Striving for control: a cross-linguistic framework for analyzing stance markers in English and Chinese tourism short videos

Abstract

This study proposes a cross-linguistic framework for analyzing stance markers. The framework links cultural preferences for different intersubjectivity types to the argumentative strength encoded in stance markers, operationalized through the Control Cycle Model, thereby generating testable predictions about the distributional patterns of stance markers in English and Chinese tourism short videos (TSVs). Comparable corpora were compiled from the subtitles of popular TSVs sourced from YouTube and Douyin , and the distributional patterns of epistemic and effective stance markers were analyzed. Our findings indicate that stance markers with moderate to strong argumentative strength are preferred in both English and Chinese TSVs, reflecting the evaluation-oriented and action-guiding nature of TSVs. With respect to cross-linguistic differences, English TSVs favor stance markers with strong argumentative strength, whereas Chinese TSVs tend to rely on markers with moderate argumentative strength. These divergent preferences are shown to reflect culturally distinct orientations toward attitudinal versus responsive intersubjectivity. The study illustrates how this framework can trace cultural differences in stance marker distribution to dimensions of embodied cognition related to epistemic and effective control.