Full Description
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.
As of February 2020, this e-book is Open Access CC BY-NC-ND, thanks to the support of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched.
Contents
1. Introduction: Legitimisation, resistance and discursive struggles in contemporary China (by Cao, Qing); 2. Part 1: Political discourse; 3. Chapter 1. Disembodied words: The ritualistic quality of political discourse in the era of Jiang Zemin (by Marinelli, Maurizio); 4. Chapter 2. 'Stability overwhelms everything': Analysing the legitimating effect of the stability discourse since 1989 (by Sandby-Thomas, Peter); 5. Chapter 3. A decade of change in China: A corpus-based discourse analysis of ten government work reports (by Qian, Yufang); 6. Chapter 4. It's a small world after all?: Simulating the future world order at the Shanghai Expo (by Schneider, Florian); 7. Part 2: Media discourse; 8. Chapter 5. Discourse of journalism and legitimacy in post-reform China (by Tong, Jingrong); 9. Chapter 6. China's Road to Revival: "Writing" the PRC's struggles for modernization (by Schneider, Florian); 10. Chapter 7. China's soft power: Formulations, contestations and communication (by Cao, Qing); 11. Chapter 8. Issues in discourse approach to social transformations in China: A synopsis (by Tian, Hailong); 12. Author biography; 13. Index
