity face, remarks questioning his advice might therefore be face-threatening to Dr. Zhang, who later responded to the opposing voice: “I know many people criticize me online, but you still cannot eat rice porridge”. “Proteins are primarily responsible for the production of antiviral antibodies. The key to reducing severe cases into moderate cases is to assure nutrition and protein; relying on porridge and pickles will not help you in this process”.1313.Idem. The doctor did not respond to the remark that he was an admirer of foreign lifestyles. This is primarily due to his social purpose of spreading medical knowledge rather than maintaining a positive individual image. Another reason could be that Zhang values his social identity as a doctor the most. In comparison to professionalism, “loyalty to the traditional lifestyle” is not sensitive to his identity face.

4.3The praise from the fandom

The third case involves fandom language and act. From January 2020, people could see the real-time status of Mobile Cabin Hospital’s construction on several web platforms. In the comments section, some young fans expressed their praises for their country in a way of fandom. For example:

Zhong (中) is the first character of Zhong Guo (中国) ‘China’. In some southern dialects (e.g. Cantonese), calling someone “A(阿)+one character of his/her name” indicates familiarity or friendship. Gege (哥哥), literally meaning elder brother, is now used by young fans to refer to the men they admire, such as their idols or (dream) partners. The mixed loanword da call (打call) denotes originally the spontaneous interaction with performers on stage by shouting and waving light sticks. It currently means ‘support or cheer for someone’. In brief, the fans were cheering for and applauding China in the same way that they were cheering for and admiring their idols or (dream) partners. Moreover, the coronavirus – Guangzhuang bingdu (冠状病毒) in Mandarin – was given the nickname A-Guan (阿冠), suggesting the coronavirus is a friend with whom they get along well. The young fans also performed a customary fan act by giving nicknames to all the engineering vehicles that were in operation on the job site of Mobile Cabin Hospital and ranking them according to popularity.1414. https://​tieba​.baidu​.com​/p​/6472745219

Many people had a great aversion to these fandom languages and acts. The typical critics are as follows:

New digital means have moved fan activities towards the mainstream. It allows fans to access a much wider range of perspectives online and to practice more effective activities (Jenkins 2006Jenkins, Henry 2006 Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press.Jenkins, Henry 2006 Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Exploring Participatory Culture. New York: New York University Press., 141–142). The above-mentioned jargons and activities have been repeatedly practiced by fans and have become very popular in social media. In this respect, when young fans wished to convey their admiration and support for their nation, they naturally considered the most salient expression and behavior pattern in their cognitive environment. However, we can also presume that they do not talk or act in a fan’s manner all the time. For instance, they will not act like fans during a thesis defense, a job interview, or a conversation with someone they know does not enjoy the fandom culture. So why do they decide to express in an egocentric way in the actual social context?

First, people may hold a rapport-neglect orientation when they genuinely do not care about the relationship for some reason (Spencer-Oatey 2008Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum.Spencer-Oatey, Helen 2008 “Face, (Im)politeness and Rapport.” In Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, ed. by Helen Spencer-Oatey, 11–47. London: Continuum., 32). Since the interaction on social media platforms is often characterized by anonymity, what happens there may not impact the users’ real life. This may be one reason why the fans neglected the rapport with others and adopted an egocentric manner of expression.

Second, the fans’ active egocentrism may be based on their assessment of the following contextual variables:

1. Participant relations: On the one hand, people communicate with others on Weibo without revealing their real identity, which makes it impossible to evaluate the social power of each other. On the other hand, because the length of acquaintance, the frequency of contact and the social similarity/difference between social network users stay unknown, their interpersonal distance is evaluated only by the sense of like-mindedness and the positive/negative affect. In this regard, because young fans have a tight relationship with one another, they may prefer to employ fandom terminology to strengthen their intra-group interactions while ignoring the feelings of those outside the fandom.

2. Social/interactional roles: As citizens, young people have the responsibility to support their country during difficult times; and as fans, they also have the right to build identity and to attract like-minded people with the help of collective internet activities. From a sociolinguistic perspective, participants are seen as actively constructing interactional contexts to select and design particular audiences on each occasion, by means of selecting a topic, choosing languages, using in-group jargon, etc. (Androutsopoulos 2014Androutsopoulos, Jannis 2014 “Languaging When Contexts Collapse: Audience Design in Social Networking.” Discourse, Context & Media 4: 62–73. Androutsopoulos, Jannis 2014 “Languaging When Contexts Collapse: Audience Design in Social Networking.” Discourse, Context & Media 41: 62–73. ; Bou-Franch and Blivitch 2018Bou-Franch, Patricia, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2018 “Relational Work in Multimodal Networked Interactions on Facebook.” Internet Pragmatics 1 (1): 134–160. Bou-Franch, Patricia, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2018 “Relational Work in Multimodal Networked Interactions on Facebook.” Internet Pragmatics 1 (1): 134–160. ). The fandom languages and activities helped to expand participation in fandom.

3. Message content: The fans’ comments were not “costly” for others because they did not convey any request or order. The comments could even be beneficial for like-minded people because they turn the praise of the country into a fandom activity. This can also explain the fan’s active egocentrism in this case.

4. Activity type: There are social constraints on what could be discussed in a certain activity (Thomas 1995Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995 Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995 Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman., 190–191). It was widely assumed that fandom activities were only related to entertaining topics, but Jenkins, Ito and boyd (2016Jenkins, Henry, Mizuko Ito, and danah boyd 2016 Participatory Culture in a Networked Era. Cambridge: Polity Press.Jenkins, Henry, Mizuko Ito, and danah boyd 2016 Participatory Culture in a Networked Era. Cambridge: Polity Press., 155) claim that through fan activities, people may work through important issues such as social justice, equality, and diversity, implying that the issues that can be addressed through fandom are no longer limited to entertainment. In this case, fans see support for the country as an activity that may be conducted in a fandom manner. Besides, the manipulation of pragmatic parameters is also one of the key elements of activity type (Thomas 1995Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995 Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman.Thomas, Jenny. A. 1995 Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics. London: Longman., 190–191). It is common for people to use language to raise or decrease social distance or the formality of a situation on social media. In this view, the fandom activity may have been initiated purely for amusement or relaxation. As a result, fans were probably unaware that their acts would be taken seriously by others.

At last, the “pragmatic convention” of A-Zhong, A-Guan, and “popularity ranking” do implicate lightheartedness, which is generally proscribed in talking about serious topics or on formal occasions, according to pragmatic principles in Chinese society. Young fans use these terms because making comments on social networks is not taken seriously by them.

From the addressee’s perspective, people interpret the fans’ words based on the most salient knowledge in their own cognitive environment. They felt resentment toward the fans, believing that the spread of COVID-19 and the fight against it are very serious issues and commenting on these issues with lightheartedness is inappropriate. This is inconsistent with the fans’ affective intention, which is to show their admiration and evoke the mind-likeness without arousing repulsion.

Along with the diversification of culture in our society, people have become more tolerant of sub-cultures. In this respect, while the identity of the fan may have negative connotations (the stereotype of obsessed fans with some incomprehensible views), fans can also be conceptualized more positively, for example as active and creative audiences, as producers who build their own social identity and culture (Bednarek 2017Bednarek, Monika 2017 “Fandom”. In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 545–572. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. Bednarek, Monika 2017 “Fandom”. In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 545–572. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. ; Jenkins 2012Jenkins, Henry 2012 Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry 2012 Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. , for example). Despite this openness and tolerance, however, there is a lack of shared values among those within and outside the fandom, which creates a significant interpersonal distance and may prevent the fans’ intentions from being reinterpreted. Because of this, people’s initial interpretations of fandom behaviors did not change even after they took into account the actual social context, such as fans’ favorable reputation in the fight against the epidemic. Here are some comments made following a second thought:

In conclusion, in all three cases of emotive miscommunication, the speakers actively chose an egocentric manner to express their intention, because they thought the audience would correctly interpret their intention even if it were expressed in a relatively egocentric way; this belief was based on their active assessment of the actual social situation. Conversely, the addressees interpret the communicators’ utterances without consciously assessing the actual situation; instead, they were subconsciously influenced by the most salient knowledge activated in the actual situation.

Because of this procedural difference, what the addressees inferred was inconsistent with the communicator’s intention, which led to unintended emotive effects. In certain instances, after assessing the actual social situation, the addressee chose to re-interpret the communicator’s affective intention with more consideration of his/her mental state and drew a different conclusion.