This study examines the constructions of masculine discourse by Chinese fans of European football through online discussions. A critical discourse analysis of 50 online discussions by Chinese Arsenal fans shows how these fans use ‘gaofushuai’ and ‘diaosi’ to reproduce, contest, and racialize the dominant masculine order originally embedded in these two masculine terms. It also discovers these fans’ enactment of fluid gender identities in their self-reference to the terms during interactions. Yet the patriarchal assumption still prevails in their discursive struggles, forming football and its fandom as completely gendered practices. This complex process is seen as the negotiation between the globalized European football culture and the local cultural meanings for Chinese masculinities. It offers implications for how the cyberspace of transnational sports fandom can form a site for discursive struggles over the hegemonic masculinity in contemporary China.
BenwellB (2014) Language and masculinity. In: EhrlichSMeyerhoffMHolmesJ (eds) The Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality, 2nd edn.Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 240–259.
2.
BlommaertJBulcaenC (2000) Critical discourse analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology29(1): 447–466. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/223428 (accessed 15 March 2015).
3.
ButlerJ (2006) Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
4.
CameronD (1997) Performing gender identity: Young men’s talk and the construction of heterosexual masculinity. In: JohnsonSUlrikeHM (eds) Language and Masculinity. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 47–64.
5.
ChouliarakiLFaircloughN (1999) Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
6.
CoadD (2005) Euro 2004 and football fashion. Journal of Sports and Social Issues29(1): 124–126.
7.
ConnellRW (2005) Masculinities, 2nd edn.Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
DongHHuangQ (2013) An analysis of the implications of the popularity of ‘Diaosi’. Chinese Youth Studies1(2013): 5–8.
10.
DunningEMurphyPWilliamsJ (1988) The Roots of Football Hooliganism: A Historical and Sociological Study. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
11.
FaircloughN (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
12.
FeatherstoneM (1995) Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity. London: SAGE.
13.
GibbonsTDixonK (2010) ‘Surf’s up!’: A call to take English football fan interactions on the Internet more seriously. Football & Society11(5): 599–613.
14.
GiulianottiRRobertsonR (2004) The globalization of football: A study in the glocalization of the ‘serious life’. British Journal of Sociology55(4): 545–568.
15.
GiulianottiRRobertsonR (2009) Globalization and Football. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
16.
GrindstaffLWestE (2011) Hegemonic masculinity on the sidelines of sport. Sociology Compass5(10): 859–881.
17.
HaynesR (1993) Every man (?) a football artist: Football writing and masculinity. In: RedheadS (ed.) The Passion and the Fashion: Football Fandom in the New Europe. Hants: Avebury, pp. 55–76.
18.
JohnsonMD (2007) Race and Racism in the Chinas: Chinese Racial Attitudes toward Africans and African-Americans. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.
19.
JohnsonS (1997) Theorizing language and masculinity: A feminist perspective. In: JohnsonSUlrikeHM (eds) Language and Masculinity. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 8–26.
20.
JohnsonSUlrikeHM (1997) Language and Masculinity. Oxford: Blackwell.
21.
KassimerisC (2008) European Football in Black and White: Tackling Racism in Football. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
22.
KennedyE (2004) Talking to me? Televised football and masculine style. In: WaggS (ed.) British Football and Social Exclusion. New York: Routledge, pp. 147–166.
23.
KieslingS (2005) Homosocial desire in men’s talk: Balancing and recreating cultural discourses of masculinity. Language in Society34(5): 695–727.
24.
KingA (1997) The lads: Masculinity and the new consumption of football. Sociology31(2): 329–346.
25.
KingC (2004) ‘Play the white man’: Identifying institutional racism in professional football. In: WaggS (ed.) British Football and Social Exclusion. New York: Routledge, pp. 167–185.
26.
KorobovNBambergM (2004) Positioning a ‘mature’ self in interactive practices: How adolescent males negotiate ‘physical attraction’ in group talk. British Journal of Developmental Psychology22(4): 471–492.
27.
LavelleKL (2010) A critical discourse analysis of black masculinity in NBA game commentary. Howard Journal of Communications21(3): 294–314.
28.
LazarMM (1993) Equalizing gender relations: A case of double-talk. Discourse & Society4(4): 443–465.
29.
LazarMM (2000) Gender, discourse and semiotics: The politics of parenthood representations. Discourse & Society11(3): 373–400.
30.
LazarMM (2007) Politicizing gender in discourse: Feminist critical discourse analysis as political perspective and praxis. In: LazarM (ed.) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–28.
31.
LiCLiL (2013) A postmodernist discourse analysis of the phenomenon of ‘Diaosi’. Chinese Youth Studies1: 13–16.
32.
LiuXLiuJ (2013) The happiness of ‘Diaosi’: Influencing factors and strategies for improvement. Chinese Youth Studies1: 21–24.
33.
LouieK (2002) Theorizing Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
34.
MessnerM (1995) Power at Play: Sports and the Problem of Masculinity. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
35.
MessnerMSaboD (1990) Sport, Men, and the Gender Order: Critical Feminist Perspectives. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics Books.
36.
MilaniT (ed.) (2014a) Language and Masculinities: Performances, Intersections, Dislocations. New York: Routledge.
37.
MilaniT (2014b) Queering masculinities. In: EhrlichSMeyerhoffMHolmesJ (eds) The Handbook of Language, Gender and Sexuality, 2nd edn.Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 260–278.
38.
RedheadS (2003) Post-fandom and the Millennial Blues: The Transformation of Football Culture. New York: Routledge.
39.
RemlingerK (2007) Negotiating the classroom floor: Negotiating ideologies of gender and sexuality. In: LazarM (ed.) Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Gender, Power and Ideology. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 114–138.
40.
RofelL (1999) Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
41.
SandvossC (2003) A Game of Two Halves: Football, Television and Globalization. London: Routledge.
42.
SautmanB (1994) Anti-black racism in post-Mao China. The China Quarterly138: 413–437. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0305741000035827 (accessed 18 December 2014).
43.
SongG (2004) The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.
44.
SongGLeeTK (2010) Consumption, class formation and sexuality: Reading men’s lifestyle magazines in China. The China Journal64: 159–177.
45.
SongGLeeTK (2012) ‘New man’ and ‘New lad’ with Chinese characteristics? Cosmopolitanism, cultural hybridity and men’s lifestyle magazines in China. Asian Studies Review36(3): 345–367.
46.
SpeerSPotterJ (2002) From performatives to practices: Judith Butler, discursive psychology, and the management of heterosexist talk. In: McllvennyP (ed.) Talking Gender and Sexuality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 151–180.
47.
TalbotM (1998) Language and Gender: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.
48.
TanAZhangYZhangL. (2009) Stereotypes of African Americans and media use among Chinese high school students. Howard Journal of Communications20(3): 260–275.
49.
TombaL (2002) Paradoxes of Labor Reform: Chinese Labor Theory and Practice from Socialism to Market. London: RoutledgeCurzon.
50.
Van DijkT (1993) Principles of critical discourse analysis. Discourse & Society4(2): 249–283.
51.
Van DijkT (1998) Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: SAGE.
52.
Van DijkT (2008) Discourse and Power. Houndsmills: Palgrave Macmillan.
53.
Van LeeuwenT (1993) Genre and field in critical discourse analysis: A synopsis. Discourse & Society4(2): 193–223.
54.
WangH (2006) Depoliticized politics, from West to East. The New Left Review41(1): 23–45.
55.
WangY (2013) An examination of the youth cultural phenomenon of ‘Diaosi’ in the era of new media. Youth Phenomenon1(2013): 5–8.
56.
YangJ (2010) The crisis of masculinity: Class, gender, and kindly power in post-Mao China. Journal of The American Ethnological Society37(3): 550–562.
