Cover not available

Article published In: The Pragmatics of Ritual
Edited by Dániel Z. Kádár and Juliane House
[Pragmatics 30:1] 2020
► pp. 40–63

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF

The rite of reintegrative shaming in Chinese public dispute mediation

 | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
 | Guangdong University of Foreign Studies
 | Dalian University of Foreign Languages | Research Institute for Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 4 February 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.19019.ran
Abstract
This paper examines the ways in which mediators deploy the rite of public shaming in the activity type of public mediation, as a pragmatic device by means of which they exert social control. Our data consists of episodes of public mediation events in rural China, aired in the Chinese Television. Our analytic framework is anchored to the model of interactional relational rituals: we interpret shaming as a morally loaded communal interactional practice, which the mediator can deploy due to their ratified role, but only within frame of the ritual activity type, and with the communal goal of resolving the conflict. Thus, while ritual forms of shaming may be interactionally intensive – e.g. the person who inflicts shame may inflict shame with little mitigation to put pressure on the shamed person – strict rights and obligations regulate the behaviour of the mediator who needs to act as a ‘moral educator’.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1This study
    • 1.2Reintegrative shaming in Chinese mediation events
    • 1.3Relevance to the pragmatics of ritual
  • 2.Previous research on shaming
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Amplifying shame
    • 4.2Mitigating shame
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (71)
References
An, Meili, and Minge Peng. 2013. “On Mediators’ Management of Disagreement with Disputants in Chinese Televised Dispute Mediation.” Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 23 (1): 14–165.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barnard, Jayne W. 1999. Reintegrative Shaming in Corporate Sentencing. Retrieved from: [URL]
Boudana, Sandrine. 2014. “Shaming Rituals in the Age Of Global Media: How DSK’s Perp Walk Generated Estrangement.” European Journal of Communication 29 (1): 50–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boyer, Paul S. 1978. Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braithwaite, John. 1999. Crime, Shame and Reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. “Repentance Rituals and Restorative Justice.” The Journal of Political Philosophy 8 (1): 115–131. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. “Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness.” Journal of Pragmatics 25 (3): 349–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Curran, James. 2005. “Communications, Power and Social Order.” In Culture, Society and the Media, ed. by M. Gurevitch, J. Curran, and T. Bennett, 198–231. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, Bethan L. 2018. “Evaluating Evaluations: What Different Types of Metapragmatic Behaviour Can Tell Us about Participants’ Understandings of the Moral Order.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 14 (1): 121–151. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deng, Yiheng. 2012. “Strategy to Alleviate Adversity in Chinese Mediation: A Discourse Analysis on Real Chinese Mediation Sessions.” Chinese Journal of Communication 5 (4): 417–436. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deng, Yiheng, Kaibin Xu, Xiaoqiu Fu, and Sang Ma. 2013. “Mediating Conflict on TV: A Discourse Analysis of the Gold Medal Mediation Episodes.” China Media Research 9 (4): 5–14.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Etzioni, Amitai. 2001. The Monochrome Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Every, Danielle. 2013. “‘Shame on You’: The Language, Practice and Consequences of Shame and Shaming in Asylum Seeker Advocacy.” Discourse & Society 24 (6): 667–686. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fung, Heidi. 1999. “Becoming a Moral Child: The Socialization of Shame among Young Chinese Children.” Ethos 27 (2): 180–209. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold. 1964. “Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities.” Social Problems 111: 225–250. Republished in Studies in Ethnomethodology, 35–75. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra, and Maria Vasilaki. 2018. “The Personal and/as the Political: Small Stories and Impoliteness in Online Discussions of the Greek Crisis.” Internet Pragmatics: Special Issue – (Im)politeness and Moral Order in Online Interactions 1 (2): 215–240. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1967. Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Graham, Sage L. 2018. “Impoliteness and the Moral Order in Online Gaming.” Internet Pragmatics: Special Issue – (Im)politeness and Moral Order in Online Interactions 1 (2): 303–328. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Alexes. 2009. “The Role of Power in Shaming Interactions: How Social Control Is Performed in a Juvenile Court.” Contemporary Justice Review 12 (4): 379–399. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2013. “Im/politeness, Social Practice and the Participation Order.” Journal of Pragmatics 581: 52–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hawes, Colin, and Shuyu Kong. 2013. “Primetime Dispute Resolution: Reality TV Mediation Shows in China’s ‘Harmonious Society’.” Law & Society Review 47 (4): 739–770. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heo, Mansup, and Jaeyung Park. 2017. “Shame and Vicarious Shame in the News: A Case Study of the Sewol Ferry Disaster.” Journalism 21: 1–19.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ho, David Yau-Fai. 1986. “Chinese Patterns of Socialization: A Critical Review.” In The Psychology of the Chinese People, ed. by H. B. Michael, 1–37. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. “Face Dynamics: From Conceptualization to Measurement.” In The Challenge of Facework, ed. by S. Ting-Toomey, 269–286. New York: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ho, David Yau-Fai, Wai Fu, and S. M. Ng. 2004. “Guilt, Shame and Embarrassment: Revelations of Face and Self.” Culture and Psychology 10 (1): 64–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Horgan, Mervyn. 2019. “Everyday Incivility and the Urban Interaction Order: Theorizing Moral Affordances in Ritualized Interaction.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Special Issue – Morality, the Moral Order, and Language Conflict and Aggression 7(1): 31–54. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hu, Xianjin. 1944. “The Chinese Concept of Face.” American Anthropologist 461: 45–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z. 2013. Relational Rituals and Communication: Ritual Interaction in Groups. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017. Politeness, Impoliteness and Ritual: Maintaining the Moral Order in Interpersonal Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Melvin De La Cruz. 2016. “Rituals of Outspokenness and Verbal Conflict.” Pragmatics & Society 7 (2): 265–290. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Saeko Fukushima. 2018. “The Meta-conventionalisation and Moral Order of E-practices: A Japanese Case Study.” Internet Pragmatics: Special Issue – (Im)politeness and Moral Order in Online Interactions 1 (2): 352–378. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Juliane House. 2019a. “Ritual Frames: A Contrastive Pragmatic Approach.” Pragmatics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019b. “Introduction: The Pragmatics of Ritual.” Pragmatics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. Forthcoming. “Linguistic Forms, Standards Situations and Ritual Frames: A Contrastive Pragmatic Framework.” Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics.
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Rosina Márquez-Reiter. 2015. “(Im)politeness and (Im)morality: Insights from Intervention.” Journal of Politeness Research 11 (2): 239–260.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Puyu Ning. 2019. “Ritual Public Humiliation: Using Pragmatics to Model Language Aggression”. Acta Linguistica Academica 66 (2): 189–208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., Vahid Parvaresh, and Puyu Ning. 2019. “Morality, Moral Order, and Language Conflict and Aggression – A Position Paper.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Special Issue – Morality, the Moral Order, and Language Conflict and Aggression. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kangasharju, Helena. 2002. “Alignment in Disagreement: Forming Oppositional Alliances in Committee Meetings.” Journal of Pragmatics 341: 1447–1471. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kienpointner, Manfred. 2018. “Impoliteness Online Hate Speech in Online Interactions.” Internet Pragmatics: Special Issue – (Im)politeness and Moral Order in Online Interactions 1 (2): 329–351. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinson, Stephen. 1981. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, Barbara, and Paul A. Wilson. 2017. “Shame and Guilt across Cultures.” In The International Encyclopedia of Intercultural Communication, ed. by Young Yun Kim, 1–9. London: Wiley. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Lijing. 2009. “Television and Dispute Resolution as the Fourth Mediation Paradigm: Analysis and Evaluation Based on the ‘Inviting Interested Parties’ Program Model.” Journal of Southwestern College of Politics and Law 111: 121–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lo, Adrienne, and Heidi Fung. 2011. “Language Socialization and Shaming.” In The Handbook of Language Socialization, ed. by A. Duranti, E. Ochs, and B. B. Schieffelin, 169–189. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Madianou, Mirca. 2011. “News as a Looking Glass: Shame and the Symbolic Power of Mediation.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 15 (1): 3–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Márquez-Reiter, Rosina, and Michael Haugh. 2019. “Denunciation, Blame and the Moral Turn in Public Life.” Discourse, Context & Media 281: 35–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Márquez-Reiter, Rosina, and Sarah Orthaber. 2018. “Exploring the Moral Compass: Denunciations in a Facebook Carpool Group.” Internet Pragmatics 1 (2): 241–270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Parvaresh, Vahid, and Tayebi Tahmineh. 2018. “Impoliteness, Aggression and the Moral Order.” Journal of Pragmatics 1321: 91–107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Petley, Jacob. 2013. “Public Interest or Public Shame.” In Media and Public Shaming: Drawing the Boundaries of Disclosure Account, ed. by J. Petley, 19–29. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ran, Yongping, and Linsen Zhao. 2019. “Building Mutual Affection-Based Face in Conflict Mediation: A Chinese Relationship Management Model.” Journal of Pragmatics 1291: 185–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rowbottom, Jacob. 2013. “To Punish, Inform, and Criticize: The Goals of Naming and Shaming.” In Media and Public Shaming: Drawing the Boundaries of Disclosure, ed. by J. Petley, 1–18. London: I. B. Tauris. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scheff, Thomas J. 1988. “Shame and Conformity: The Deference-Emotion System.” American Sociological Review 531: 395–406. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2003. “Shame in Self and Society”. Symbolic Interaction 26 (2): 239–262. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schieffelin, Bambi B. 1986. “Teasing and Shaming in Kaluli Children’s Interactions.” In Language Socialization across Cultures, ed. by B. B. Schieffelin, and E. Ochs, 165–181. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sinkeviciute, Valeria. 2018. “‘Ya bloody drongo!!!’ Impoliteness as Situated Moral Judgement on Facebook.” Internet Pragmatics: Special Issue – (Im)politeness and Moral Order in Online Interactions 1 (2): 271–302. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen. 2002. “Managing Rapport in Talk: Using Rapport Sensitive Incidents to Explore the Motivational Concerns Underlying the Management of Relations.” Journal of Pragmatics 34 (5): 529–545. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “(Im)politeness, Face and Perceptions of Rapport: Unpackaging Their Bases and Interrelationships.” Journal of Politeness Research 1 (1): 95–119. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spencer-Oatey, Helen, and Dániel Z. Kádár. 2016. “The Bases of (Im)Politeness Evaluations: Culture, the Moral Order and the East–West Debate.” East Asia Pragmatics 1 (1): 73–106. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stewart, Charles. 2015. “Honor and Shame.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, ed. by Nail J. Smelser, and Paul B. Baltes, 181–184. London: Pergamon. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sung, Kyu-Talk. 1998. “An Exploration of Actions of Filial Piety.” Journal of Aging Studies 121: 369–386. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tayebi, Tahmineh. 2016. “Why Do People Take Offence? Exploring the Underlying Expectations.” Journal of Pragmatics 1011: 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, Gabriele. 1985. Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions of Self-Assessment. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina, and Dániel Z. Kádár. 2017. “Convention and Ritual (Im)politeness”. In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)politeness, ed. by C. Jonathan, H. Michael, and D. Z. Kádár, 171–195. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. 1979. “Frame, Flow and Reflection: Ritual and Drama as Public Liminality.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 6 (4): 465–499. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Welten, Stephanie C. M., Marcel Zeelenberg, and Seger M. Breugelmans. 2012. “Vicarious Shame.” Cognition and Emotion 26 (5): 836–846. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whutnow, Robert. 1989. Meaning and Moral Order: Explorations in Cultural Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard A. O. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yang, Guoshu. 2012. “Analyzing the Concept of Chinese Filial Piety.” In Chinese Psychology, ed. by G. S. Yang, 32–59. Peking: China Renmin University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhao, Linsen, and Yongping Ran. 2019. “Impoliteness Revisited: Evidence from Qingmian Threats in Chinese Interpersonal Conflicts.” Journal of Politeness Research 15 (2): 257–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (10)

Cited by ten other publications

House, Juliane, Dániel Z. Kádár, Tadej Todorović, Matjaž Klemenčič, David Hazemali, Tomaž Onič & Katja Plemenitaš
2025. Capturing power in diplomatic language use. Journal of Language and Politics 24:5 ► pp. 713 ff. DOI logo
Li, Meiqi, Ting Jiang & Yuanpeng Zou
2025. Decoding intentions in evaluations: A discursive study of disputants’ discourses in Chinese family mediation. Discourse & Society 36:2 ► pp. 248 ff. DOI logo
Kádár, Dániel Z., Juliane House, Tadej Todorović, Tomaž Onič, David Hazemali, Katja Plemenitaš & Donathan Brown
2024. The language of diplomatic mediation – A case study of an emergency meeting in the wake of the Yugoslav wars. Language & Communication 96 ► pp. 54 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Shiyu, Juliane House & Dániel Z. Kádár
2024. Bargaining in Chinese livestream sales events. Discourse, Context & Media 60 ► pp. 100787 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Xian & Yanbiao Dong
2023. Constructing mediator identities through questioning in Chinese televised mediation. Discourse Studies 25:3 ► pp. 430 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Luyu & Milad Mehdizadkhani
2022. Disney’s Two Versions of Mulan (1998, 2020) and Twitter: A Reception Study in Terms of (Im)politeness. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research 51:6 ► pp. 595 ff. DOI logo
Jia, Mian & Shuting Yao
2022. “Yo I am Superman, You Kiddo Go Home”: ritual impoliteness in Chinese freestyle rap battles. Text & Talk 42:5 ► pp. 691 ff. DOI logo
Zhao, Linsen & Yongping Ran
2022. Rationalizing impoliteness: Taking offence and providing vicarious accounts in mother-in-law/daughter-in-law conflict mediation. Journal of Pragmatics 197 ► pp. 69 ff. DOI logo
Greco, Sara & Chiara Jermini-Martinez Soria
2021. Mediators’ reframing as a constitutive element of a reconciliatory argumentative style. Journal of Argumentation in Context 10:1 ► pp. 73 ff. DOI logo
Jia, Mian & Guoping Yang
2021. Emancipating Chinese (im)politeness research: Looking back and looking forward. Lingua 251 ► pp. 103028 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue