Humour, Identity and (De)Localness in Digital Spaces

Li-Chi Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Linguistics at Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz, Poland, and a Visiting Fellow (February–March 2026) at the Australian Centre on China in the World at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia. He is the author of Taiwanese and Polish Humor: A Socio-Pragmatic Analysis (2017) and co-author of Pride in Asia: Negotiating Ideologies, Localness, and Alternative Futures (Elements in Language, Gender and Sexuality) (2025). He is also the editor of Contemporary Studies in Chinese Languages, Literature, and Culture, Volumes 1 and 2 (2022, 2026), and the guest editor of the special issue “Narrating Asia Multimodally” of Image [&] Narrative 25(3) (2024). His research interests include discourse analysis, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, with particular emphasis on the linguistics of humour, language, gender and sexuality, language and culture, nonverbal communication and comic book studies.

• 1. Introduction: Humour and Queer Asian Identities.- 2. Language, Gender, and the Shaping of Tai-ness.- 3. Performing Femininity, (De)Localness, and Humour: Drag Queens on Make a Diva.- 4. Constructing Ordinary Expertise: Gay YouTubers’ Humorous Narratives of Sex and Sexuality.- 5. Grindr with a Wink: Humour as a Communicative Strategy among Gay Taiwanese Men.- 6. Going Viral with Desire: Selling Same-Sex Fantasies through Humour on X/Twitter.- 7. Performing Gay Taiwan: Reflections on Queer Humour, Identity, and Digital Belonging.