Journal of Language and Politics - Volume 9, Issue 4, 2010

The term “critical”, as used by scholars writing under the banner of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), is in need of review in a new global intellectual environment in which diverse philosophical and political traditions are increasingly in contact with one another. This essay is particularly concerned with the question of how a shared understanding of the concept of the critical can be developed among Western and Chinese scholars. To this end the paper gives an overview of notions of critique in the historical traditions of China and the West, addressing issues of conceptualisation, discourse practice and translation. This leads us to consider, from a “critical” point of view, what the appearance of the “critical” approach may mean in the Chinese context. The need for continued dialogue oriented to a deepened understanding of existing ideas and approaches is highlighted.

This article examines the discursive reconfiguration of the social stratification order in reforming China. Applying the two notions of metadiscourse and entextualization from the natural history of discourse (NHD) perspective (Silverstein & Urban 1996), I argue that the missing link between the discursive and the social is forged through the metadiscourses (Urban 1996) originated by the top leaders of the Communist Party of China, and that their ongoing entextualizations play a crucial role in establishing the stratificational status quo. They set the tone for dismantling the pre-reform hierarchical pattern and constructing an evolving system in light of the growing market economy. The analysis of their entextualizations is based on period texts (1978–2008), primarily speeches of the three party leaders Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Combining the discursive insights of critical discourse theory and the NHD perspective, this study intends to break new ground in applying the NHD approach to analyzing the reforming Chinese state socialism where social stratification is necessarily subject to ongoing transformations.

Against the backdrop of an increasingly divided society and the government’s determined pledge to build social cohesion in China, this paper examines how social institutions, through their discursive practices, participate in the construction of the still evolving social relations in contemporary China, using data collected from interactions between citizens and officials at two governmental agencies. It finds that discourse is an important way of reflecting and realizing the institutional power possessed by institutional officials and that institutional power is exercised and reinforced through a variety of discursive practices ranging from fixed procedures of questioning to speech acts of interrupting and blaming. Based on these findings, this paper argues that for government agencies to act as a force of social cohesion in contemporary China as they have always claimed, their linguistic forms of interaction with society, as well as the ideologies and practices associated with it, all need to be dramatically transformed.

This paper adopts a “cultural political economy” (CPE) approach to examine the production of hegemony and related hegemonic struggles during the socio-spatial changes occurring in the Pearl River Delta. Drawing from the case of Hong Kong/Pearl River Delta, economic restructuring has given rise to the “hollowing out” debate. In face of this debate, two knowledge brands, the Harvard-Porter’s “competitive advantage” (1985) and MIT-Berger-Lester’s “industrial performance” models, have been stabilized as competing modes of developmentality (development governmentality) and have operated as paper-based economic panopticons to order/manage, at a distance, the organization of Hong Kong’s/Pearl River Delta’s space, policy, and, ultimately, the conduct of its population. These modes of developmentalities have met resistance from other forces in other spaces and with other interests, including from below. Nonetheless the two main power blocs are engaging in inter-bloc negotiations in the light of such resistance and are creating a hybrid strategy under the dominance of the service bloc.

To produce a teaching quality assessment (TQA) report in the TQA practice launched by the Chinese Ministry of Education the assessing group is naturally in an authoritative position, but the assessed university does not remain absolutely passive and dominated. To investigate this struggle of power over each other in producing the TQA report, the present research examines the discourse aspect of the TQA practice by observing the discursive strategies each party deployed. It is found that both parties resort to institutional power in their discourse practice, and that the assessed university incorporates promotional genres into its self-assessment discourse while the assessing group recontextualises the promotional statement in its authoritative TQA report. It is concluded, based on this case study, that the assessing group’s authoritative TQA report is largely influenced by the self-assessment of the assessed university.

The article carries out a diachronic analysis of the topics and schemata of foreign policy sections (FPSs) in the Chinese government’s Annual Work Report (AWR, 1993–2007) to the National People’s Congress (NPC). The analysis shows that: (1) all the reports are constructed with similar topics and schemata decided by the general rules set in the FPS of the report in 1986, which work as “orders of discourse”; (2) topical selection and schematic structure, as two sides of a mental model for the production and understanding of the discourse, are ideological mechanisms for the government to manipulate power control over policy construction and implementation; (3) the discourse is actually the final product of the struggle and interaction between new discourse and “orders of discourse”; (4) the discourse is a reflection of social changes and works as a catalyst to shape people’s view toward social reality and to mold China’s foreign policy practice.

This paper examines television portrayals of the West in contemporary China, focusing on an emerging non-victimistic media discourse on modern Western history. The analysis is contextualized within the wider sociopolitical dynamics of a rising nationalism and increased space for negotiation among the different groupings of Chinese elites. The paper falls into three parts. The first investigates the discursive features of a television documentary text that constructs a fresh, positive image of the West. The second discusses critiques of the series from the perspectives of a liberal, pro-market right and anti-capitalist new left. The third part extends the analysis to the social context of the mainstream pragmatic nationalism that has risen to prominence in recent decades. The paper concludes with a discussion on tensions within differing views of the West, and a critical assessment of the fresh, non-moralistic account of the Western road to modernity.