Language Log

Lately I've been encountering this expression quite a bit on the Chinese internet:

dǎ liǎn 打脸

It seems transparently to mean "slap face", but my Chinese students and friends all characterize it as jargon and netizen slang, and they say that it has only been gaining currency within the last two-three years.

Here I rank "dǎ liǎn 打脸" numerically against other terms for "slap" that I've been acquainted with since I started learning Chinese more than half a century ago.

dǎ liǎn 打脸 ("slap face") 48,700,000 ghits — that was yesterday's tally; this morning it is 59,500,000

dǎ ěrguāng 打耳光 ("box [someone's] ear") 3,420,000 ghits

dǎ yī bāzhang 打一巴掌 ("strike with the palm") 2,300,000 ghits

dǎ zuǐbā 打嘴巴 ("smack on the mouth") 975,000

In the comments to the first installment on this ubiquitous Japanese greeting ("welcome; come on in / over"), skepticism was raised about whether a response of any kind is expected from the person to whom it is addressed.  I'm on the side of those who believe that an acknowledgement of some sort — if only a slight nod of one's head or a bit of eye contact — on the part of the addressee is appreciated by the addresser.  I know that for a fact because I see people smile when I give some type of response to their greeting.  It's not like they're mindless robots numbly mouthing the same phrase over and over.

Here's little two-year-old Leah having a discussion with her great-grandma (bisnonna). At a young age, Leah is already very aware of her cultural trait of Italian hand speaking.

Five-year-old girl gives audience middle finger for 20 minutes while starring as angel in nativity play https://t.co/6sYPlbzrzC

— The Independent (@Independent) December 17, 2019

Yesterday, before Jacqueline Vaissière's invited talk at Interspeech 2018, the session chair showed this video about the meaning of Indian head nods: