China’s opening up to the West, its extraordinary economic rise, and the subsequent internal and global issues, are an object of huge interest and concern. Discourse and Socio-political Transformations in Contemporary China focuses on one aspect of the contemporary Chinese phenomenon, one that is so obvious that it is generally ignored in the mainstream academic departments – that politics, society and transformation are the product of myriad collective linguistic interchanges, some stabilized, some competing, some agonistic, some new and emerging. As an outcome of dialogue between Chinese and Western scholars, the present volume contains case studies that offer a survey of the discourse aspect of Chinese society in social stratification, government service, policy consultancy, higher education, foreign policy, and TV. The conceptual reflections on discourse and critique in different cultures offer new considerations for discourse analysis, including critical discourse analysis, in the context of Chinese society today. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Language and Politics 9:4 (2010).

After three and a half decades of economic reforms, radical changes have occurred in all aspects of life in China. In an authoritarian society, these changes are mediated significantly through the power of language, carefully controlled by the political elites. Discourse, as a way of speaking and doing things, has become an indispensable instrument for the authority to manage a fluid, increasingly fragmented, but highly dynamic and yet fragile society. Written by an international team of leading scholars, this volume examines socio-political transformations of contemporary Chinese society through a systematic account, analysis and assessment of its salient discourses and their production, circulation, negotiation, and consequences. In particular, the volume focuses on the interplay of politics and media. The book’s intended readership is academics and students of Chinese studies, language and discourse, and media and communication studies.

Significant socio-political changes in China have had great impact on Chinese discourse. Changes to the discourse have become an increasing focus of scholarship. This book examines contemporary Chinese discourse and social practice in China with a focus on the role that language plays in the on-going transformation of Chinese society. With a view to producing new insights into the interdependence between discourse and social practice, this volume explores how discourse has been changing in a context-dependent way; how social practice can lead to shifts in the use of discourse; and how identities and attitudes are constructed through language use. Largely based on empirical studies, this book indicates that Chinese discourse has not only been an integral part of social change, but also Chinese discourse itself is changing, reflecting ideologies, values, attitudes, identities and social practice. The book is a great resource for scholars in diverse disciplinary studies including linguistics, communication, education, media and political studies concerning contemporary China.

Discursive Change in Hong Kong: Sociopolitical Dynamics, Metaphor, and One Country, Two Systems is an interdisciplinary study of sociopolitical and discursive change in Hong Kong—a westernized Chinese society once under British rule, now decolonized but without independence, and with a constitution promising universal suffrage sometime in the future. Starting off with interesting and frequently contradictory debates surrounding the discussions on the Handover of Hong Kong to mainland China, Jennifer Eagleton provides a stimulating, politically well-informed, and comprehensive “insider” account of many aspects of the press media and official discourse on democracy and political change in Hong Kong as part of “One Country, Two Systems.” The book shows how historical, cultural, and identity issues have shaped and molded post-1997 political discourse and how the seemingly dramatic changes in the city since 2020 may not have been that surprising for long-term observers of Hong Kong. By going beyond consideration of the purely linguistic dimension of the selected texts to encompass the larger historical and socio-political context, and incorporating textual, discursive, and metaphoric analysis over time, this book provides a detailed examination of Hong Kong political discourse and its constituent themes.

China's opening up to the West, its extraordinary economic rise, and the subsequent internal and global issues, are an object of huge interest and concern. Discourse and Socio-political Transformations in Contemporary China focuses on one aspect of the contemporary Chinese phenomenon, one that is so obvious that it is generally ignored in the mainstream academic departments – that politics, society and transformation are the product of myriad collective linguistic interchanges, some stabilized, some competing, some agonistic, some new and emerging. As an outcome of dialogue between Chinese and Western scholars, the present volume contains case studies that offer a survey of the discourse aspect of Chinese society in social stratification, government service, policy consultancy, higher education, foreign policy, and TV. The conceptual reflections on discourse and critique in different cultures offer new considerations for discourse analysis, including critical discourse analysis, in the context of Chinese society today. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Journal of Language and Politics 9:4 (2010).

This book helps readers to understand communication and society in contemporary China through systematic analysis of multimodal discourse at the national, institutional and individual levels. China has undergone profound changes during the past decade or so. Politically, the Chinese government has been more proactive in domestic governance and foreign policies, as manifested in the Chinese Dream campaign and the national image publicity films respectively. Hand in hand with the socio-political change is the rapid development of new media, which has been changing how corporates do business, how institutions brand their images, as well as how individuals construct their identities and social relations. These changes have brought about significant changes to the discursive practices at the national, institutional and individual levels, characterized by the extensive use of multimodal resources and distinct promotional purposes. Feng systematically investigates and discusses the new discursive features in relation to relevant socio-cultural contexts. The analysis and discussion provide researchers with a social semiotic perspective on various aspects of communicative and social changes in contemporary China. The book also contributes to the growing field of multimodality by developing a set of cross-disciplinary analytical frameworks to deal with complex discourse forms in print media, moving images, and new media. The research findings provide a unique Chinese perspective on a broad spectrum of issues such as discursive governance, nation branding, university marketization, and identity performance. The book is relevant not only to discourse analysis and multimodality, but also to other disciplines which will benefit from a systematic understanding of Chinese discourse, such as cultural studies, communication studies and area/China studies.