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Article published In:
Occupy Hong Kong: Historicizing Protest
Edited by John Flowerdew and Rodney H. Jones
[Journal of Language and Politics 15:5] 2016
► pp. 527–548

A historiographical approach to Hong Kong Occupy

Focus on a critical moment

| City University of Hong Kong

This article is conceptualised within the framework of a historiographical approach to critical discourse analysis (Flowerdew 2012). It focusses on a critical moment in Hong Kong’s socio-political development, the Occupy movement, and a specific language event, an interview on a local Hong Kong English-language television programme discussing the rationale for the movement. A micro-analysis of the interaction focusses on important features of the historical context, intertextual links, the backgrounds and the roles of the participants, and the argumentations strategies used by them. The article shows how a focus on a critical moment in discourse can shed light on the bigger socio-political picture and how arguments regarding particular topics may reflect larger ideological struggles, the political agendas of different groups, and the ways arguments are constructed dialogically in response not only to the words of interlocutors, but also in relation to prior (and future) discourses.

Keywords: Hong Kong, Occupy movement, historiographical approach, critical discourse analysis, intertextuality, argumentation strategies
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Method
    • 2.1Research questions
  • 3.Analysis
    • 3.1What features of the historical context are significant for the meanings in the text?
    • 3.2What are the backgrounds and the roles of the participants in the discourse?
      • 3.2.1Michael Chugani
      • 3.2.2Benny Tai Yiu-ting http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Tai
      • 3.2.3Priscilla Leung Mei-fun http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priscilla_Leung
    • 3.3What are the specific links to the past – intertextuality?
    • 3.4What are the argumentation strategies used by the two protagonists
  • 4.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.15.5.02flo
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