Cover not available
Article published In:
Discourse and Socio-Political Transformations in Contemporary China
Edited by Paul Chilton, Hailong Tian and Ruth Wodak
[Journal of Language and Politics 9:4] 2010
► pp. 508–527

The discursive construction of the social stratification order in reforming China

| The University of Arizona

This article examines the discursive reconfiguration of the social stratification order in reforming China. Applying the two notions of metadiscourse and entextualization from the natural history of discourse (NHD) perspective (Silverstein & Urban 1996), I argue that the missing link between the discursive and the social is forged through the metadiscourses (Urban 1996) originated by the top leaders of the Communist Party of China, and that their ongoing entextualizations play a crucial role in establishing the stratificational status quo. They set the tone for dismantling the pre-reform hierarchical pattern and constructing an evolving system in light of the growing market economy. The analysis of their entextualizations is based on period texts (1978–2008), primarily speeches of the three party leaders Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Combining the discursive insights of critical discourse theory and the NHD perspective, this study intends to break new ground in applying the NHD approach to analyzing the reforming Chinese state socialism where social stratification is necessarily subject to ongoing transformations.

Keywords: recontextualization, social stratification, China, discourse analysis, critical discourse theory, natural history of discourse, entextualization, metadiscourse
Published online: 7 January 2011
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.9.4.03zha
References
Adair, Vivyan C.
2007 US working-class/poverty-class divides. Sociology 39(5), 817–834. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anthias, Floya
1998 Rethinking social divisions: Some notes towards a theoretical framework. Sociological Review 46(3), 505–535. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anthias, Floya.
2001 The concept of ‘social division’ and theorizing social stratification: Looking at ethnicity and class. Sociology 35(4), 835–864.Google Scholar
Bauman, Richard and Briggs, Charles L.
1990 Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 191, 59–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bian, Yanjie.
2002 Chinese social stratification and social mobility. Annual Review of Sociology 281, 91–116. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan.
2001 Context is/as critique. Critique of Anthropology 21(1), 13–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan, Collins, James, Heller, Monica, Rampton, Ben, Slembrouck, Stef, and Verschueren, Jef.
2001 Introduction: Discourse and critique. Critique of Anthropology 21(1), 5–12. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Briggs, Charles L.
1993 Metadiscursive practices and scholarly authority in folkloristics. Journal of American Folklore 106(422), 387–434. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
CPC amends Constitution to foster private sector
2007, October 21. Retrieved on March 10, 2008, from [URL] Google Scholar
Deng, Xiaping.
1988 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume II (1975–1982) (The Bureau for the Compilation and Translation of Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin Under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Trans.).Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar
Deng, Xiaoping.
1994 Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Volume III (1982–1992) (The Bureau for the Compilation and Translation of Works of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin Under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, Trans.). Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman.
1992 Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
2005 Critical discourse analysis in transdisciplinary research. In: Ruth Wodak and Paul Chilton (eds). A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 53–70. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman, Graham, Phill, Lemke, Jay, and Wodak, Ruth
2004 Introduction. Critical Discourse Studies 1(1), 1–7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel.
1972 The archaeology of knowledge. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Goldthorpe, John H.
1996 Class analysis and the reorientation of class theory: The case of persisting differentials in educational attainment. British Journal of Sociology 47(3), 481–505. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heller, Monica
2001 Critique and sociolinguistic analysis of discourse. Critique of Anthropology 21(2), 117–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hu, Jintao.
2007, October 15. Hold high the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and strive for new victories in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects: Report to the Seventeenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Retrieved on November 10, 2007, from [URL] Google Scholar
Jiang, Zemin.
2006 Jiang Zemin Wenxuan [Selected Works of Jiang Zeming]. Beijing: Renmin Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Lemke, Jay L.
2001 Discursive technologies and the social organization of meaning. Folia Linguistica XXXV/1–2, 79–96.Google Scholar
Li, Chunling, and Chen, Guangjin.
2002 Zhongguo muqian shehui jieceng jiegou yanjiu baogao [Report on the current structure of social strata in China]. In: Ru Xin, Lu Xueyi, and Li Peilin (eds). Shehui Lanpishu 2002 Nian: Zhongguo Shehui Xingshi Fenxi yu Yuce [2002 Blue Book of the Chinese Society]. Beijing: Social Sciences Documentation Publishing House, 115–132.Google Scholar
Li, Peilin, Li, Quang, and Sun, Liping
2004 Zhongguo Shehui Fenceng [Social Stratification in China Today]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Academic Press.Google Scholar
Lu, Xueyi.
(ed.) 2002 Dangdai Zhongguo shehui jieceng yanjiu baogao [Report on the study of the social strata in contemporary China]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Academic Press.Google Scholar
(ed.) 2004 Dangdai Zhongguo Shehui Liudong [Social Mobility in Contemporary China]. Beijing: China Social Sciences Academic Press.Google Scholar
National Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science
2007, December 20. 2008 niandu guojia shehui kexue jijin xiangmu shenbao gonggao [Notice for the application for the 2008 National Social Sciences Foundation Projects]. Retrieved on March 10, 2008, from [URL] Google Scholar
Nee, Victor.
1996 The emergence of a market society: Changing mechanisms of stratification in China. The American Journal of Sociology 101(4), 908–949. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nee, Victor and Matthews, Rebecca.
1996 Market transition and societal transformation in reforming state socialism. Annual Review of Sociology 221, 401–435. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Qiu, Z.
2004 Dangdai Zhonggu Shehui Fenceng Zhuangkuang de Bianhua [Change in the Contemporary Social Stratification of China]. Shijiazhuang: Hebei University Press.Google Scholar
Ru, Xin, Lu, Xueyi, and Li, Peilin
(eds) 2002 Zhongguo Shehui Xingshi Fenxi yu Yuce [Blue Book of the Chinese Society]. Beijing: Social Sciences Documentation Publishing house.Google Scholar
Runciman, W.G.
1990 How many classes are there in contemporary British society? Sociology 24(3), 377–396. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, Michael.
1998 The uses and utility of ideology: A commentary. In: Bambi B. Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V. Kroskrity (eds). Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 123–145.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael and Urban, Greg.
1996 The natural history of discourse. In: Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban (eds). Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1–17.Google Scholar
Stenning, Alison.
2007 Where is the post-socialist working class? Working-class lives in the spaces of (post-)socialism. Sociology 39(5), 983–999. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sun, Liping.
2004 Shiheng: Duanlie Shehui de Yunzuo Luoji [Imbalance: The logic of a Fractured Society]. Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press.Google Scholar
Urban, Greg.
1996 Entextualization, replication, and power. In: Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban (eds). Natural Histories of Discourse. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 21–44.Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A.
1997 The study of discourse. In: Teun A. van Dijk (ed.). Discourse as Structure and Process, Vol. 11. London: Sage, 1–34.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo
2005 Three models of interdisciplinarity. In: Ruth Wodak and Paul Chilton (eds). A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 3–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walder, Andrew G.
1989 Social change in post-revolution China. Annual Review of Sociology 151, 405–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth.
2005 Editorial: inter/trans/post-disciplinarity and the study of language and/in politics. Journal of Language and Politics 4(2), 169–171. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and de Cillia, Rudolf
2007 Commemorating the past: the discursive construction of official narratives about the ‘Rebirth of the Second Austrian Republic’. Discourse & Communication 1(3), 337–363. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
WTO: China’s GDP-doubling target could be achieved
2008, May 22. China Daily. Retrieved on May 20, 2008, from [URL] Google Scholar
World Bank
, Beijing Office 2008 China Quarterly Update — February 2008. Retrieved on March 15, 2008, from [URL] Google Scholar
Zhu, Rongji
2003, March 5. Government Work Report to the First Session of the 10th National People’s Congress. Retrieved on March 10, 2008, from [URL] Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Gu, Chonglong
2018. Towards a Re-Definition of Government Interpreters' Agency Against a Backdrop of Sociopolitical and Cultural Evolution. In Redefining Translation and Interpretation in Cultural Evolution [Advances in Religious and Cultural Studies, ], ► pp. 238 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Jiayu
2017. Representations of the Chinese Communist Party’s political ideologies in President Xi Jinping’s discourse. Discourse & Society 28:4 ► pp. 413 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Jiayu
2017. Representing Chinese nationalism/patriotism through President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” Discourse. Journal of Language and Politics 16:6 ► pp. 830 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Wei & Linda Tsung
2015. Contemporary Chinese Discourse from Sociolinguistic Perspectives. In Contemporary Chinese Discourse and Social Practice in China [Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse, 4], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Xi
2023. Images of China Construed in President Xi Jinping’s Overseas Signed Articles (2014–2021): The Role of Agency. SAGE Open 13:2 DOI logo
Zhang, Wei
2015. The shifting representation of common people in China’s news media. Journal of Language and Politics 14:2 ► pp. 285 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.