Introduction
The Chinese English buzzword ‘city walk’, which first appeared on the lifestyle‑sharing platform Xiaohongshu, has evolved into a significant cultural phenomenon for young people in China since 2022. Its Chinese equivalent is chengshi manbu ‘city strolling’, which emphasizes an immersive, unhurried, and relaxed vibe of urban exploration (Cao and Mao Reference Cao and Mao2024; Wu Reference Wu2023; Xue et al. Reference Xue, Zhang and Han2023; Zhu and Leng Reference Zhu and Leng2024). While standard Chinese and its various dialects offer many synonyms for the simple act of walking, such as guangjie ‘to stroll around the streets’, sanbu ‘to take a walk’, liuda ‘to go for a stroll’, the preference for the English term ‘city walk’ signals the elegance and cultural taste pursued by young urbanites.
This linguistic choice reveals two contradictory phenomena. For many young Chinese speakers, describing the activity with a local term feels mundane or even tuqi ‘rustic and unfashionable’, whereas using ‘city walk’ is perceived as yangqi ‘fashionable and cosmopolitan’. This raises an intriguing question: how did a seemingly simple English phrase acquire such potent symbolic value and become a trending cultural phenomenon in contemporary China? The term’s influence is so pervasive that it has been widely adopted in official media narratives, tourism promotion, and advertising, moving far beyond its initial niche online community.
This paper argues that the symbolic power of ‘city walk’ is not only inherent in the English language itself, but is actively and discursively constructed by young people on social media. This process of meaning‑making allows them to articulate complex identities and engage with their social contexts. Furthermore, we contend that this linguistic practice is not an isolated phenomenon; it both reflects and responds to the specific socio‑economic situations and aspirations of contemporary urban China. To unpack this phenomenon, this study addresses the following research questions:
RQ1: How do users on the social media platform Xiaohongshu discursively construct and negotiate the meanings of the buzzword ‘city walk’ through metapragmatic discourse?
RQ2: What symbolic functions do these discursively constructed meanings perform?
RQ3: How does the symbolic power of the English buzzword ‘city walk’ reflect the identities of young people and the broader socio‑economic pressures in contemporary urban China?
The creativity and hybridity of online English in China
The preference for ‘city walk’ over its Chinese equivalents exemplifies a broader trend of innovative English use within China’s digital sphere. Digital technologies have been particularly powerful in creating new contexts for language use, serving as a fertile ground for a multitude of linguistic developments involving English (You Reference You2008). Indeed, You (Reference You2008: 234) argues that English in China has developed ‘a sophisticated self‑sustaining linguistic system.’ Academic inquiry into this system has largely proceeded along three interconnected, yet distinct, theoretical approaches.
First, one prominent approach views these linguistic forms as English varieties (e.g. Ai and You Reference Ai and You2015), employing terms such as Chinglish, China English or Chinese English. In his discussion, Li (Reference Li and S2024) notes that ‘Chinglish’ often carries pejorative connotations, while ‘China English’ is framed as a legitimate, localized variety with Chinese characteristics. He argues, however, that the view of ‘Chinese English’ as merely learner interlanguage (Eaves Reference Eaves2011) is now outdated. Given that English is no longer just a foreign language in China, Li proposes that the definition of ‘Chinese English’ should be expanded to represent both the nation and its people.
While the variety approach treats English as a system, a second sociolinguistic perspective shifts the focus to interactional behaviors like code‑switching and code‑mixing. Code‑switching involves the spontaneous switching between two languages, revealing unique structural and functional patterns (Yim and Clément Reference Yim and Clément2019), while code‑mixing is understood as a process of hybridization where English words or phrases are inserted into a Chinese matrix (Zhang Reference Zhang2015). Research indicates that online code‑switching is often more frequent and structurally complex than its offline counterpart (Liu Reference Liu2018). Crucially, studies demonstrate that code‑switching serves not just to fill lexical gaps, but for a range of pragmatic and social purposes, including formulating mixed‑language queries in search engines (Fu Reference Fu2018), and managing distinct self‑presentations for different social circles (Tang et al. Reference Tang, Chou, Drucker, Robertson, Smith and Hancock2011).
To better capture the creative and subversive nature of online language use, a third approach informed by translanguaging and decolonial perspectives has emerged. Rooted in a critique of colonial constructs and ‘abyssal thinking’ (García et al. Reference García, Flores, Seltzer, Wei, Otheguy and Rosa2021), this view seeks to dismantle boundaries between named languages. It re‑envisions English as a deterritorialized resource, asserting that ownership extends to all its speakers, not only those in the Anglophone West (García et al. Reference García, Flores, Seltzer, Wei, Otheguy and Rosa2021). Researchers advocate for a shift away from focusing on distinct language varieties or switching between them, arguing that such frameworks may not fully appreciate the ‘creative and subversive nature’ of practices by Chinese English users, who often have ‘a good command of both languages’ (Li Reference Li2023). Terms like ‘New Chinglish’ (Li Reference Li2016, Reference Li2020), ‘Tranßcripting’ (Li and Zhu Reference Li and Zhu2019), or ‘Translingual Practice’ (Song and Lin, Reference Song and Lin2020) are coined to describe these innovative phenomena, including popular expressions like ‘no zuo no die’, ‘add oil’, and ‘U1S1’. (Li and Wang Reference Li and Wang2024).
The aforementioned perspectives provide valuable frameworks for analyzing the linguistic usage of English on the Chinese internet, and ‘city walk’ can indeed be seen as a creative instance of ‘New Chinglish’ (Li Reference Li2016). Placing the phenomenon in its broader social context, however, reveals a set of complexities that a focus on language form alone cannot fully illuminate. At the heart of the matter lie two interconnected complexities: First, the term’s popularity is intrinsically linked to an elegant lifestyle and cultural taste, a symbolic value that evaporates when its Chinese synonyms are used instead. Second, as an English phrase born from a Chinese context, its users are unconcerned with its linguistic authenticity; they are, instead, actively constructing its cultural legitimacy, imbuing it with connotations of globalization and Western modernity. Therefore, this study shifts the analytical focus from the term’s linguistic properties to its symbolic construction. We argue that the power of English as a signifier stems not from linguistic authenticity but from its perceived association with a globalized world – a dimension requiring further exploration.
English as symbolic capital in China
To unpack why English possesses such potent symbolic value, the theory of symbolic capital provides an indispensable analytical framework. Bourdieu (Reference Bourdieu and Richardson1986) posits that capital extends beyond the purely economic, encompassing non‑material assets that structure social life. Among these, cultural capital is crucial, existing as embodied dispositions (e.g., language proficiency), institutionalized credentials (e.g., degrees and certificates) and objectified cultural goods. When these forms of capital are perceived and recognized as legitimate within a specific social arena or field, they are converted into symbolic capital – the currency of prestige and social distinction. Language, therefore, functions as linguistic capital: the mastery of a ‘legitimate language’ that grants its speaker symbolic power in competitive fields like education and employment (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1991).
Since the 19th century, English has long been regarded as a practical tool in China, but its status underwent a pivotal shift after 1990s. The economic reform and open‑door policy, along with a series of landmark historical events (You Reference You2011), notably China’s accession to WTO in 2001, the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, catalyzed a nationwide ‘English fever’ (Li Reference Li, Bianco, Orton and Yihong2009). Adding to this, English was institutionalized as a core subject in Gaokao (the National College Entrance Examination) since 1984. This status, bolstered by a battery of standardized tests such as the CET, IELTS, TOEFL and GRE, has conferred upon it a privileged position in the job market. This process transforms English proficiency from a mere skill into institutionalized cultural capital. This legitimized cultural capital is then readily converted into tangible economic and social rewards in other fields. In the labor market, English proficiency is a necessary credential and a prerequisite for elite positions, particularly in companies with global networks (Carolan Reference Carolan2022). Consequently, English competence has become a highly sought‑after global commodity, with its scarcity elevating its market value in sectors like tourism, where it signals international standards and high quality (Liu and Ma Reference Liu and Chaojun2024; Xiao and Pang Reference Xiao and Pang2024).
The preeminent status of English as powerful symbolic capital, however, inevitably generates complex ideological tensions. A dominant ideology of ‘native‑speakerism’ in China’s ELT market grants the highest symbolic value to Inner Circle Englishes, while stigmatizing Mandarin‑accented English and linking it to incompetence (Mei Reference Mei2024). This creates an ‘identity anxiety’ for many learners, who must navigate the ‘ti‑yong tension’ – reconciling the utility of English with the preservation of their Chinese cultural essence (Lo Bianco et al. Reference Lo Bianco, Orton and Gao2009: 5). In response to these hegemonic pressures, a counter‑narrative of ‘multilingual creativity’ (You Reference You2011) has emerged in online spaces, where users purposefully deploy fluid and hybrid English not as errors but as symbolic claims to their identity as ‘Chinese and college‑educated’ (You Reference You2011), forging an ‘educated, cosmopolitan persona’ (You Reference You2016: 81).
Taken together, this body of research demonstrates that English in China operates as a powerful form of symbolic capital. Its value, constructed through national policy and social aspiration, is deeply connected to educational access, career opportunities and social status. This established context is what makes a contemporary buzzword like ‘city walk’ a theoretically compelling case study. By examining online metapragmatic discourse surrounding the term, this paper analyzes both the effects and the active construction of English’s symbolic value by a new generation in digital space. To effectively carry out this analysis, the following section introduces a specific theoretical framework designed to dissect these discursive processes.
An adapted framework for analyzing symbolic power
Symbolic power is ‘the power to construct social reality by creating and using symbols that give meaning to the social world’ (Kramsch Reference Kramsch2020, 5). The symbols can connote status and authority in the real world and affect people’s perceptions and evaluations. It is also noteworthy that a paradox of symbolic power exists; because, although it is non‑arbitrary and influenced by one’s socio‑economic environment, people are still made to believe that it is arbitrary and rooted in one’s natural endowment (Kramsch Reference Kramsch2016; Kramsch Reference Kramsch2020; Kramsch and Zhu Reference Kramsch and Zhu2022).
While Bourdieu’s theory explains the macro‑level context of why English holds such value, a more specific framework is needed to analyze how this symbolic power is constructed and negotiated in micro‑level discursive practices. For this purpose, this study adapts Kramsch’s (Reference Kramsch2020) framework to analyze the symbolic power of language. Kramsch (Reference Kramsch2020) identifies four interrelated dimensions of this power: 1) the power to signify, where language represents the world; 2) the power to interpret, which involves establishing connections between signs; 3) the power to manipulate, where speakers leverage their social position to impose meanings; and 4) the power to construct meaning, where a speaker’s intention takes precedence over the original meaning of symbols. This study contends that in the context of online metapragmatic discourse, the power to manipulate and the power to construct meaning essentially overlap, as both involve users actively employing linguistic symbols as meaning‑construction tools to achieve their communicative goals. Therefore, these two dimensions are combined in the present analysis into an adapted three‑dimensional framework (Figure 1) that will be used to analyze the data.
Theoretical framework of the symbolic power of language.
Figure 1 Long description
A hierarchical diagram with a vertical label “The symbolic power of language” on the left, branching rightward into three dimensions. The top branch, “The power to signify,” connects to “Language is a symbolic system to represent the world.” The middle branch, “The power to interpret,” connects to “Connecting linguistic symbols with other signs, and interpret them in communicative practice.” The bottom branch, “The power to construct meaning,” connects to two boxes: “Linguistic symbols are tools for meaning construction” and “Speakers utilize their social status and authority to define the connotation of linguistic symbols.”
Data and methods
Xiaohongshu is a Chinese social media User‑Generated Content (UGC) platform built on the premise of inspiring its users to share and discover diverse lifestyles. According to the data in 2022, the platform’s user base is predominantly young, educated, and female. The most prominent behavior on Xiaohongshu is zhongcao, which refers to recommending products, different ways of life, tips for saving expenditures, or anything that is interesting or useful to others. Although the term ‘city walk’ first appeared on Xiaohongshu as early as 2016, it remained a niche topic for years. Its popularity surged in 2023, shortly after the platform itself had named it one of its top 10 lifestyle trends for 2022. This surge was dramatic: the number of related posts jumping from approximately 270,000 in early June to over 470,000 by late July (DT Finance 2023). This trajectory from niche phenomenon to viral trend makes Xiaohongshu the ideal setting to study this linguistic phenomenon.
Data collection
This research focused on the metapragmatic discourse surrounding ‘city walk’ on Xiaohongshu. Consisting of people’s comments, evaluations, and reflections on language use, metapragmatic discourse serves as a tool for categorizing social groups, as people often distinguish themselves based on their ways of speaking. (Dong Reference Dong2011: 13) Data collection was conducted on January 30, 2024, using three metapragmatic search terms in Chinese: ‘why do they speak city walk’, ‘why city walk’, and ‘what is city walk’. The Xiaohongshu web interface limits search results to approximately 200 entries per query. To mitigate this limitation and the platform’s random algorithmic recommendations, searches were therefore conducted at three randomly selected times of the day (9:00, 15:00, and 21:00). These searches yielded an initial result of 1,791 post URLs, extracted via the Chrome extension Web Scraper. After removing duplicates, the body text from the remaining 447 unique posts was manually collected to compile the final dataset. Due to time and resource constraints, this study focused exclusively on the main body text; associated user comments and other engagement data were not included. Finally, all collected data underwent systematic anonymization and pseudonymization procedures.
Data analysis
Thematic analysis was employed as the primary method for analyzing the data. The researchers adopted a constructionist, inductive, and bottom‑up approach to data coding, following the six‑phase framework proposed by Braun and Clarke (Reference Braun and Clarke2006). First, the researchers familiarized themselves with the data through repeated readings, noting initial patterns. Following this, they generated initial codes across the entire dataset, which were then collated into potential themes. These themes were subsequently reviewed and checked for coherence against both the coded extracts and the complete dataset. Once validated, each theme was refined, clearly defined, and named. In the final phase, a scholarly analysis was written by selecting compelling extracts for each theme and relating the findings back to the research questions and theoretical framework.
Findings and analysis
This section presents the thematic analysis of the metapragmatic discourse surrounding ‘city walk’ across two primary symbolic dimensions: the construction of ‘city walk’ as a symbol of global imagination and cultural taste, and its function as a form of ritual resistance. Within each dimension, the analysis will utilize the adapted three‑dimension framework to analyze how these meanings are discursively constructed (RQ1) and what symbolic functions they perform (RQ2). The theoretical implications of these findings, particularly how the symbolic power of ‘city walk’ reflects the identities of young people and the broader socio‑economic pressures in contemporary urban China (RQ3), will be addressed in the Discussion and conclusion section.
The global imaginations of young urbanites pursuing fashion and cultural taste
The power to signify: Uncovering global connections for ‘city walk’
The most common explanation of the origin of ‘city walk’ is that it comes from London Walks (in Extract 1). This is also a widely accepted view among many academic studies (Cao and Mao Reference Cao and Mao2024; Huang and Zhang Reference Huang and Zhang2024; Li and Li Reference Li and Shejiao2024; Liang Reference Liang2024; Zhu and Leng Reference Zhu and Leng2024). However, when the researchers look up the details of London Walks, it turns out to be a tourism website (https://www.walks.com/), which claims to be ‘London’s best guided walking tours’. After searching for the use of the term ‘city walk’ within this website using Google Site Search Operator, the researchers found that only a very small portion directly employed the term. In these few cases where it is used, the word ‘city’ and ‘walk’ do not have any semantic correlation, such as ‘the old city walk’ which semantically emphasizes ‘a walk in the old city’. Indeed, a search for ‘city walk’ on Google yields immediate results such as Universal CityWalk Orlando, City Walks Live or City Walk BHAM, which all refer to shopping streets in different regions. This brings us to the following question: what is ‘city walk’ in the Chinese context?
For most Chinese audiences, the term ‘city walk’ is perceived as an English phrase used by young people who pursue fashionable trends. However, a traditional and native‑speakerism standpoint (Liddicoat Reference Liddicoat2016) might question the authenticity of this phrase. This paper argues that its perceived linguistic innovation is precisely what unlocks its symbolic potential. By detaching the phrase from its Anglophone origins, users create a blank canvas upon which they can project local aspirations and meanings. Thus, to better explain their behaviour, participants of ‘city walk’, who refer to themselves as ‘city walkers’, further interpret it as urban walking and leisure practice (in Extract 2) which can be traced back to European cities in the 19th century (Paetzold Reference Paetzold2013). A more precise term for this urban walking phenomenon is ‘city strolling’, denoting the way to move along the city and explore the atmosphere of the urban space (Paetzold Reference Paetzold2013).
Extract 1. Post linking ‘city walk’ to London walks
The origin of city walk can be traced back to London, England, where this style of travel evolved from the concept of London walks.
Extract 2. Post explaining the term’s European origin and Chinese popularity
‘City walk’ first started in cities like London, Paris, and Berlin. Today, it has become a popular way for young people in China to casually explore and walk around their cities.
Though the description in Extract 1 and Extract 2 both utilize the linguistic form and the culture of urban cities, it has not been universally accepted. Extract 3 presents one of the key criticisms for ‘city walkers’, questioning that there is no difference between the so‑called ‘city walk’ and regular walk. Walking is also one of the most common leisure activities for Chinese city dwellers, an act that is not considered fashionable when described in Chinese. What they are questioning is why the substitution of a Chinese concept with an English term invokes associations with the bourgeois lifestyle. Since the phenomenon of ‘city walk’ became viral, various buzzwords imitating this term have emerged. These include changes to the verb, such as ‘city drive’, ‘city work’, ‘city cycling’, ‘city boat’, ‘city talk’, ‘city run’, ‘city cook’, or the change of the place noun like ‘country walk’, ‘countryside walk’, ‘park walk’, ‘downtown walk’, ‘mountain walk’, ‘outskirt walk’. This brings up another question: why does the English term ‘city walk’ inspire such a wide range of linguistic innovations?
Extract 3. Post questioning ‘city walk’
Isn’t city walk just taking a regular walk? I feel like this has been my main way to relax for years! Guess I was ahead of the trend? Isn’t it basically just strolling around the streets? If you put it in simpler terms, it’s what we used to call jie liu zi (街溜子 ‘people who aimlessly wandering around’). But now, with a fancy name like ‘city walk’, it suddenly feels more bourgeois.
In their analysis of ‘fire extinguisher box’ signs in China, Kroon et al. (Reference Kroon, Blommaert, Dong, Duarte and Gogolin2013) introduced the concept of ‘English with a Chinese accent.’ They argue that such linguistic innovations should not be seen as errors, but as valuable local practices that index China’s growing participation in globalization. The present study builds on this perspective, framing the popular term ‘city walk’ as a similar phenomenon, yet advances the analysis further by arguing that general narratives of globalization alone cannot fully account for this linguistic practice. Specifically, the creation and use of ‘city walk’ reveals a deliberate effort by its users to connect with European culture, which they perceive as the center of global culture. This effort serves a dual purpose: to legitimize the indigenized English term and to distinguish its users from other social groups, a point to be further elaborated in the next section.
The power to interpret: distinguishing and reinterpreting ‘city walk’ from regular walking activities
Following the initial signification, users further negotiate the term’s meaning through active interpretation. The ‘city walk’ is thought to be translatable as chengshi manbu in Chinese, while regular walking activities are often called sanbu or liuda. Though these two types of walking activities both emphasize a more relaxed and unhurried pace, the underlying meanings between these two terms are fundamentally different in Chinese. As described in Extract 4, the core difference lies in a distinction in the aesthetic mood. Like a regular walk (or sanbu), a ‘city walk’ is often a casual and leisurely experience intended to relax the mind. However, the two activities differ fundamentally in their process. A ‘city walk’ is an exploration filled with unexpected discoveries. It becomes an embodied experience of urban culture and history, as participants actively seek out unnoticed details, such as the stories of local groceries, the design of the streets and the semiotic landscapes in city corners.
Extract 4. Post contrasting ‘city walk’ with casual strolling
Both city walk and strolling involve walking through the city, but the feelings they evoke are quite different. Strolling is casual and leisurely, meant for relaxing and clearing your mind. On the other hand, city walk is about exploring and experiencing the city in a deeper way, paying attention to every detail. Every step is filled with curiosity, and every corner might hold a story. Come with me and discover the charm that sets these two apart.
In this sense, ‘city walk’ is interpreted similarly to the process of city touring. Xue et al. (Reference Xue, Zhang and Han2023) contend that ‘city walk’ is a form of urban micro‑tourism. While traditional tourism seeks destinations outside one’s usual environment (UNWTO 2010) for the experience of defamiliarization, micro‑tourism happens within one’s neighbourhood and can occur at any time. The global prevalence of COVID‑19 in the last few years is often considered to be the main reason for the emergence of micro‑tourism. To gain an experience similar to traditional tourism, micro‑tourists often engage all of their senses as much as possible to reassemble and recollect the materials and semiotics in their everyday urban life, aiming to explore the collective memories and the culture behind these urban landscapes (Borer Reference Borer2013; Wang and Kao Reference Wang and Kao2017). Nevertheless, in the case of ‘city walk’, speakers adopted a new approach to create a sense of unfamiliarity: by giving the phenomenon an English term and interpreting it through European culture, they distinguished the activity from regular everyday practices and framed it as a performance of elite cultural taste.
The power to construct meaning: Resonating with cultural elites
Following the interpretation, users further construct the meaning of ‘city walk’ by resonating with prevailing intellectual and cultural concepts. The concept of ‘the nearby’, proposed by anthropologist Biao Xiang, has been highly influential in China in recent years. This was exemplified by his widely circulated 2019 interview with the cultural celebrity Zhiyuan Xu on the online show Thirteen Talks. In a later article, Xiang (Reference Xiang2021) conceptualizes and further explains ‘the nearby’, which is ‘a lived space where one encounters people with diverse backgrounds on a regular basis … enables nuanced understandings of reality and facilitates new social relations and actions’. The nearby could also be seen as a form of resistance against any power with the intention of turning ‘local communities into units of administrative control and value extraction’. The term ‘city walk’ has been interpreted to have a close connection with ‘the nearby’, aiming to find ‘the missing of the nearby’ through walking practices and exploration of the city. It also resonates with the call by Xiang (Reference Xiang2021) for a ‘First Mile Movement’, which encourages citizens to walk out into their immediate surroundings and closely observe everything and everybody with their eyes, pencils, and cameras.
Before the popularity of ‘city walk’, the group of ‘urban wanderers’ had already appeared in various corners of the city, among whom might be fashionably dressed young people, street graffiti artists or street photographers. Extract 5 interprets their actions as a form of urban cultural practice, tracing its origins to the ‘urban experience of modernity’ that emerged in the 19th century. This urban cultural practice is closely linked to various French terms like ‘flâneur, la bohème, dandy, boulevardier, passante, flaneuse and badaud’, poetically describing them as ‘dwellers documenting modernity’. Moreover, it also associates ‘city walkers’ with prominent cultural figures such as Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire, Édouard Manet, Arthur Rimbaud and Pierre‑Auguste Renoir, who were all practitioners of urban walking in their time. Due to their enormous contribution to the history of human thought, their urban walking is also imbued with intellectual depth. Contemporary ‘city walkers’ attempt to inherit this legacy, striving for a similar synthesis of physical movement and intellectual reflection. In this context, the ‘city walker’ is constructed as a cultural elite engaging in a practice with significant cultural‑historical implications.
Extract 5. Post connecting ‘city walk’ to the European Flâneur tradition
City walk, as a form of urban cultural landscape, is actually similar to concepts like staycation and city boy fashion styles that were popular in recent years. One of its origins can be traced back to the urban experiences of modernity that emerged in the 19th century. In Walter Benjamin’s A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, the lyric poet refers to Baudelaire, who is considered the founding father of city walkers and also a great symbolist poet. Here, we must introduce a concept: the Flâneur (wanderer/loafer). In French, there are various words to describe this type of person: la bohème, flâneur, dandy, boulevardier, passante, flâneuse, badaud, etc. While these words have subtle differences, they all essentially refer to ‘street strollers’, or poetically speaking, dwellers who wander through urban landscapes, recording modernity with their curious eyes. Baudelaire, Manet, Gautier, Rimbaud, and Renoir were all, to some extent, city walkers, and were quite fashionable in their time.
This association with cultural elites further elevates the social meaning of ‘city walk’ from a simple walking practice or form of micro‑tourism into a symbolic act of cultural distinction. This shift imbues ‘city walk’ with symbolic power, making it a symbolic representation for young urbanites who possess both fashion sense and cultural taste. By constructing this association with cultural elites, these individuals are able to perform a highly specific symbolic function: articulating an identity that is not only fashionable but also intellectually elegant.
The ritual resistance against the ‘sense of powerlessness’ in urban life
The power to signify: A new lifestyle for young white-collar workers
Despite the cultural‑historical significance of ‘city walk’, it also serves as a symbol of the new lifestyle embraced by young urban white‑collar workers. This lifestyle consists of two key elements. The first is to find an alternative term for a common concept in everyday life, often in English. Extract 6 shows a word list of such terms. While the original Chinese expressions tend to carry a somewhat critical tone (some might argue they are overinterpreted), the English alternatives make them appear more positive and fashionable. The unfamiliarity of the English language in the Chinese context helps soften any negative undertones and imbues the terms with a more cosmopolitan vibe.
The second element of this lifestyle is to incorporate both Chinese and English in everyday communication, with luxury brand names integrated as an index of their social identity. This style of communication is often recognized as a ‘exquisite white‑collar style’ by some Chinese Internet influencers, a practice that represents not just a lexical substitution, but also a desire to express the identity and lifestyle of young white‑collar workers. Extract 7 presents a stereotypical image of this lifestyle: a person wears various luxury items and goes on a ‘city walk’ with his/her crush after brunch. They head for a drink in the evening and cycle home while listening to some relaxing music. This description portrays a carefree and elegant lifestyle to which these young white‑collar workers aspire.
Extract 6. Post listing trendy English‑Chinese lifestyle terms
Ridiculous dictionary of modern young people’s trendy lifestyle: Street wanderer – city walk; Skipping work – gap day; Woke up late and grabbed a quick bite – brunch; Fell for someone at first sight – crush; Eat it if you like, or leave – omakase; The place you rent and work – base; Acting on a whim – list; Finding someone to foot the bill – XX buddy; Received a soul‑selling contract – offer; Keeping a day‑to‑day record – vlog
Extract 7. Post depicting a white‑collar lifestyle scenario in China
Today’s a gap day, so I’m wearing my ARC’TERYX jacket, a Ralph Lauren baseball cap, Lululemon yoga pants, and my Salomon shoes. I’m going with my crush to check out a brunch spot we’ve been wanting to try for a while. After brunch, we decide to go on a city walk around Anfu Road. In the evening, we stop by a bistro for a drink, and on the way home, I’m riding my bike (not a shared one), listening to some chill tunes on Spotify through my headphones.
The power to interpret: Aspiring for a slow-paced and soothing way of life
Two other recently trending buzzwords on Chinese social media are neijuan ‘involution’ and tangping ‘lying flat’. Both terms reflect the frustration and anxiety that China’s young generation feels in the face of enormous pressures from their work and personal lives. The term neijuan originates from an anthropological concept ‘involution’, but was later reinterpreted as the intense competition in contemporary society, especially in the job market or in education (Chen Reference Chen2024). Tangping, a lifestyle choice characterized by rejecting intense competition and overwork in favor of a slow‑paced and soothing existence (Yin et al. Reference Yin, Yingchao and Yensen2023), serves as a symbol of the young generation’s resistance against neijuan.
The core concept of ‘city walk’ resonates with the idea of tangping. As illustrated in Extract 8, ‘city walk’ is a symbolic action through which young people seek a sense of relaxation and spiritual comfort. The ever‑accelerating pace of social life has intensified feelings of temporal anxiety, personal insecurity and a loss of meaning; thus, young people aim to resist this emotional anxiety by taking a slow‑paced ‘city walk’. This activity has no set destination or goals, focusing instead on full immersion and experience.
Furthermore, this form of resistance goes beyond a passive gesture of tangping, which often implies withdrawal or resignation. Instead, ‘city walk’ constitutes an active practice of self‑healing and a deliberate attempt to regain a sense of control over their personal lives. In a society where time is relentlessly commodified and optimized for productivity, choosing to engage in a slow‑paced and non‑goal‑oriented activity is a powerful statement. It is a conscious effort to reclaim one’s time from external pressures and reconnect with one’s inner self, allowing for spiritual comfort and relaxation amid intense pressure. This transforms the simple act of walking into a therapeutic ritual, a proactive search for songchi gan ‘a sense of relaxation and ease’ in an often alienating urban environment.
Extract 8. Post explaining ‘city walk’ as a form of healing
I think the reason it went viral might be because that sense of relaxation resonates with people’s inner needs today, or maybe it offers some kind of healing for the soul. Walking alone or with others, stopping and starting along the way, it’s about giving time back to time and returning yourself to yourself. There’s no destination, only the experience and the immersion. Beautiful scenery has always been around us, but we’ve grown too used to it. Try to take it in again and again – fast‑paced city, slow steps, and along the way, there will always be surprises!
The power to construct meaning: Resisting the ‘pursuit of meaning’ in urban life
The fast‑paced environment of urban cities, where individuals are constantly driven by the ‘pursuit of meaning’ through professional success, social status and material achievements, has fostered a strong ‘sense of powerlessness’ among young white‑collar workers. In subculture studies (Hall and Jefferson Reference Hall and Jefferson1976), ritual refers to the symbolic practices that define group identity and give meaning to their shared experiences. Social groups aim to distinguish themselves from the dominant culture and resist the structural power through symbolic actions. In this sense, ‘city walk’ can be viewed as a ritual for the young generation in China. The collective and symbolic action of engaging in a ‘city walk’ becomes a form of resistance against the fast‑paced environment.
Extract 9, sourced from a commercial advertisement, demonstrates how this act of resistance has been co‑opted by commercial forces and repurposed for marketing. The advertisement suggests that the rise of ‘city walk’ represents a shift in social attitudes, one in which people are seeking more relaxed and slow‑paced experiences. By integrating the slow‑paced walking practice into commercial consumption, a temporary respite has been offered to overworked young white‑collar workers, allowing them to find comfort and relief. This process represents the incorporation (Hall and Jefferson Reference Hall and Jefferson1976) of symbolic rituals by the dominant culture. What was once a form of resistance is now transformed into a commodified activity, highlighting how symbolic actions of resistance can be repurposed and deconstructed by the consumer society.
Extract 9. Commercial advertisement discussing ‘city walk’ as a lifestyle shift
As society rapidly develops, people have fewer opportunities to explore in their fast‑paced lives. The rise of city walk reflects a shift in attitudes. Under pressure, people are no longer satisfied with traditional consumption but seek a more relaxed, slower‑paced experience. Walking aimlessly through the city allows them to slow down amid a busy schedule, offering a brief moment of comfort and relief for their tired minds and bodies.
Significantly, this process of incorporation extends beyond the commercial sphere and into the promotional narratives of tourism and culture, representing an even more profound form of incorporation. For instance, influential official municipal tourism bureau’s Wechat accounts such as Beijing Release have published a Central Axis Walk Guide; while Shanghai Release has launched a popular series titled My city walk images. This official endorsement effectively sanitizes the term of its counter‑cultural and resistive undertones. By reframing ‘city walk’ as a promotion for tourism and celebrating official cultural narratives, the municipal tourism bureau’s social media accounts absorb the buzzword’s popularity while neutralizing its critical edge. Thus, the journey of ‘city walk’ from a subcultural ritual to a commodified and officially promoted slogan highlights the complex lifecycle of symbolic resistance, demonstrating how such acts can be absorbed and repurposed by the very dominant cultural structure they initially sought to challenge.
Discussion and conclusion
This study has investigated the constructed meanings and symbolic functions of the Chinese English buzzword ‘city walk.’ The analysis of metapragmatic discourse on Xiaohongshu reveals that the term’s symbolic power is not only inherent, but also dynamically generated through a discursive process of signifying, interpreting, and ultimately constructing new meanings. This process imbues ‘city walk’ with two primary symbolic functions: it serves as a resource for young urbanites to articulate their global imaginations and cultural taste by resonating with European cultural elites, and as a means of performing ritual resistance against the pressures of contemporary urban life. This concluding section will synthesize these findings to address the theoretical question of the study (RQ3), exploring how the symbolic power of ‘city walk’ reflects the identities of young people and the broader socio‑economic pressures in contemporary urban China.
A central question arising from the findings is why the use of an English term is so crucial. The answer lies in the potent symbolic capital of English within the Chinese context, a status reinforced by decades of educational policy and neoliberal market dynamics (Piller and Cho Reference Piller and Cho2013). English functions as a ‘commodified’ linguistic asset (Heller Reference Heller2010), and its use in a novel term like ‘city walk’ can be seen as a creative act of ‘New Chinglish’ (Li Reference Li2016). This choice provides a crucial ‘linguistic unfamiliarity’ that distinguishes it from commonplace Chinese equivalents, which are too mundane to carry the desired connotations of novelty and prestige. This phenomenon powerfully illustrates a key principle of language’s symbolic function in a globalized world: its value is increasingly disconnected from the strict standards set by native speakers. Indeed, the symbolic power of ‘city walk’ does not derive from its linguistic authenticity or its acceptance by native English speakers. This is a quintessential example of New Chinglish where users, as creative agents, are not attempting to imitate a foreign standard but are strategically deploying deterritorialized linguistic resources to construct their own cultural legitimacy. Its symbolic value is not diminished by its deviation from Anglophone conventions; on the contrary, it is enhanced by it, as this very deviation allows the term to be imbued with specific, localized connotations of fashion, taste, and resistance that its mundane Chinese equivalents lack. The ‘foreignness’ of English creates a global imagination upon which users can project aspirational meanings, such as the associations with the European flâneur and a globalized, cosmopolitan lifestyle. In this sense, ‘city walk’ becomes a tool for performing a cosmopolitan identity, one that transcends local boundaries and connects its users to a perceived global cultural elite.
The discursive construction of ‘city walk’ both reflects and responds to the specific socio‑economic context of contemporary China. As a reflection, the phenomenon serves as a mirror to the collective mentality and socio‑economic realities of its users. As discussed earlier, the pandemic‑induced turn to micro‑tourism gave rise to the ‘city walk’ phenomenon. Beyond that, it reflects the pressures of an economic downturn and a consumption downgrade. In this context, ‘city walk’ emerges as a strategic response to these economic constraints. For young urbanites unwilling to relinquish the social cachet of an elegant identity, the English term becomes a vital tool. It allows them to reframe a simple, inexpensive activity as a mindful, aesthetic and culturally refined practice. In this way, language provides the means to project an image of elegant taste, precisely when the economic resources to showcase it through consumption are scarce. The term’s popularity, therefore, poignantly reflects a generation’s negotiation between economic reality and an enduring aspiration for social distinction. This negotiation is fundamentally about identity: young urbanites use ‘city walk’ to articulate a cultured, tasteful self‑image even when material consumption is constrained.
More than just a passive reflection, the ‘city walk’ phenomenon is also an active response to the pressures of contemporary urban life. It is a form of ritual resistance against a pervasive ‘sense of powerlessness’. In a society that relentlessly pushes for productivity and the ‘pursuit of meaning’ through achievement, choosing to engage in a slow‑paced, non‑goal‑oriented activity is a deliberate act of resistance. It is a proactive practice for young people to regain a sense of control over their personal lives, a conscious search for a sense of relaxation and ease, and a way to rediscover ‘the nearby’ in an often alienating urban environment (Xiang Reference Xiang2021). The very act of naming this practice ‘city walk’ is part of this response, transforming a simple walk into a meaningful ritual, which constitutes a form of identity work: by choosing to ‘city walk’, young people define themselves against the relentless demands of neijuan and assert an identity of resistance.
To conclude, by analyzing the buzzword ‘city walk’, this study has illuminated the intricate process through which symbolic power is constructed, demonstrating how a simple English phrase can be transformed into a vital resource for negotiating complex identities and social reality in contemporary China. This transformation highlights the dual role of language: on the one hand, it is a symbol for expressing social identities, values, and lifestyles; on the other hand, it is a dynamic mirror reflecting profound social change. In brief, language is a social fact that carries symbolic power (Bourdieu Reference Bourdieu1991; Kramsch Reference Kramsch2020). Building on the findings from this case study of ‘city walk’, future research could systematically compare trending English buzzwords across different societies and cultures to better understand how linguistic symbolic power is constructed and contested in a globalized and digital world.
Generative AI Disclosure
During the preparation of this work, the authors used Generative AI tools to correct grammatical errors and improve readability. After using these tools, the authors reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the content of the publication.
YONGCHEN ZHANG is a PhD candidate at China Center for Language Planning and Policy Studies, Institute of Language Sciences, Shanghai International Studies University. His research interests lie at the intersection of language and society, with a particular focus on language in digital spaces, language and social change, language planning and policy, and sociolinguistics. Email: zzycc27@gmail.com.
PROFESSOR RONGHUI ZHAO is the Director of China Center for Language Planning and Policy Studies at the Institute of Language Sciences, Shanghai International Studies University. Her research focuses on sociolinguistics, language policy and language education, and the history of language and linguistics, with a commitment to examining the dynamic interplay between language and society. She has published widely in these areas, with monographs and journal articles in Chinese, English, and Russian. She has directed numerous research projects at national and provincial levels and is currently editing several book series on language policy and language education, including Language Policy and Language Education, Documents on World Language Policy and Language Situation Worldwide. Email: zrh@shisu.edu.cn.
