Gao
Biographic Data
| ID | 36504 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Gao |
| FAMILY NAME | Gao |
| SIGNATURE | GAO |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3968-3075 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Enacting cultural distinctiveness and diasporic identity in semiotic landscapes
This paper explores diasporic identities enacted in the semiotic landscapes of Chinese restaurants. Informed by a materialist theory of signs and space, it presents an ethnography of three independent Chinese restaurants in Liverpool, UK. Geosemiotic analysis reveals that the three restaurants take three different approaches to the semiotic enactment of Chinese food(space): nominal display of Chineseness as family heritage, flexible assemblage of…
Language and racialised emotions
This paper examines raciolinguistic injustice through the lens of racialised emotions (Bonilla-Silva, 2019). It presents a case study of a PhD student who was traumatised and suffering from chronic depression and anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to her supervisor’s repeated criticisms of her English language and academic competence. Drawing upon interviews with the student, I analysed her accounts as narra…
The chronotopic construction of political identity and post-racial stance among Chinese international students in the UK
This paper examines how perception of racism is shaped by political identity. Based on a social constructivist approach to political identity and racial formation, it presents an ethnographically informed analysis of narratives by three Chinese international students whose accounts problematise prevalent monolithic representation of Chinese international students as patriots. I show that the three students make sense of racism by formulating chro…
Vernacular performance, indexical shift, and algorithmic self
This paper explores the strategic manipulation of indexicality for fame-making in algorithmic media. It presents a case study of a precariat’s rise to fame, focusing on how he turned the tide to officially become a ‘superstar’ on the Chinese video-sharing app Douyin as viewers shamed him for his allegedly unintelligible language. Drawing upon the sociolinguistic notions of indexicality, enregisterment, stance, and the concepts of platformisation …
Language Ideologies of Racial Microaggression and Institutional Whiteness
This paper explores how language intersects with race in shaping the experience of Chinese international students in UK higher education (HE). Through the lenses of racial microaggression, critical race theory, and raciolinguistic ideologies, the study analyzes interviews and written diaries from Chinese students at a public research university. It reveals three language ideologies rooted in white supremacy: the ideology of English-only, the ideo…
The online activism of mock translanguaging
This paper examines a viral language style that emerged during online activism against a Chinese celebrity after she was announced the winner of an architecture award. Drawing upon insights from celebrity studies, online activism, and social semiotics, I examine how netizens creatively appropriate and mock celebrity language, focusing on the semiotic work netizens engage in to mobilize emotions, form solidarity networks, and perform collective ac…
Multilingualism and good citizenship
This paper examines language ideologies underlying the media representation of Chinese citizens speaking multiple foreign languages. It argues that a figure of good citizenship is being articulated via valorization of multilingual competence that is grounded both in the newly cherished moral values of neoliberal globalization – entrepreneurship, reflexivity and flexibility – and in the traditional moral values of patriotism and contribution to so…
The sociolinguistics of globalizing China
The sociolinguistics of globalization has emerged as an important research paradigm in response to the challenges of global social change. As a country undergoing some of the most drastic changes during the past few decades, China provides a rich site for exploring the issue of language and globalization empirically and theoretically. This article seeks to map out the new socio-cultural values being produced or re-conceptualized in the process of…
Interactional straining and the neoliberal self
This article proposes the terminteractional strainingfor the strategic manipulation of interaction as grounded in neoliberal governmentality. The interactional practice was observed among adult English learners in Yangshuo, which, through mobilizing English-speaking foreigners and commodifying English, has been attracting Chinese nationals seeking to improve their English, the gate-keeping language in global workplaces in China. Based on ethnogra…
The biggest English corner in China
‘They all speak good English. So how come they are jobless?’ The Spring Festival Gala, broadcast alive on TV across China and among international Chinese communities, is one of the most popular and widely viewed performances for Chinese people on Chinese New Year's Eve. In a situational comedy at the 2012 Gala, one Chinese lady threw out the above remark to her friend with reference to the folk she had met in a foreign country she had just visite…
Commodification of place, consumption of identity
This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of place as it relates to globalization and mobility by examining the sociolinguistic construction of a tourism site. A former residential neighborhood, West Street in Yangshuo County, China, was gradually transformed into a so-called 'global village' for domestic tourists partly through appropriating English as one semiotic resource. Positioning this place in the global-national-local nexus, th…
Zhoukoudian Upper Cave Revisited
As with many archaeofaunal assemblages that were excavated before the 1970s, the faunal collection from the Late Paleolithic site of Zhoukoudian Upper Cave suffers from excavation- and curation-related differential discard and loss of particular kinds of skeletal elements. Yet taphonomic analysis of the mortality profiles and bone surface modifications indicates (1) that the Lower Recess probably served as a natural trap and (2) that hunter-gathe…
Zhoukoudian Upper Cave Revisited
As with many archaeofaunal assemblages that were excavated before the 1970s, the faunal collection from the Late Paleolithic site of Zhoukoudian Upper Cave suffers from excavation- and curation-related differential discard and loss of particular kinds of skeletal elements. Yet taphonomic analysis of the mortality profiles and bone surface modifications indicates (1) that the Lower Recess probably served as a natural trap and (2) that hunter-gathe…
Commodification of place, consumption of identity
This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of place as it relates to globalization and mobility by examining the sociolinguistic construction of a tourism site. A former residential neighborhood, West Street in Yangshuo County, China, was gradually transformed into a so-called 'global village' for domestic tourists partly through appropriating English as one semiotic resource. Positioning this place in the global-national-local nexus, th…
Interactional straining and the neoliberal self
This article proposes the terminteractional strainingfor the strategic manipulation of interaction as grounded in neoliberal governmentality. The interactional practice was observed among adult English learners in Yangshuo, which, through mobilizing English-speaking foreigners and commodifying English, has been attracting Chinese nationals seeking to improve their English, the gate-keeping language in global workplaces in China. Based on ethnogra…
Multilingualism and good citizenship
This paper examines language ideologies underlying the media representation of Chinese citizens speaking multiple foreign languages. It argues that a figure of good citizenship is being articulated via valorization of multilingual competence that is grounded both in the newly cherished moral values of neoliberal globalization – entrepreneurship, reflexivity and flexibility – and in the traditional moral values of patriotism and contribution to so…
Language Ideologies of Racial Microaggression and Institutional Whiteness
This paper explores how language intersects with race in shaping the experience of Chinese international students in UK higher education (HE). Through the lenses of racial microaggression, critical race theory, and raciolinguistic ideologies, the study analyzes interviews and written diaries from Chinese students at a public research university. It reveals three language ideologies rooted in white supremacy: the ideology of English-only, the ideo…
The online activism of mock translanguaging
This paper examines a viral language style that emerged during online activism against a Chinese celebrity after she was announced the winner of an architecture award. Drawing upon insights from celebrity studies, online activism, and social semiotics, I examine how netizens creatively appropriate and mock celebrity language, focusing on the semiotic work netizens engage in to mobilize emotions, form solidarity networks, and perform collective ac…
The sociolinguistics of globalizing China
The sociolinguistics of globalization has emerged as an important research paradigm in response to the challenges of global social change. As a country undergoing some of the most drastic changes during the past few decades, China provides a rich site for exploring the issue of language and globalization empirically and theoretically. This article seeks to map out the new socio-cultural values being produced or re-conceptualized in the process of…
Zhoukoudian Upper Cave Revisited
As with many archaeofaunal assemblages that were excavated before the 1970s, the faunal collection from the Late Paleolithic site of Zhoukoudian Upper Cave suffers from excavation- and curation-related differential discard and loss of particular kinds of skeletal elements. Yet taphonomic analysis of the mortality profiles and bone surface modifications indicates (1) that the Lower Recess probably served as a natural trap and (2) that hunter-gathe…
The biggest English corner in China
‘They all speak good English. So how come they are jobless?’ The Spring Festival Gala, broadcast alive on TV across China and among international Chinese communities, is one of the most popular and widely viewed performances for Chinese people on Chinese New Year's Eve. In a situational comedy at the 2012 Gala, one Chinese lady threw out the above remark to her friend with reference to the folk she had met in a foreign country she had just visite…
Commodification of place, consumption of identity
This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of place as it relates to globalization and mobility by examining the sociolinguistic construction of a tourism site. A former residential neighborhood, West Street in Yangshuo County, China, was gradually transformed into a so-called 'global village' for domestic tourists partly through appropriating English as one semiotic resource. Positioning this place in the global-national-local nexus, th…
Interactional straining and the neoliberal self
This article proposes the terminteractional strainingfor the strategic manipulation of interaction as grounded in neoliberal governmentality. The interactional practice was observed among adult English learners in Yangshuo, which, through mobilizing English-speaking foreigners and commodifying English, has been attracting Chinese nationals seeking to improve their English, the gate-keeping language in global workplaces in China. Based on ethnogra…
The sociolinguistics of globalizing China
The sociolinguistics of globalization has emerged as an important research paradigm in response to the challenges of global social change. As a country undergoing some of the most drastic changes during the past few decades, China provides a rich site for exploring the issue of language and globalization empirically and theoretically. This article seeks to map out the new socio-cultural values being produced or re-conceptualized in the process of…
Multilingualism and good citizenship
This paper examines language ideologies underlying the media representation of Chinese citizens speaking multiple foreign languages. It argues that a figure of good citizenship is being articulated via valorization of multilingual competence that is grounded both in the newly cherished moral values of neoliberal globalization – entrepreneurship, reflexivity and flexibility – and in the traditional moral values of patriotism and contribution to so…
The online activism of mock translanguaging
This paper examines a viral language style that emerged during online activism against a Chinese celebrity after she was announced the winner of an architecture award. Drawing upon insights from celebrity studies, online activism, and social semiotics, I examine how netizens creatively appropriate and mock celebrity language, focusing on the semiotic work netizens engage in to mobilize emotions, form solidarity networks, and perform collective ac…
Vernacular performance, indexical shift, and algorithmic self
This paper explores the strategic manipulation of indexicality for fame-making in algorithmic media. It presents a case study of a precariat’s rise to fame, focusing on how he turned the tide to officially become a ‘superstar’ on the Chinese video-sharing app Douyin as viewers shamed him for his allegedly unintelligible language. Drawing upon the sociolinguistic notions of indexicality, enregisterment, stance, and the concepts of platformisation …
Language Ideologies of Racial Microaggression and Institutional Whiteness
This paper explores how language intersects with race in shaping the experience of Chinese international students in UK higher education (HE). Through the lenses of racial microaggression, critical race theory, and raciolinguistic ideologies, the study analyzes interviews and written diaries from Chinese students at a public research university. It reveals three language ideologies rooted in white supremacy: the ideology of English-only, the ideo…
Enacting cultural distinctiveness and diasporic identity in semiotic landscapes
This paper explores diasporic identities enacted in the semiotic landscapes of Chinese restaurants. Informed by a materialist theory of signs and space, it presents an ethnography of three independent Chinese restaurants in Liverpool, UK. Geosemiotic analysis reveals that the three restaurants take three different approaches to the semiotic enactment of Chinese food(space): nominal display of Chineseness as family heritage, flexible assemblage of…
Language and racialised emotions
This paper examines raciolinguistic injustice through the lens of racialised emotions (Bonilla-Silva, 2019). It presents a case study of a PhD student who was traumatised and suffering from chronic depression and anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) due to her supervisor’s repeated criticisms of her English language and academic competence. Drawing upon interviews with the student, I analysed her accounts as narra…
The chronotopic construction of political identity and post-racial stance among Chinese international students in the UK
This paper examines how perception of racism is shaped by political identity. Based on a social constructivist approach to political identity and racial formation, it presents an ethnographically informed analysis of narratives by three Chinese international students whose accounts problematise prevalent monolithic representation of Chinese international students as patriots. I show that the three students make sense of racism by formulating chro…
Multilingual Education and Policy (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Political science (6 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · China (5 works) · Linguistics (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Second Language Learning and Teaching (4 works)