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Why do cultural discourse studies? Towards a
culturally conscious and critical approach to
human discourses
Shi-xu
Version of record first published: 04 Oct 2012.
To cite this article: Shi-xu (2012): Why do cultural discourse studies? Towards a culturally conscious and
critical approach to human discourses, Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 26:4, 484-503
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Why do cultural discourse studies?
Towards a culturally conscious and
critical approach to human discourses
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Shi-xu
Abstract
The present article argues for a culturally conscious and reflexive approach to discourse
studies, beyond the discipline’s taken-for-granted multi-disciplinarity, moral stance and
monologue, with a view to facilitating genuine research innovation and cultural equality
and prosperity. First, it highlights the oft obscured cultural nature of mainstream discourse
scholarship, the actual cultural diversity and divisiveness of contemporary human discourses,
as well as cultural-intellectual resources and conditions for the formation of Cultural Discourse
Studies (CDS). Next, the article illustrates a particular cultural example of the new paradigm
by describing a Chinese approach to the discourses of human rights, characterised by at
once a historical and an intercultural perspective. In conclusion, the article suggests action
strategies for the construction and practise of the cultural mode of discourse research.
Keywords: cultural scholarship, dialogue, hegemony, innovation, West-centric
Introduction
Certain strands of discourse studies have often presented themselves as theoretically
and methodologically neutral and therefore universally applicable, indirectly or
explicitly, such that, with the aid of the accelerated processes of globalisation,
they have become a powerful trend in international scholarship. For one thing,
they describe objects of research (‘discourse’, ‘text’, ‘social practice’, ‘cognition’,
‘context’, etc.) in a matter-of-fact way and offer their (inter- or multi-disciplinary)
Shi-xu is Changjiang Distinguished Professor and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese
Discourse Studies (CCCDS), Zhejiang University, China. xshi@zju.edu.cn, www.shixu.com
26 (4) 2012
DOI: 10.1080/02560046.2012.723814
ISSN 0256-0046/Online 1992-6049
pp. 484–503
© Critical Arts Projects & Unisa Press
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Why do cultural discourse studies?
methods of analysis as unproblematic guarantor of valid knowledge. Hardly ever
would the possibilities of the existence of other cultural concepts, theory and
approaches, and of their own cultural limitations and bias, be considered. Additionally,
an ethnocentric – usually Western-centric – conception of norms and values (called
‘human rights’, ‘democracy’, ‘equality’, ‘freedom’) is deployed as if they were
universal, adjudicating the discourses of other cultural communities, governments or
institutions. Whether there may be culturally different standards and ideals, particular
cultural or socio-economic restrictions, and culturally alternative means to achieve
or maintain, moral principles are usually taken as pseudo-questions or ideologically
charged pretexts or human deviations. Furthermore, it is oft taken for granted that
human discourses have (more or less) the same (categories of) structure and process
and operate more or less equally across cultures. Questions of whether there might
be culturally different concepts and criteria of ‘discourse’, culturally divergent forms
of discursive practice and local practical needs for discourse research, are usually
ignored.
In this article, such seen but unnoticed academic common sense and the relevant
practices will be interrogated, and the author will argue in consequence for the
construction of alternative paradigms of discourse research: culturally conscious,
reflexive, and diverse modes of discourse studies under the heading of Cultural
Discourse Studies (CDS). CDS, put briefly, is envisaged as a broad international
project to create and practise a form of discourse research that is locally grounded
(viz. exhibiting cultural identity and usefulness) and globally minded (viz. capable
of engaging in international dialogue and showing global, human concerns). The
argument will revolve round (a) the oft obscured cultural nature of discourse
scholarship; (b) the actual cultural diversity and division of human discourses; and
(c) the achievements, resources and conditions favourable for the construction of
CDS.
To illustrate such a new, culturally nuanced way of doing discourse studies, a
particular cultural exemplar of CDS is presented by the author describing a research
project on the Chinese discourses of human rights. It will be shown that a historical
and intercultural perspective and the consequential dialectic methods reveal Chinese
human rights as a growing, culturally modern discourse that is not only a positive
response to American-Western discourse on the topic, but also a negative resistance
to it. In conclusion, the author suggests a range of action strategies for constructing
and practising the envisaged international project of CDS.
It is hoped that the (multi)cultural critique and consequent re-orientation proffered
here will help overcome the effects of cultural imperialism in the scholarship. Such
an exercise highlights the intellectual limitations of disciplinary monologue on the
one hand, and the cultural consequences of presumed universalism and objectivity
on the other. Further, it encourages and enhances intercultural dialogue and critique,
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Shi-xu
ultimately increasing the chances of genuine research innovation (Shi-xu 2005,
2009). This assists in the formation of cultural voices and identities of the scholarly
communities of discourse studies, especially in the hitherto marginalised, developing
world. Finally, needless to say, the thoroughly culturally grounded systems of
discourse research will only be more effective and congenial to understanding and
solving local particular problems than the a-cultural, a-historical approaches.
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Discourse studies as cultural scholarship
The tendency to over-generalise and universalise in theory and practice, implicitly
or explicitly, and consequently to neglect cultural contexts and contradictions, has
been identified as one of the central and debilitating problems of contemporary
social science (Flyvbjerg 2001; Hollinger 1994; Smart 2003). Critical approaches
to anthropology, psychology, sociology and literary criticism have long pointed
to many general as well as particular cultural biases and the cultural-intellectual
consequences of the mainstream social science (Clifford 1986; Said 1978; Van Dijk
1993; Wilkinson & Kitzinger 1995). For the current purpose, the cultural nature
of language and communication studies in general and the cultural peculiarities of
the universalising and globalising discourse of Critical Discourse Studies (CDA) in
particular will be highlighted.
In language and communication studies, there have already been reflexive
critiques on culturally unequal and discriminating issues in the discipline (e.g.
Bazerman 1998; Cameron 1992; Carey 1992; McQuail 2005; Miike 2006, 2009;
Milhouse, Asante & Nwosu 2001; Shi-xu 2005, 2009; Stanley & Wise 1983). There
have also been attempts at reconstructing non-Western, non-white or Third-World
discourses theoretically and methodologically (e.g. Chen 2004; Dissanayake 1988;
Gumperz & Levinson 1996; Kincaid 1987; Miike 2009; Ngŭgĭ 1986; Pardo 2010;
Prah 2010; Young 1994). Through making transparent the particular origins, lineages,
perspectives, values, concepts, interests, methods of research, power relations, etc.,
these works show the thoroughly cultural nature of language and communication
research. But it should be stressed here that endeavours such as these are still too
few and far between, and that they come largely from the margins (e.g. developing
countries/non-white scholars) or originate from outside the discipline. Decolonising
and reconstructive work remains an urgent imperative.
At this juncture, it is necessary to caution against any possible misunderstanding
about uses of ‘East’, ‘West’, ‘South’ and related terms. There has been a
‘postmodernist’ discourse-making gaining momentum that dismisses notions of
the East, the West and the like as ‘essentialist’, effectively glossing over the real
domination, inequality and subjugation involved. In the present study, the East
and West are understood not as binary and homogeneous geographical entities, but
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Why do cultural discourse studies?
as cultural-political categories, real or potential (Shi-xu 2005; see also Jameson
1986). That is, although they have internal differences and external connections,
and are open to negotiation and subject to change, they are essentially saturated
with historically evolved inequalities of power. Therefore, the notions and terms
of East and West are needed as what Spivak calls ‘strategic essentialism’ (Landry
& MacLean 1995) in order to highlight the existing problems of cultural-political
inequality, to undermine the globalisation of Western capitalism, and to reclaim the
cultural identity and diversity for the underdeveloped and developing cultures.
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CDA as culturally dubious discourse
That there has been a growing body of critical scholarship on the cultural and
intellectual limitations and consequences of CDA is, here, a necessary mention
(see, e.g., Blommaert 2005; Jones 2007; Schegloff 1997; Shi-xu 2005, 2007, 2009;
Slembrouck 2001; Stubbs 1997; Toolan 1997; Tyrwhitt-Drake 1999; Verschueren
2001; Widdowson 1995; Xin 2008). These (and other) authors have pointed to an
over-reliance on universalistic concepts and perspectives and a lack of intellectual
reflexivity. In this section, I shall conduct an intercultural dialogue with CDA, à
la paradigms of Fairclough (1995, 2006); Fairclough and Wodak (1997); Van Dijk
(1997) and Wodak (2005a & b) from a non-Western (i.e. Chinese) perspective.
The central argument here will be that the scholarly discourse of CDA is culturally
peculiar, not so much because it is so in itself, but because it has portrayed itself
as universal – implicitly or explicitly – while it is in fact culturally singular and
exclusive.
European vs. Chinese origins
CDA came into being either as a negative reaction to, or a continuation of, the
various Euro-American-Western linguistic lineages and traditions, where forms and
structures (characteristic of ‘structuralism’) are foundational concepts of research,
and the Greek rhetorical tradition (Aristotle), where speech is employed for the
sake of persuasion and control. From a broader perspective, CDA may be seen
as embedded in Western individualist culture, where people are seen primarily as
pursuing their own goals. By contrast, the Chinese scholarly tradition on language
and communication, for example, is rooted in the Chinese classical philosophy of
Yijing (I Ching, c. the end of the 9th century BC), Laozi (571–471 BC) and Zhuanzi
(369–286 BC), where language is considered as limited in meaning, asymmetrically
limitless, and in Liu Xie’s Wenxin Diaolong (Dragon-carving and the literary mind,
501–502) where taciturnity, intuition and continuous dialogical reinterpretation
are central to language and communication. More broadly speaking, the Chinese
tradition is anchored in Confucian (551–479 BC) culture where the highest principle
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of human conduct, including communication, is ren (benevolence) for the person
and he (harmony) for society.
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Binarism vs. dialecticism
There is an implicit tendency in the discipline to view the universe in binary,
oppositional terms and to privilege one over the other (e.g. text over context,
discourse over society or cognition), or to seek a mechanical – or what is called
a ‘dialectic (viz. how one of two becomes the other under certain conditions, or
how not-one [e.g. not-true, not-equal] is the case)’ – relationship between the two.
For example, discourse, the one, is conceptualised as opposed to society (or social
cognition), the other, and likewise, speaker to hearer, the researched/criticised to the
researcher/critic, false to true, dictatorship to democracy, the object of CDA to that
of PDA (Positive Discourse Analysis) and so on, and then one of the two is chosen
as focus of analysis and assessment. To the Chinese/Asians, however, the universe
is One, a unified whole, or Oneness, of many parts interacting, interpenetrating and
interchanging one another. Consequently, discourse and society (or social cognition)
are parts amongst many of the same thing; research then is not about finding out the
relation between two entities, say how ‘discourse’ ‘influences/constitutes’ ‘society’
or vice versa, or how ‘cognition/ideology’ ‘shapes’ ‘discourse’, but about looking at
the totality and all parts of that totality, not forgetting history, culture, the recipient of
the research, the researcher him/herself, etc., and the goal is to examine all relevant
categories, explore the complexities, find the interconnections and highlight the
dynamics of things and peoples.
Meaning-in-language vs. meaning-beyond-language
Under the influence of die-hard structuralism and binarism, much of discourse
studies still works from the assumption that meaning is located in observable
linguistic forms – fully or partially – and that is why the text, as opposed to context
(including history and culture, society and cognition), is treated as the analytic core
or focus in terms of formal, structural features including ‘contextual cues’ or ‘recontextualisations’, as seen in most of the journal publications and books; context
is used merely as interpretive resource. But in the eyes of the Chinese/Asians,
‘language is limited in form but limitless in meaning’ and therefore suspicious or as
it is admonished by Zhuanzi (369–286 BC) ‘discard the fishnet once you have caught
fish, forsake the language once you have got the meaning’. That is, meaning emerges
and exists only partially in linguistic forms; discourse is but an open site of infinite
and continuous meaning generation and interpretation in which the researcher must
rely also on subjective experience, intuition, imagination, etc. and conduct dialogue
continuously with life.
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Speaker-control vs. hearer-orientation
From theory and analytic practice it may be seen that discourse as analytic object
is treated as if it were the affair of an individualistic speaker: s/he is self-centred,
goal-directed, calculating and manipulative. This is typically manifested in research
practice where the speaker’s formal textual production is examined as the locus of (or
otherwise clue to) meaning; the context is a mere resource for textual interpretation
and how it is understood by the hearer is often treated as irrelevant. Consequently,
the study of discourse becomes an activity of identifying ‘speaker meaning’ in
terms of his/her own goals, intentions (or ‘cognition’, ‘ideology’) or his/her textual
‘function’ (or ‘strategies’, ‘rhetoric’). But for the Chinese/Asians, such a model of
the speaker/person is one-sided, a-social, even a-moral. For, in the Chinese/Asian
cultural context, there are specific norms not only for the speaker but also for the
hearer, without knowledge of which proper interpretation will be impossible. Thus,
the most important principle for the speaker, on the one hand, is to attend to the
interests not of himself/herself/the actor, but of the other/recipient/hearer (as the
saying goes, ‘Do not impose on others things you yourself do not desire’); moreover,
the speaker is supposed to speak sincerely with a view to achieving ren for the person
and ultimately he for society. The hearer, on the other hand, should listen fairly,
critically, and holistically (as the Confucian teaching goes, ‘Do not dismiss the
person just because of his/her words and do not dismiss his/her words just because
of the person’; ‘Do not listen if the speech is in want of proprieties’; ‘Watch his/her
deeds while listening to his/her words’). Research, then, is not about finding out the
hidden ideologies, intentions, or indeed social functions of the speaker’s speech/text,
but more importantly about what and how the hearer and the researcher, can and
should make of it, and how society or culture should react to it.
CDA as culturally exclusive discourse
Apart from the cultural differences in the origins of ideas and patterns of thinking,
CDA, as a cultural, scholarly discourse more broadly speaking – with its particular set
of actors, modes and means of presentation, apparatus of international marketing and
distribution, global teaching and learning, the Internet and wider political, economic
and cultural resources – is not a neutral, equal or even independent contestant in the
international academic arena. First, the locus of enunciation – as Mignolo (1993) calls
it – of CDA marks it as a dominant form of discourse: it is largely the male, white
or otherwise West-educated researchers who speak from the Western metropolitan
centres to the rest of the world, whether in publishing or lecturing. Second, (C)DA
often presents itself implicitly or explicitly as rational (e.g. by deploying multidisciplinarity), universal (e.g. by proffering grand narratives of discourse and society
and cognition) and self-righteous (e.g. by adjudicating the false, the wrong, and the
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bad the world over, without reflecting on one’s own possible cultural ignorance and
bias), whereby it also generalises and universalises its perspectives, categories, levels
and dimensions, procedures, values, etc. of analysis and assessment and standardises
its research topics, questions and even conclusions. Third, in the process of such
self-portrayal and self-assurance, CDA hardly ever probes into culturally other, nonWestern academic and philosophical traditions and possible contributions, let alone
attempts to engage with or integrate them. Finally, this discourse becomes globalised
and repressive as it is being consumed by the rest of the world, at least partly because
it is encouraged, enabled and empowered by major, powerful Western corporate
organisations and institutions of higher education in the forms of project funding,
publications, media promotion and scientific dissemination.
This kind of culturally recolonising discourse of Western knowledge and
adjudication may have a host of untold (though, perhaps, unwitting) intellectual
and cultural consequences. Because this discourse does not fully reflect nonWestern realities, including their history and culture, it may overshadow their real
issues, concerns, aspirations, needs, and so on (Ngŭgĭ 1986; Pennycook 1998).
Because the received, conventional West-centric approach may fail to represent
especially new and fast-changing non-Western discourses, it risks reproducing
and consolidating existing stereotypes and prejudice. Because such universalising,
West-centric discourse more often than not assumes an irreverent, over-simplistic
and solely negative attitude, it may engender alienation or even hostility. Because
it is a monologic and exclusive discourse, it may suppress or reduce opportunities
for cross-cultural-intellectual dialogue and critique, and ultimately possibilities of
genuine human knowledge and research innovation.
In close connection with the dominance of monologic scholarship, the intellectual
traditions embodied in other languages, in other cultures, in other parts of the world,
are now becoming marginalised or ignored or excluded. It should be realised,
too, that non-Western scholars and students in developing countries do not enjoy
the same level of socio-cultural conditions and resources as their counterparts in
the rich, developed countries and this may negatively impact on their scientific
productivity. In the face of the massive globalisation of Western teaching, research
and publishing, non-Western potentials for cultural-intellectual regeneration are fast
becoming eroded and their heritages left in decay. Certain intellectual communities
have become academically dependent or, worse still, intellectually ‘aphasic’ (e.g.
Cao 2008).
The diversity and divisiveness of human discourses
Theory and analysis of discourse nearly always concern ‘linguistic’ ‘textual’
categories and features, and a ‘social/societal’ ‘cognitive’ context in universalistic
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Why do cultural discourse studies?
terms. Virtually nowhere is attention paid to even the possible cultural or intercultural,
and in particular cultural-power-and-inequality character, dimension or aspect of
discourse. This is one of the most significant lapses of contemporary discourse
studies, but this is consistent with, and congenial to, the universalist position and
the colonising discourse of discourse scholarship. In order to reflect the fundamental
problems of human discourses, only some of the most salient characteristics of
what might be called Eastern (or Southern or Subaltern) cultural discourses will
be mentioned here, as opposed to the more dominant Western counterparts (Shi-xu
2009).
The discourses of Asian, African and Latin American and their diasporic
peoples are characterised by a shared past and present of colonialism, cold war and
imperialism since at least the 19th century, in which they were (and continue to be)
dominated, exploited and excluded from social, political, economic, scientific and
various other spheres. Under these historical circumstances, the Eastern communities
face common problems and challenges and have similar concerns and aspirations,
namely low-level industrialisation, high levels of illiteracy, poverty, famine, civil
strife and tribal war, environmental disaster, birth control, economic, scientific and
technological dependency, sovereignty, self-determination, peace and development
– in sum, features of development and underdevelopment (Irogbe 2005; Lerner &
Schramm 1967; Reeves 1993). No less importantly, the American-West-dominated
international communication system (including the media, literature, education,
science, as well as everyday talk) has often portrayed Asia, Africa and Latin America
as backward, repressive, totalitarian, corrupt, war-like, etc., as opposed to the
modern, democratic, free, benevolent West, which has tremendous consequences
for the wellbeing and prospects of developing countries and societies (Casmir 1974;
Chomsky 1993; Chomsky & Herman 1988; Cooks & Simpson 2007; Croteau &
Hoynes 1994; Hawk 1992; Pratt 1992; Said 1978, 1993; Tanno & Jandt 1994; Van Dijk
1993). Very importantly, but far too often ignored or misunderstood, Eastern cultures
have their own norms and values, in terms of age, kinship, gender, the state, etc., for
human life in general and for linguistic communication in particular. For instance,
some Eastern societies take humane and communal consciousness and harmony with
others and with nature to be the highest principle of conduct and communication,
in contrast to Western values of individual reason and control (Asante 1998, 2005;
Beier, Michael & Sherzer 2002; Chen 2004, 2006; Fanon 1986; Feng-bing 2005;
Freire 1985; Garcia 1983; Krog 2008; Orewere 1991: 56) and ‘equilibrium (hexie
shehui [balanced society])’ is the watchword (see also Shi-xu 2009).1 Finally,
there are, of course, also dynamic differences and imbalances between and within
societies in Asia, Africa and Latin America, in the political, economic and various
other spheres, which will require differentiated forms of research.
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In addition, it should be realised that Eastern communities also share a particular
set of ‘family resemblances’, as it were, in the linguistic production and interpretation
of discourse. For one, the majority of the Asian, African and Latin American peoples
do not speak English or other European languages as the mother tongue in their daily
life; they feel that European languages – introduced during colonialism – are foreign
and inadequate for their needs but that at the same time, their own native languages
are discriminated against at the national and international levels (Basso 1988; Kinge’I
1999; Nodoba 2002; Orewere 1991; Prah 2002; Preuss 1989; Sherzer 1990; Urban
1986, 1991). This linguistic racism facing the Eastern world (or linguisticism as it
is sometimes called) is an important point to note, particularly because international
language and communication research is conducted largely through English (Lauf
2005). Furthermore, Eastern discourses are characterised by shared patterns of
speaking that are harmony/other-oriented (e.g. Asante 1998; Brody 1994; Chen
2004; Urban 1991). In Asia, discourse can be harmony-oriented through affective
linguistic expressions of keqi (such as politeness, see Feng 2004; Gu 1990) and
mianzi (similar to ‘face’, Jia 2001); in Africa Shona is a language primarily aimed
at restoring balance between people (Asante 1998: 193–196); in Latin America,
‘dialogicality’ is a widespread feature of ‘positive acknowledgement of the other’ in
discourse (Urban 1991: 135). Moreover, Eastern discourses are characterised by rich
and unique symbolic webs, modes and channels of communication (Cooke 1972). In
Nigeria, for example, indigenous and traditional communal communication includes
legends and myths, music and song, steps and dances, tribal marks, pottery and wood
carvings, birds and insects, to name but a few (Orewere 1991: 55–56). Furthermore,
in contrast to talk of identity, politeness, tourism, business and the war on terror in the
West, peoples in Asia, Africa and Latin America speak, as their topics of daily concern,
of poverty, peace, development and self-determination (Duncan et al. 2002). Last but
not least, Eastern discourses are comparatively poor in production, circulation and
consumption, in information and efficacy, in both everyday and scientific spheres.
Take their place in the international media for example: the overwhelming share of
the international market and media information are in the hands of the United States
and other Western powers (Reeves 1993: 1–22). According to Unesco, of every 100
titles of publications in international circulation, 85 flow from developed countries
to Third-World countries (Shan 2004: 12).
Principles and resources for constructing CDS
It follows that a culturally conscious and critical mode of doing discourse research
is not just needed, it is an urgent imperative. CDS is envisioned as an open set
of research systems, differentiated at general and particular levels, of discourse
philosophy, theory, methods and issues, as suggested at the outset of this article.
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Why do cultural discourse studies?
But some common principles for the construction and practice of CDS are required,
which may be made explicit as follows:
1. Be locally grounded with regard to culture-specific needs and perspectives;
2. Be globally minded with regard to culturally diverse perspectives and human
concerns (especially coexistence, common prosperity, knowledge innovation);
3. Be susceptible to communicating with relevant international scholarly traditions
in terms of concepts, theory, methods, terminology, etc.
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There is already critical recognition in the field of the importance of taking a cultural,
or multicultural, stance on discourse studies. Van Dijk (2001: 95–96) suggests it in
this way:
In my many years of experience as editor of several international journals, I have
found that contributions that imitate and follow some great master are seldom original.
Without being eclectic, good scholarship, and especially good CDA, should integrate
the best work of many people, famous or not, from different disciplines, countries,
cultures and directions of research. In other words, CDA should be essentially diverse
and multidisciplinary.
It should be noted in this regard that there is a growing culturally critical and
constructive literature which undermines the West-and-white-centric, colonialist
discourse on the one hand, and on the other hand discusses principles and ways for
multiculturalist research and rediscovers the particularities, diversities and unique
aspects of the discourses of the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and other
diasporic cultures (see, e.g., Asante 1998; Briscoe, Arriaza & Henze 2009; Carey
1992; Chen 2004; Collier 2000; Dissanayake 1988; Gavriely-Nuri 2010; Gumperz
& Levinson 1996; Heisey 2000; Kincaid 1987; Kramsch 1998; Mignolo 1993; Miike
2009; Pardo 2010; Pennycook 1998; Prah 2010; Scollo 2011; Seed 1991; Shen 2001a
and b; Shi-xu 2005, 2009; Silverstein & Urban 1996; Swidler 1986).
Nowadays there are increasing numbers of young scholars from developing
countries who travel between and are versed in both Eastern and Western cultures
and scholarships, and are therefore equipped with the essential qualities and skills
to construct culturally critical and innovative, or in-between-cultural (Shi-xu 2005),
concepts and perspectives. It will be realised, too, that now there are increased and
enhanced facilities and mechanisms for intercultural exchange, dialogue, and critique
as well as collaboration, for example: international travel, the Internet, publications,
translations, conferences, workshops, and international teaching and research
programmes. Given the new conditions and potentials for cross-cultural learning and
critiquing, it would be reasonable to expect that there will be many more students of
discourse research who become champions of multicultural scholarship.
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Admittedly, there are many areas where Eastern and Western traditions of concepts,
ideas and techniques meet, as equivalents, variants and mutual supplements. So
there is already a good basis for intercultural critique and synergy. For example,
equivalents include: the Chinese research motivation of youguo youmin (worry
about the nation and the people) (Davis 2009) vs. the critical concern of CDA with
problems of power and inequality; and the Chinese notion of yanbu jingyi (infinite
meaning for continuous reinterpretation beyond language) or the Indian notion of
dhvani (suggestive meaning) (Dissanayake 2009) vs. the Western none-absolute
explicitness (Carston 2009).2 Cultural variants may involve: Eastern public-image/
impression-conscious ‘face’ vs. Western freedom-oriented ‘face’; the Chinese notion
of the division of word and deed as in ting qi yan er guan qi qing (listen to the
other’s words but watch his/her actions) vs. the Western notion of contextualised/
situated discourse. Mutual supplements may be: the Chinese he (harmony based on
diversity and balance) and the African ubuntu (humanness through connection with
others) vs. the Western individual-self; the Chinese dialectic approach in terms of
synthesis and creative interpretation vs. the Western binary approach in terms of
objective description, analysis, explanation and critique. It is at junctures such as
these where limitations and loopholes may be discovered and new concepts, theories
and methods may be developed.
Chinese discourse studies: the case of human rights discourses
A shorthand illustration of the cultural approach envisioned above follows, through
a brief description of a Chinese approach to the question of human rights discourses
(Shi-xu 2012). To begin with, the Chinese discourse research system can be
summarised as follows (cf. Shi-xu 2010). Philosophically, the universe is a unity of
diverse elements, interconnecting, interchanging and interpenetrating one another
and consequently in constant flux (‘holistic view’); knowledge is obtained through
dialogue between the subject/researcher and the object/researched (‘dialectical
view’); and the motive of social research is to help with the country and the world
(‘societal-concern view’). Theoretically, the most important moral principle of
contemporary Chinese discourse is ‘equilibrium’: the socio-cultural norm and value
of achieving or maintaining harmonious relationships through balancing powers,
incorporating differences, avoiding conflicts, etc. Methodologically, discourse is
analysed as multiple, interdependent categories of agent, content/form/interaction,
medium, purpose/consequence – all within a historical and an intercultural
perspective. And finally, in terms of issues of research, development – which is the
defining property and problematic of the overwhelming majority of human societies
and cultures – is the overarching question, which revolves more specifically around
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such matters as cultural domination and exploitation, threat to sovereignty, cultural
co-existence, social inequality, corruption, climate change, and so on.
From the viewpoint of this Chinese framework, a research project is formed out
of two particular, interrelated concerns. At one level, China has been subjected to
major perennial political conflicts and disputes with the US over the issue of human
rights, but these have hardly been examined from a systematic or comprehensive
perspective of discourse studies (cf. Yin 2007). At another level, Chinese political
discourse, of which the Chinese discourse of human rights is a constituent part, is
still little understood within the mainstream political communication scholarship,
which is largely political-economically oriented and fails to reflect complex local,
historical and (inter)cultural conditions (see, e.g., Brady 2002, 2008; Kuo 2001; Pye
1978; Renwick & Cao 1999).
Thus, in this project, the research object is not simply divided into two different
entities, say ‘discourse and society’, or ‘discourse and cognition’. The researcher and
the researched are not separated from each other as right and wrong, nor are merely
textual features or a few textual fragments examined, nor is the research aim simply
to discover some structures or strategies or to adjudicate something as bad or false.
Rather, the question of the Chinese human rights situation is treated dialectically as
a complex interpretative, hermeneutic field. Thus, Chinese human rights discourses
are understood in relation, for example, to Chinese history of more than 2 000 years
(including the Confucian tradition) on the one hand, and the international intercultural
context (especially the American-Western domination on the issue) on the other.
The goal of the research, through examining all relevant aspects and relations, is
to reveal the complexities, interconnections and transformations of Chinese human
rights discourses. In the process, the researcher does not act as omniscient judge, but
rather as compassionate, dialogical and critical researcher, while the researched is
treated as speaking agent, to be questioned, listened to and understood.
For this comprehensive study, two broad and related types of focal and informative
data of the past 20 years (in reasonable quantity) were gathered: 1) Chinese
journalistic publications; 2) government documents; 3) web information about
civil and academic organisations; 4) academic publications; 5) legal documents; 6)
information about the history of human rights in China; and 7) web information
about Western (especially American) governments’ documents.
The research focuses on five interconnected categories with special reference to
China: 1) agents; 2) content/form; 3) social relationship; 4) medium; and 5) goal/
consequences. The procedures by which all these categories will be examined, which
is the defining characteristic of the present approach, are: (A) historical comparison
in order to highlight the quantitative and qualitative connections and changes in the
situation; (B) intercultural matching and comparison, so as to show interconnections,
consequences, etc.
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The research brings to light a number of hitherto obscured, neglected and otherwise
misunderstood aspects about China’s conditions and situations of human rights. That
is, a number of interpretative and dialogical descriptions, analyses, explanations and
evaluations of China’s contemporary discourse of human rights are proffered on
the basis of the informative and focal data collected. First, the Chinese discourse
of human rights was born in modern history and has been growing steadily in a
variety of ways, especially since the start of the economic reform and ‘opening up’.
There has been an increased number (and increased kinds) of speakers, groups and
organisations on the matter of human rights. Further, the discourse of human rights
developed from a small one restricted to political and philosophical settings, to a
voluminous and multifarious one in wider society. Moreover, there have been the
diversified genres, enhanced legal status and amplified official production of the
discourse of human rights.
Second, more importantly, the very emergence and growth of the contemporary
Chinese discourse of human rights are a remarkable historic change to the cause
of human rights itself, as discourse is also a form of action that can bring about
social and cultural change. Thus, for one thing, China has moved from a country and
cultural community without the modern concept of human rights (and so without
the words for it), to one where the concept appears not just in everyday life (e.g.
the media, politics, literature), but also in law. For another, the concept of human
rights has changed from a negative one (as expression of bourgeois individualism)
to a positive one, which is to be safeguarded. In that connection it has shifted from
mainly arguing against the US government on the matter, to explicating a broader,
more communally and especially developmentally oriented sense of human rights.
This point will subsequently be extended here.
Third, the Chinese discourse of human rights does not simply come off itself as
culturally independent, but as a critical and creative cultural response to the global
(and especially the American-Western) hegemonic discourse. Since the late 1980s
the West (especially the US) has accused China of human rights abuses and has
done so in a high-handed manner. It was against this interculturally unequal context
that China reacted. From this perspective, it may be added that, paradoxically, the
American-West also has a positive impact on China’s political discourse: the Chinese
discourse of human rights is partially a product of that intercultural interaction
process. More generally, it is part of the processes of globalisation and localisation –
or glocalisation (Robertson 1992, 1995).
Fourth, from another perspective it may be said that the Chinese discourse
of human rights serves, effectively, to counter-balance the American-Westdominant, monopolising, repressive discourse on the topic, making international
communication and debate less unbalanced. For it is not difficult to imagine that
if China had kept silent, or responded less forcefully, then the current international
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Why do cultural discourse studies?
order of communication on human rights would have been even more unbalanced and
skewed: the culturally repressive and monologic American-West-centric discourse
on human rights would have been even more powerful.
Fifth, in relation to the intercultural dialogue and contest, as alluded to above, it
should be realised that the Chinese discourse of human rights – especially given its
added emphasis on the collective (including the developmental) dimension of human
rights, the historical and cultural conditions of different societies and so respect
for the diversity of approaches to it – enriches international human discourse on
the matter. For one, the different and new discourse enables intercultural dialogue
and critique. Also, this discourse has introduced a broadened concept and a locally
appropriate approach.
The project could be further expanded, of course. The present research has relied
mainly on public forms of communication data (including literature). To achieve an
even more comprehensive and in-depth study, it would be necessary to include data
from ordinary people in more private settings (e.g. interviews). Furthermore, to give
the international community a fuller and more detailed picture, it would be useful to
examine the internal diversity and complexity of the Chinese discourse(s) of human
rights.
Conclusion: a road map for cultural discourse studies
Admittedly, given the current general, international and cultural imbalance and
disorder in the social sciences and humanities, it will be a long and arduous struggle
to resist cultural-intellectual hegemony in general and (re)colonisation in particular,
in discourse scholarship. More specifically, the construction and practice of the
envisaged cultural discourse studies will have to be a long-term objective which
requires the concerted efforts of many groups of scholars all over the world. But there
is the expectation that, given the fast-changing pace of international scholarship,
heightened multicultural awareness through globalisation, and the move towards
a culturally conscious and critical paradigm of social science in general and of
language/communication/discourse in particular, this is an inevitable next step. All
the same, some action strategies can be suggested to facilitate that process.
The first and foremost action to take is to unlearn, deconstruct and decolonise the
universalising (but in fact West-centric) ways of thinking, speaking and practising
discourse research. Second, scholars and students the world over should strive to
rejuvenate the forgotten, marginalised, disappearing heritages of native, non-Western,
Third-World scholarships. Third, they need to start an earnest investigation into
unfamiliar, indigenous (especially non-Western) discourses with a view to finding a
locally practical, acceptable and constructive solution. Fourth, scholars and students
all over the world should learn from and collaborate with one another, but especially
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Shi-xu
from and with non-Western scholarly communities, in order to create culturally
diverse scholarships. Finally, especially scholars and students in disadvantaged parts
of the world should be persistent in trying to disseminate their culturally innovative
work to the international arena. To end this essay, Mignolo’s (1993: 131) warning
is that ‘academic “knowledge and understanding” should be complemented with
“learning from” those who are living in and thinking from colonial and postcolonial
legacies … Otherwise, we run the risk of promoting mimicry, exportation of theories,
and internal (cultural) colonialism rather than promoting new forms of cultural
critique and intellectual and political emancipations.’
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Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this article was presented as plenary speech at 17th International
Workshop on Discourse Studies, held in March 2011, in Madrid, Spain. The author gratefully
acknowledges the support by the Social Science Research Fund of the Ministry of Education,
China (Code: 11YJA740075), as well as the Basic Research Fund of Zhejiang University.
Notes
1. Traditional Chinese discourse is required first and foremost to advance the moralpolitical project of the state and society (ming bu zheng ze yan bu shun) and the particular
nature of the requirement or principle is to achieve and maintain equilibrium in human
society (zhiguo, ping tianxia) (cf. Chen 2004; Lu 1998: 28–29). This highest principle may
be seen as based on two lower-level values: the first is he, meaning harmony out of diversity
(originally: harmony of different sounds and replying in conversation; junzi he er butong);
and the second zhongyong, meaning moderation through choosing the middle point and/
or keeping balance. This accounts, for example, for the fact that China increasingly resists
the American government’s hegemonic practice of using ‘the human right issue’ to contain
China, on the one hand, and, on the other, tries to improve its human right situation at home,
e.g. by writing the human right into law in 2004 and the party constitution in 2007, thereby
keeping the international order of communication less unbalanced and at the same time the
domestic situation of human rights more ‘attended to’.
2. Carston (2009: 59) expresses the limited limits of full explicitness of communication
thus: ‘The conclusion, then, is that, for at least many, perhaps all, of the thoughts we seek
to communicate, full explicitness is not possible. An element of pragmatic interpretation,
more or less in different cases, is inevitable. Formulating natural-language sentences of a
progressively more explicit sort may approach ever closer to a full encoding of propositions
communicated, but the progression is asymptotic.’
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