‘Enough is enough: this cycle of violence has to come to an end’: Practical reasoning in the editorials during the extradition bill crisis of Hong Kong

2021 ◽  
pp. 175048132110020
Author(s):  
John Della Pietra ◽  
Simon Wang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Practical Reasoning ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Political Crisis ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
The Social ◽  
South China Morning ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
To Come

Practical reasoning as an important form of argumentation in politics has received limited research attention in critical discourse studies despite the proposal of an analytical model. Focusing on argument development surrounding events related to the extradition bill crisis of Hong Kong, this paper analyzes 48 editorials published in the South China Morning Post during the crisis period adopting Fairclough’s model. A number of recurrent themes have been identified in the corpus in association with the four argument components within the model – Claims, Goals, Values and Circumstances – which may increase understanding of the social contexts of the extradition bill crisis. It is further argued that, although Fairclough’s model may not capture the arguments in individual editorials comprehensively, the model can be usefully applied to analyze a collection of interrelated editorials to reveal more insights about an ongoing political crisis.

scholarly journals The Politics of Voice in the Stereotypical Representation of the Pashtuns: A Critical Study of Khaled Hosseini’s Novels

2018 ◽  
Vol III (II) ◽  
pp. 385-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rab Nawaz Khan ◽  
Abdul Waheed Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

The current study is an attempt to critically analyze the role and politics of voice in Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns in terms of categorical and stereotypical representation of the Pashtuns. It is a critical discourse study (Norman Fairclough, 1989, 2018) of the selected data. Moreover, the data is viewed from the perspective of critical discourse studies. The novels under study are polyphonic in nature, and the characters belong to various Afghan ethnic backgrounds, like the Pashtuns, the Tajiks and the Hazaras. The study concludes that the novelist's choice of the characters with their respective voices and the roles assigned to them are political, ideological and somewhat biased. The Pashtuns have been stereotypically represented by categorizing them as the social, well-educated and more or less liberal Pashtuns, the tribal and traditionalist Pashtuns, extremist and fundamentalist Pashtuns, like Taliban. Misrepresentation of the tribal and fundamentalist Pashtuns as racists, ethnic nationalists, ideologists, sexists, exclusionists, traditionalists and power-abusers is indicative of the novelist's biasedness and exaggeration.

Study on utterances of administrative law enforcement in van Dijk’s critical discourse analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-236
Author(s):  
Jingjing Wu ◽  
Yuxiu Sun
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Role Expectations ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Variables ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Normative Factors

AbstractThis study explores the administrative law enforcement from three perspectives, namely, discourse, cognition and society, according to van Dijk’s theory of critical discourse studies. “Discourse” is the essential linguistic analysis of administrative law enforcement, which may lead to the tension between law-executors and law-breakers, as well as to ease the conflicts and achieve the balance, so that the discourse mode with considerable tolerance and explanation is of great significance for improving the current practice of administrative law enforcement. “Cognition” deals with psychological model based on cognitive and social psychology. In the interaction of administrative law enforcement, the social roles are institutionalized by the context, which is achieved through knowledge background, cognitive methods, communicative purpose, role expectations and information transmission. “Society” focuses on the investigation of institutions, powers and groups based on sociology. There are normative factors and non-normative variables in the administrative law enforcement: the former refers to superior will, judicial review, supervision and defense of law-breaker, while the latter involves administrative habits and experience, natural emotions, interest and mass media. In the institutional context, social variables affect the implementation of administrative law enforcement in different discourse modes.

Images of Old Age in the Hong Kong Print Media

1996 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Gibb ◽  
Eleanor Holroyd
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Print Media ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
The Social ◽  
South China Morning ◽  
The Media ◽  
Social Images

AbstractThe present study set out to identify how the experience of being old in Hong Kong is represented through images commonly recurring in the print media. A case is presented for how the media not only reflect social images and views on ageing, but actively participate in the social construction of views about being old. Two newspapers in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post (English medium) and the Sin Tao (Chinese medium), were surveyed and contents of stories depicting old age were analyzed, using a qualitative and quantitative methodological design. Dominant amongst the themes was vulnerability in old age. Newspapers used stories according to journalistic formulae to present both negative and positive depictions of old age; however, positive stories carried a sense of the exceptional rather than ordinary life. Results were analysed through a comparison between the two Hong Kong newspapers as well as a comparison with a similar study undertaken on the Australian print media.

Understanding the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement: A critical discourse historiographical approach

2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 453-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Flowerdew
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Performance Theory ◽  
Movement Theory ◽  
Occupy Movement ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Occupy Movements

Within the context of a critical discourse historiographical (CDH) approach to critical discourse studies (CDS), this article applies a range of theories to the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, or Hong Kong Occupy Movement, to understand it as a discursive event. The CDH approach argues that a diachronic, historiographical approach can contribute to historiography, the writing of history, in that it can create first readings and interpretations of important events. The approach focuses on critical moments in discourse, of which the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement is considered an important one in the context of Hong Kong’s ongoing socio-historical development. Four theories are applied, in addition to the historical analysis, to further interpret the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement phenomenon: social movement theory, performance theory, identity theory and social action as text theory. It is concluded that the CDH approach to CDS and findings of the study may be useful in the consideration of other social movements and Occupy movements globally.

scholarly journals The sociocognitive approach in critical discourse studies and the phenomenological sociology of knowledge: intersections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Gyollai
Keyword(s):  
Sociology Of Knowledge ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Constitutive Relationship ◽  
Shared Knowledge ◽  
Discourse Production ◽  
Theoretical Support ◽  
Phenomenological Sociology ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies

Abstract This article argues that phenomenological sociology has great potential to provide a strong theoretical support to the Sociocognitive Approach (SCA) in Critical Discourse Studies. SCA is interested in the interconnections between knowledge, discourse and society while placing subjectivity in the centre of its framework. It looks into the correlative relationship between personal- and socially shared knowledge, and the significance of these correlations to discourse production and interpretation. Analogously, phenomenological sociology explores the interrelated structures of subjectivity, knowledge and the social world. It systematically analyses the conditions and forms of intersubjective understanding and the mutually constitutive relationship between subjective- and objective knowledge. Given the considerable overlap between the subject matter of phenomenological sociology and that of SCA, the purpose of the article is to draw the attention of critical discourse analysts to a neglected but extremely resourceful field. Following a brief introduction to SCA, the article will address some of SCA’s key concepts in conjunction with the phenomenological-sociological insight.

Language use difference and social group differentiation: Immigrants’ negotiation of an imposed category of lau in bilingual Guangzhou

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-313
Author(s):  
Jing Huang
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Social Actors ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Language And Power ◽  
The Social ◽  
Boundary Making ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Identity Category

AbstractThis study is situated in a bilingual community of Guangzhou where the local speech Cantonese used to have comparable power to the Chinese common language Putonghua regarding the range of domains, but recently a local concern has emerged over the declining status of Cantonese in association with the large number of immigrants and the vigorous implementation of the state language policy of Putonghua Promotion. This concern has been demonstrated in Guangzhou locals’ boundary-making practices and the categorization of immigrants in relation to language practices. This study aims to investigate the ways in which immigrants take up stances (Du Bois 2007; Alexandra, Jaffe. (ed.). 2009.Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.) to negotiate their identities in response to an imposed category oflau. Immigrants’ narratives of and comments on language use in their interactions with natives are analysed, at both semantic and formal levels, from a perspective of Critical Discourse Studies (e.g. Martin, Reisigl & Ruth Wodak. 2015. In Ruth Wodak & Michael Meyer (eds.).Methods of critical discourse studies, 3rd edn. 23–61. London: Sage, Fairclough, Norman. 2015.Language and power3rd edn. London: Routledge.). As the analysis shows, immigrants negotiate the imposed identity category through coming to terms with the underlying language beliefs, negatively evaluating the social actors who categorize them, recontextualising the category, and combining Putonghua and Cantonese in one language unit to indicate the symbolic oppositions between social groups and languages.

scholarly journals Hong Kong Children’s School Readiness in Times of COVID-19: The Contributions of Parent Perceived Social Support, Parent Competency, and Time Spent With Children

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Yi Hung Lau ◽  
Jian-Bin Li
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Hong Kong ◽  
Primary School ◽  
School Readiness ◽  
Perceived Social Support ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Population Sampling ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Sectional Design

School readiness is an important but challenging issue of child development, especially during COVID-19 when most of the traditional offline activities that could promote school readiness (e.g., on-site visit) have been canceled. There is a gap between the knowledge needed to promote children’s school readiness in times of pandemic and the limited understanding of this topic so far. This gap could be particularly concerning in the social contexts where examinations are stressed and educational competition is high (e.g., Hong Kong). In this study, we examined how well children were ready for primary school, the extent to which parent perceived social support was related to children’s school readiness, and whether parent competence and their time spent with children would moderate the said link. A cross-sectional design survey with total population sampling (supplemented with convenience sampling) was conducted. Massive e-mails were sent to all kindergartens in Hong Kong inviting them to join the study by distributing the survey link to the parents of their K3 students. A total of 643 Hong Kong parents whose children were about to transition to primary school (87.1% mother) participated, answering measures specifically designed for this study online about how well they thought their children were ready for school, their competence to help with children’s school transition, and how much time they spent with children. Data were analyzed with PROCESS macro (model 3) in SPSS. The results found that most parents considered that their children were not fully ready for school, especially in terms of academic skills, self-management, and mental preparation. Furthermore, moderation analyses showed that after controlling for a number of demographic variables, parent perceived social support was positively related to better school readiness in children and this link was jointly moderated by parent competence and time spent with children. Specifically, children were rated most ready when parent perceived stronger social support, felt more competent, and spent more time with children. By contrast, the link between perceived social support and children’s school readiness was insignificant for parent who felt more competent but spent less time with children. Implications of how to enhance children’s school readiness are discussed.

Britain as a protector, a mediator or an onlooker?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guofeng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Hong Kong ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Dominant Ideology ◽  
Universal Suffrage ◽  
Foreign Policies ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Journalistic Practice

Abstract Since Hong Kong’s handover to China, British newspapers still play an active role in constructing Britain’s connections with its former colony. This study elaborates a schema for protests to help better understand protests in general. Based on this schema, the study examined representations of the 2019–20 protests in British newspapers using the approach of corpus-assisted critical discourse studies. The analysis shows that they mainly used the predicational strategy, and emphasized the Chinese government’s control of Hong Kong – including the inabilities of the Hong Kong government and police violence – in contrast with the protestors’ demands for universal suffrage. They suggested that Britain act as a mediator to shoulder a moral responsibility over Hong Kong. Their attitudes are interpreted with regard to Britain’s foreign policies and the dominant ideology cultivated in its historical, socio-political contexts and suggest that the UK journalistic practice regarding Hong Kong issues is political-driven to a great extent.

On the development of the social-linguistic nexus in discourse research

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Piotr Cap
Keyword(s):  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Large Family ◽  
Analytical Models ◽  
The Social ◽  
Critical Metaphor Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
And Linguistics

Abstract This paper gives a critical overview of analytical approaches dominating the field of discourse studies in the last three decades, from the perspective of their philosophical and formative bases: social constructionism and linguistics. It explores different conceptions of the theoretical nexus between these two bases leading to the emergence of three distinct yet complementary strands of thought (i–iii). The paper starts with poststructuralist views of discourse salient in (i) Laclau and Mouffe’s Discourse Theory. Laclau and Mouffe’s assumption that no discourse is a closed entity but rather transformed through contact with other discourses is taken as the introductory premise to present a large family of (ii) critical discourse studies, characterized as text-analytical practices explaining how discourse partakes in the production and negotiations of ideological meanings. Finally, the paper discusses (iii) three recent discourse analytical models: Discourse Space Theory, Critical Metaphor Analysis and the Legitimization-Proximization Model. These new theories take a further step toward consolidation of the social-theoretical and linguistic bases in contemporary discourse studies. The empirical benefits of this consolidation are discussed in the last part of the paper, which includes a case study where the new models are used in the analysis of Polish anti-immigration discourse.

Complex texts: Analysing, understanding, explaining and interpreting meanings

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 623-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Wodak
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Critical Hermeneutics ◽  
Self Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Objective Hermeneutics ◽  
Critical Discourse Studies ◽  
Interdisciplinary Framework ◽  
Discourse Studies ◽  
Discourse Historical Approach

This article discusses different theoretical and methodological approaches in the humanities and social sciences which strive to analyse and understand, interpret and explain texts and discourses in systematic, qualitative ways. After reviewing some of the salient theories in the social sciences (such as objective hermeneutics and critical hermeneutics), I argue that critical discourse studies require a ‘trichotomy’ consisting of explanation, interpretation and critique. Other approaches such as Ricoeur’s ‘hermeneutic arc’ seem to neglect important structural and material dimensions of context as well as critical self-reflection. Moreover, I argue that much intuitive and non-transparent speculation in Hermeneutics might be transcended if more historical, cultural, linguistic and philological knowledges would be systematically and explicitly integrated into the analysis of text and discourse, in a retroductable manner. The latter possibility is illustrated by applying an interdisciplinary framework to some brief examples (e.g. intercultural and historical translation studies; the discourse-historical approach in critical discourse studies).

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