«Luis Padrique, I will love you forever! ❤»: Intensification strategies in online Chinese comments on Emperor of Football
Abstract
Spain's brief stint in the 2022 World Cup began with a dominant victory but ended with an unexpected defeat, leaving many Chinese fans, who had high hopes for the team, feeling disappointed. This sparked a surge of strong emotions and heated discussions about Spanish soccer on various social media platforms. This paper analyzes the intensification strategies employed in 600 comments collected from the Chinese social network known as Emperor of Football, all of which revolve around Spain's matches against Costa Rica (7-0) and Morocco (0-3). Through discourse and content analysis, with the assistance of ATLAS.ti, we identified specific forms of intensification that conveyed contrasting emotions and sentiments in response to the sports outcomes. Additionally, we identified the most prominent themes in the two contexts of victory and defeat. This study contributes to the existing literature on intensification and provides insights into how young Chinese individuals perceive Spain's image.
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