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Article published In:
Argumentative Discourse in Contemporary China: A pragma-dialectical perspective
Edited by Peng Wu and Xu Cihua
[Journal of Argumentation in Context 6:3] 2017
► pp. 315–343

A pragma-dialectical approach to governmental crisis communication

The case of disputes over a proposed chemical project in mainland China

| Sun Yat-sen University | Jiangsu University | ILIAS

To explore an argumentative approach to governmental crisis communication, this research adopts the pragma-dialectical framework to analyze and evaluate a local Chinese government’s crisis discourse concerning disputes over a proposed chemical project. The discourse is collected from the popular local online forum Mengxi Forum. By reconstructing from the discourse the four stages of a critical discussion, analyzing the embedded strategic maneuverings and evaluating the argumentation in view of institutional preconditions, it is shown that in its use of co-ordinative argumentation structures and causal argument schemes, the local government’s crisis discourse is not dialectically reasonable enough to convince the other stakeholders of the necessity to implement the proposed project. The results also shed some light on the necessity for governments’ crisis information management to ensure in its crisis discourse both dialectical reasonableness and rhetorical effectiveness.

Keywords: governmental crisis discourse, pragma-dialectics, strategic maneuvering, institutional precondition, dialectical reasonableness, rhetorical effectiveness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Institutional preconditions for governmental crisis communication in mainland China
  • 3.A case study on disputes over a proposed chemical project in mainland China
    • 3.1Argumentative reconstruction of the official statement
    • 3.2Strategic maneuvering in the official statement
    • 3.3Evaluation
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
Published online: 4 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jaic.17003.yan
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