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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 11:1 (2012) ► pp.93–114

Understanding contemporary Chinese political communication

A historico-intercultural analysis and assessment of its discourse of human rights

| Zhejiang University

In the international scholarship, Chinese political communication is usually viewed from a political-economic and West-centric perspective. Consequently, it is portrayed as a product of the Chinese Communist Party(‘s ideology), deviant, totalitarian and unchanging. In this article I first argue for a historical and intercultural approach and so a view of contemporary Chinese political discourse as dynamic, critical-creative and cultural-hegemony-resistant. Then I analyze and assess accordingly the case of the Chinese discourse of human rights. It will be seen that this discourse has been evolving topically, reinforcing socially, and responding interculturally, thereby constituting a historic transformation in China’s human rights situation on the one hand and a counter-veiling force in the unbalanced international communication on human rights on the other. In conclusion I suggest that the mainstream scholarship go beyond the a-historical-and-a-intercultural approach to political communication in general and to that of non-Western societies in particular.

Keywords: historical, intercultural, change, response, hegemony, categories of discourse
Published online: 22 March 2012
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.11.1.05shi
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