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In:Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China
Edited by Qing Cao, Hailong Tian and Paul Chilton
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 54] 2014
► pp. 195–208

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Chapter 8. Issues in discourse approach to social transformations in China

A synopsis

 | Tianjin Foreign Studies University
 | Lancaster University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

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Published online: 23 April 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.54.09tia
This chapter discusses theoretical and methodological issues concerning doing critical discourse analysis in China. The authors believe that China’s unique social, cultural and political context justifies an assumption that the Western originated paradigm of critical discourse analysis needs tailoring and appropriating when being applied in China. Starting from this assumption, the chapter discusses four issues relevant to discourse approach to the socio-political transformations in China: a ‘wider’ angle critical perspective, a research focus on the functionality of discourse, the emergent public sphere, and qualitative research method. It is argued that, while the first two issues are basically important for an appropriation of CDA in China, the second two issues needs to be given more attention, for the new media has become a new tool for discourse struggles, and the qualitative research methodology needs to be given more weight in CDA-related social research in China. Keywords: Western originated CDA; appropriation of CDA in China; four issues
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