On Dec. 11-12, 2012, Dr. Shi-xu, Changjiang Distinguished Professor (Ministry of Education Appointment), a renowned professor of Discourse Studies from Zhejiang University, upon the invitation of the National Key Research Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, visited GDUFS and presented two talks on his innovative theoretical framework, namely "A Chinese Approach (or Paradigm) to Discourse Studies" and its application to international trade dispute discourse and Chinese political discourse of human rights.
Professor Shi first introduced his theory of Chinese Paradigm of Discourse Studies, in which Discourse is no longer treated only as the linguistic form, meaning and function of the language itself, but expanded to cover such categories as the speech subject, content and form, media, and consequences of discourse, and the historical and cultural relations among the categories. He defines Discourse as a historically and culturally situated communicative or social event and/or activity, in which human cultures compete, cooperate and are transferred. He sees Discourse as text and context integrated into a holistic social event rather than two separate entities of inquiry.
Professor Shi then applied his theory to the analysis of two types of discourse, one being the trade dispute discourse and the other the Chinese political discourse of human rights. In the first topic, he examined the case of China’s discourse of trade disagreements with the EU over shoe export from 2005 to 2010, where he analyzed who, in the social event, spoke or didn’t speak, what they spoke and how, what media they used, what consequences were brought about, and the causation in terms of Chinese historicity and culture. In his second talk titled "The Chinese Discourse of Human Rights: A historic-intercultural analysis and assessment", he argues for a historical and intercultural view in which contemporary Chinese political discourse is a dynamic socio-cultural agent striving for equilibrium. Professor Shi in this talk suggested that contemporary mainstream discourse scholarship go beyond the American-West-centric frame of mind and take a more holistic and dynamic view of human political communication.
Professor Shi’s talks aroused and inspired great interest in discourse studies from professors, scholars and students at GDUFS, who discussed constructively over the issues of discourse studies and linguistics studies, and the research scope, goal, and methodology of discourse studies.
