Critical Pragmatic Studies on Chinese Public Discourse / Edition 1

by Xinren Chen

Overview

Public discourse constitutes the language environment of a town or a city, which forms part of the social environment of a country or a region. Based on extensive first-hand data collected from public places, mass media and the Internet, this monograph attempts critical pragmatic studies of public discourse in the contemporary Chinese context.
By applying pragmatic theories and analytical instruments to the analysis of the data, including business names, advertisements, public signs and notices, and news, the book showcases such discursive practices as personalization and subjectivization and reveals such social problems as unhealthy social mentalities, “pragmatic traps”, suspect discrimination, and vulgarity. It exemplifies a way of combining the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) approach and the pragmatic approach with a clear focus on the pragmatic issues.
This book will not only be a necessary addition to the academic discipline of pragmatics in general, and critical pragmatics in particular, but also lay bare the problems existing in the use of public discourse and suggest several ways to improve such use. While it addresses the Chinese data only, the proposed analyses may contribute to international readers’ understanding of public discourse in contemporary China and serve as a reference for similar researches worldwide.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367354411
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/19/2019
Series:	China Perspectives
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

CHEN Xinren is a professor of English and linguistics in Nanjing University, China, specializing in pragmatic theory and application.

Table of Contents

List of figures. List of tables. Preface. Acknowledgments 1 Introduction 2 Research Background 3 Theoretical Foundations 4 Social Mentalities behind Chinese Business Names 5 "Pragmatic Traps" in Chinese Advertisements 6 "Suspected" Discrimination in Chinese Public Discourse 7 (Non-)Civility in Chinese Public Discourse 8 Personalization in Chinese Public Discourse 9 Subjectivity in Chinese Journalistic Discourse 10 Conclusion Appendices. References. Index