1、Communicating Intersubjectivity:Dialogic space construction in Chinese and American Political Discourse,Theoretical orientation,Discourse discourse analysisCritical discourse analysisPositive discourse analysisDiscourse studies,Discourse:A structured totality resulting from articulationary practice
2、(Laclau and Mouffe, 2001: 105)Articulation: any practice establishing a relation among elements such that their identity is modified as a result of the articulationary practice (Ibid),Articulationary practice is actually a kind of interaction in the society through the identity or subjectivity is co
3、nstructed, reconstructed or negotiated.,political discourse is a kind of communication, and a kind of interaction.To establish a shared meaning.,Intercultural communication: the construction of shared meaning, shared understanding and shared view of reality through mediated and non-mediated, verbal
4、and nonverbal forms of interaction.,In essence, meaning belongs to a word in its position between speakers; that is, meaning is realized only in the process of active, responsive understanding. Meaning does not reside in the word or in the soul of the speaker or in the soul of the listener. Meaning
5、is the effect of interaction between speaker and listener production via material of a particular sound complex. It is like an electric spark that occurs only when two different terminals are hooked together.,Secondly, the production of the meaning is the dialogue with the past, present and potentia
6、l utterances to which the speaker responds. Every utterance is a response to a previous word, person, question and context and each utterance presupposes another utterance, past or future.,Any concrete utterance is a link in the chain of speech communication of a particular sphere. The very boundari
7、es of the utterance are determined by a change of speech subjects. Utterances are not indifferent to one another, and are not self-sufficient; they are aware of and mutually reflect one another.,Every utterance must be regarded as primarily a response to preceding utterances of the given sphere. Eac
8、h utterance refutes affirms, supplements, and relies upon the others, presupposes them to be known, and somehow takes them into account. Therefore, each kind of utterance is filled with various kinds of responsive reactions to other utterances of the given sphere of speech communication. (Bakhtin 19
9、86: 91),In the dialogic theory, the struggle to take control of meaning is often emphasized and the nature of language is seen as heteroglossic (Swann et al. 2004：79). This point of view holds that language communication occurs within a context of multiple social realities or world views either conv
10、ergent or divergent (Tang: 2005: 50).,In this sense,Meaning resides itself in the interaction between the interlocutors, and thus,a dialogic space exsits between them.,Sender ReceiverDialogic space (dynamic, battlefield, different social realities, divergent or convergent ),Dialogic space,solidarity
11、 power,Components in the dialogic space,Power & solidarity,Solidarity under this formulation is not a simply a measure of the extent of agreement between social subjectivities, but is a more general measure of the degree of empathy, sympathy or openness of one social position to another. It is possi
12、ble, therefore, for some degree of solidarity to operate between divergent social positions, according to the degree that they remain open to interaction and negotiation. Thus a media text constructs a sense of its solidarity with various social positions by dint of the degree that it acknowledges t
13、hose positions or represents itself as open to negotiation with those positions. (White 1998: 47),Construction of the dialogic space,(1)The volume of informationIt is required the information given in the interaction must be quantitively enough; otherwise implication or rumor will come out.,(2009)7月
14、17日，河南省开封市杞县众多居民离开家园逃往外地。当晚杞县城里大有“十室九空”之势。但是，面对记者采访“为何事件发生一个月政府都不公开信息”时，杞县县委宣传部部长王清芝却说：“从6月7日凌晨卡源事故发生开始，县委县政府高度重视，并在第一时间通报了上级有关部门。上级部门反应也非常迅速，于事发当日上午就派相关人员前来了解情况，最终上级环境部门认定没有危险。既然没有危险，我觉得也没有必要去小题大做，也不用一开始就大张旗鼓地公布信息。就好比一个人身体没有病，那还用得着大喊我没病吗？而且政府自始至终就没封锁过消息。”面对这样的说法，而中国青年报记者在杞县金城路采访的一些居民却有不同的看法：“县政府是关心
15、这事，上级领导也关心这事，难道我们老百姓就不关心这事了吗？县政府知道没事，上级领导也知道没事，但我们老百姓就不该知道没事吗？光顾着通报上级了，怎么就不能及时通知一下百姓呢？” 当地人李强回到了杞县县城，面对中国青年报记者说：“出事后政府也不表个态，直到一个多月后才开了场新闻发布会。你说老百姓能不起疑心吗？是政府隐瞒真实情况，才导致老百姓宁可信其有，不可信其无。”,The phenomenon of “empty chair”.Researches have provided evidence that Chinese news tend to provide less information
16、in the “background part”News structure (van Dijk,1988): Headline, lead, episode, background information, comments/history/evaluation,With a “hard news” release pattern, China Daily reported a helicopter crash in Wenchuan earthquake rescuing in 2008, emphasizing when, where, and what happened. The la
17、st three paragraphs of the report highlighted the concerns of the government and military leadership. Instead of broadcasting the background and details, China Daily preferred to list reactions of the leaders. From a communicative perspective, the absence of certain information will lead to the inva
18、sion of other information; from an audience acceptance perspective, the readers tend to believe news containing concrete details. Tannen (1993) once indicated that presenting details will help the speaker build a relationship with the listener, shortening the social distance between them.,(2) Intens
19、ification. Apart from transferring information, discourses convey certain emotions and attitudes (Martin and White 2005). Intensity of information refers to the degree to which the emotion in information is transferred,In Chinese political discourse, these features are shown by high attitude intensi
20、ty and inflexibility, which are realized specifically by a multitude of modal usages implying obligations and necessity. This style of intensity in information makes the political discourse more powerful.,(3) Discourse contractionIn constructing a dialogic space with the potential readers, it is ver
21、y important to take into account potential positions in the discourse; otherwise, the positions implied by the discourse will be rejected by existing values.,In a press conference about a high speed rail incident, Wang Yongping, the spokesman of the Chinas Ministry of Railways, was harshly criticize
22、d by Chinese netizens for his remark I dont care whether you believe it or not; I believe it.,On February 5, 2011, CCTV “News Broadcast” presented a programme “Celebrating the spring festival, the general secretary visits my family”, which showed the leaderships concern for the people and it harmoni
23、ous relationship with them. The whole report was positive and happy, making the audience feel warm.,However, if we evaluate it through the dialogic space of the discourse, its main effect turns out to be excessive respect or worship for “authority” from the people everyone is eager to take photo wit
24、h the “FU” character posted by the general secretary; the grandmother and her grandson describe every detail of the general secretarys putting up couplets.,The “myth” of a certain culture can be challenged by other cultures. Highlighting myth too much usually results in negative communicative effect
25、s.,conclusionDialogic space is formed during the process of interaction between interlocutors and the relevant identity will be negotiated in this process.,Power & solidarity is the underlying factor that controlling the shape of the dialogic space.The space might be contracted or expanded according
26、 to how the sender manipulates/manguage power & solidarity.,We might judges the shape of the dialogic space from the following three aspects:Volume of the informationIntensificationDiscourse contraction,By using the above norms we have developed, we might come to the conclusion that,Chinese official
27、 discourse has a long way to go to construct a better dialogic space with its potential audience.,ContractionExpanding刘立华，中美官方话语对话性空间建构比较研究，现代传播，2012(5)刘立华，评价理论研究，外语教学与研究出版社，2011.刘世生，刘立华，评价模式与话语分析，清华大学学报（社科版），2012 （2).刘立华，评价理论概览，系统功能语言学年度专辑2009 .Liu Lihua, Interpersonal Rhetoric in editorials of China Daily. PETER LANG, 2010.Liu Lihua, Formalizing power in editorials of China Daily. Linguistics and the Social Sciences, 2011 (4).,谢谢大家！,
