Author: Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Four News Texts on the Event of “831”

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

To most people, news text is commonly perceived as a source of information that reports events in neutral way. However, as the principle of critical discourse analysis indicates, there is always a meaning hidden behind or an ideology conveyed by the texts, depending on the personal opinion of the author and the institution behind him or her. Especially when the same topic is covered by different medias, through comparison, the ideological standpoints contained in various news texts can be productively explored. 

In the year of 2019, the accumulated political conflict between Hong Kong and mainland China eventually erupted and caused the occurrence of abundant violent incidents. Among these conflicts, an event named by its date as “831” is massively reported by various news medias for its severity. In order to explore how opposite ideologies can be expressed in the different discourse, four news texts from the local medias of both Hong Kong and mainland China (two passages each) are selected as data of the research. In my research, a comparative analysis is drawn on the materials from three perspectives based on Fairclough’s 3-dimentional model of discourse, which are text, discourse practice and social practice.

Online Articles:
www.thestandnews.com/politics/民間記者會-8-31-晚義務急救員-有傷者現休克徵狀/
www.sohu.com/a/338190282_617731
www.ntdtv.com/b5/2019/09/11/a102662349.html
xw.qq.com/amphtml/20190901A06BFX00

Text:

To analyze text, a detailed research on the choices and patterns deliberately expressed in vocabulary is required. For instance, for wording, many definite adjectives and modal verbs are applied in the news “The Lost Victims Revealed”, such as “according to abundant evidences” “the citizens cannot accept the government’s words totally” and “the testimonies of all witnesses”. These affirmative words help the author to create a firm tone and make the reader feel that the report is based on enough evidences and valid facts. In the two news reports from mainland China, “Behind the Rumor” and “Announcement from HK Police”, the wording technique of calling others with derogatory name is frequently adopted. In “Behind the Rumor”, the protesters are referred as the “lawbreaker” and the “mob”. By giving derogatory names to the protesters, the author intends to depreciate the identity of the participants and link them with negative impression. As for metaphor, this technique is frequently used by the author of “Behind the Rumor”. A comparison is made to describe the relationship between Hong Kong and mainland China. According to the author, “The doctor is the one that hopes the patient to get better soon while mainland China is the one that hopes Hong Kong to get better soon.” In this sentence, the author demonstrates his trust on mainland China as the just stand in the political conflict.

Discourse Practice:

Discourse practice reveals the nature of text production, distribution and consumption in society. In the four reports, the technique of intertextuality is frequently used by authors to create a semblance of authenticity and facticity. For the people whose speeches are quoted, they represent the authority that the authors identify themselves with. For instance, in “Behind the Rumor” and “Announcement from HK Police”, the declaration of the Hong Kong police is quoted in both news texts of mainland China. Different from Chinese local reports, speeches of the police never appear in the news texts of Hong Kong media. To the authors whose support toward the protest, they consider the police as the opposite side and it is unreasonable for them to quote the police’s announcement. Instead, it is volunteer of the emergency service who is frequently interviewed. Through quoting evidence from the volunteers who witnessed the event, the authors attempt to reveal the truth of the incidence from the perspective of the protesters. 

Social Discourse:

Social discourse demonstrates the power relations and ideologies that discourses produce and transform. To investigate the authors’ ideologies and the news reports’ social purposes, an analysis focused on the information covered in the texts is required. Although the topic discussed in the four news is the same, the aspects of the event that the authors choose to report are different. For “The Lost Victim Revealed”, most of the paragraphs talk about the timeline and the description of the event. The author’s attention on the details of the incident reflects his intention of using sufficient evidences to prove the protesters’ innocence. Through making abundant interviews with the witnesses and the participants, the author expresses his suspicion toward the casualty. Similar to “The Lost Victim Revealed”, the author of “The Volunteer’s Emergency Report” does not mention the protesters’ action at all. On the one hand, the author focuses on report about the casualty of the incident, especially the condition of the missing protester. On the other hand, the author blames the police for their refusing to help the injured. 

Nonetheless, in the two news texts from Chinese media, the focus is changed from the action of the police to the action of the protesters. In “Behind the Rumor”, the author avoids depicting about the police’s violent action but uses many paragraphs to describe the protester’s aggression. Detailed description is provided when the author talks about the protester’s negative influence on public security while limited information is mentioned when the author talks about Hong Kong police’s violence. In “Announcement from HK Police”, the author chooses to focus on the protesters’ actions too. For the first half of the reports, he discusses the violent behavior of the protesters and the potential damage they may bring to the citizens. Through this method, the author can justify the police’s movement as the “last choice since there is no alternative”. The authors do not touch the protesters’ casualty and have no interest to seek the truth of the “831” event itself. The authors’ intentional neglect on specific topic reflects the fact that these information are detrimental to the political ideologies they support.

In conclusion, to explore the ideology that the author intends to convey is to analyze the text from the three factors of text, discourse practice and social practice. Although the four news are related to the same event, through the usages of various linguistic techniques, the authors make the texts speak and only speak for the opinions they agree with.

Reference:

南方都市报 “港警通报831非法游行，称香港‘经历了一场浩劫.’”  腾讯网, 1 Sept. 2019, xw.qq.com/amphtml/20190901A06BFX00.

立場報道 “【民間記者會】8.31 晚義務急救員：油麻地有傷者現休克徵狀: 立場報道: 立場新聞.” 立場新聞Stand News, 立場新聞 Stand News, 14 Sept. 2019, www.thestandnews.com/politics/民間記者會-8-31-晚義務急救員-有傷者現休克徵狀/.

“香港831冲突死人的谣言背后_警方.” _警方, 2 Sept. 2019, www.sohu.com/a/338190282_617731.

“「831太子站」無打死人？受襲失蹤者容貌曝光.” Www.ntdtv.com, 17 Sept. 2019, www.ntdtv.com/b5/2019/09/11/a102662349.html.

Teo, P. (2000) “Racism in the news: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting in two Australian newspapers,’Discourse and Society 11(1): 7-49

The dynamic power of stand-up comedy: from humor discourse to society

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Doris Hui

A stand-up comedy show is presented by a solo performer talking directly to the audience in terms of humor and joke. It requires our language understanding to enable simplify communication as well. It can be exploited as an effective means of persuasion to influence the audiences or raise their awareness of some consequent issues. The stand-up comedy becomes more attractive because the comedian is producing jokes that mostly relies on speaking proficiency or the content rather than body language (as cited in Badara, 2018). The audience is more likely to listen to a story directly instead of reading it. 

In Hong Kong, Dayo Wong Tsz-wah is a famous stand-up comedian. He always introduces a mass of political and philosophical content in his comedy show by using “humor”, which carries a high level of consonant among the audience. Examining the humor discourse in Dayo’s stand-up comedy show has particular characteristics in terms of its creation and language use. We can see how Dayo uses humor techniques to resonate deeply with the Hong Kong audience. 

In 2018, “Wong Tsz-wah 15th comedy show: farewell performance” was held in Hong Kong, which was Dayo’s last performance in his career life.
(Picture source: http://www.orientalsunday.hk)

(01) “點解要叫佢地「武警」？並唔係武力個「武」，而係伯母個「母」，因為係香港做警察嘅首要條件就係要比人問候伯母。” (“They should not be called as “armed police” but “mother police.” )                                                         (Data of stand-up comedy discourse, 2018)

Dayo plays an ambiguous expression on “mother police” (“母警”) which can make the audience laugh. He compared “armed police” to “mother police” because their pronunciation is the same in Cantonese but the meaning is entirely different. The police officers were scolded by the citizens for the violent dispersal in the demonstrations. In Cantonese’s foul language, a highly offensive expression is to mention someone’s mother. Therefore, Dayo suggested that the police should be called “mother police” since the protesters always use offensive language to express their dissatisfaction with the police officer. 

In 2014, “Wong Tsz-wah 14th comedy show: Crazy right now” was held by Dayo.
(Picture source:www.hk01.com)

(02) “而家香港嘅問題，係婆媳糾紛，……除非你老婆第一日入門就全心全意同奶奶講：……「阿媽，我愛你！」……” (“The conflict between Hong Kong and mainland China is just like the mother-in-law’s dispute. Would the son’s wife says “Mum, I love you so much” sincerely to her husband’s mother?”)                                           (Data of stand-up comedy discourse, 2014)

The statement is an ironic speech, which is a statement that means opposite to what it says. Here is a good comparison to describe the relationship between Hong Kong and Mainland China nowadays. Mum is representing China, and the son’s wife is representing Hong Kong. The conflicts between them mostly come from the problems of “new immigrants”.  The number of tourists from Mainland to Hong Kong has continually increased and the problems of “competing resources” are even more extended. However, neither the Hong Kong government or China, is considering carrying out any suitable policies to develop a mutually beneficial development. Dayo commented, “Mum, I LOVE YOU so much” is an irony since there is no suitable expression that people will have a supportive statement to your “enemies”. The discourse is supported by the political backgrounds which can emerge as irony as well as causing humor. 

In 2003, “Wong Tsz-wah 8th comedy show: useless” was held by Dayo.
(Picture source: http://timable.com/)

(03) “尊嚴幾錢啊？而家『粗鹽』都貴過『尊嚴』啦！” (“Nowadays, the price of “coarse salt” is much higher than the price of our “dignity”!”) 

(Data of stand-up comedy discourse, 2003)

Dayo compared “coarse salt” to “dignity” since the pronunciation of these two words are similar in Cantonese, and “coarse salt” compared to the commodity price in Hong Kong. The expensive cost of living in Hong Kong has put a heavy burden on the citizens in daily life. This humor discourse emerged laughter because Dayo used metaphor by comparing the commodity price to inanimate objects. Also, it is a satire that the price of an inanimate object (“coarse salt”) can be entirely higher than the value of our “dignity” in Hong Kong. 

In a nutshell, stand-up comedy is easy for the audience to see how the human events as open to change, contingent or not at all certain. Dayo created and participated in most of the dialogues with humor, philosophical elements, and irony. The stand-up comedy show held by Dayo Wong Tsz-wah can carry a high level of consonant among the audience, and it also has the power to raise the audience’s awareness of the local phenomenon and social issues. 

Discourse Analysis of Propaganda from Social Media in Hong Kong Context Regarding COVID-19

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Aaron Chan

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by coronavirus, a family of viruses which can lead to severe respiratory syndromes (SARS) which have taken away millions of lives. In Hong Kong, there are over one thousand cases, with the first case confirmed on 23rd January, 2020. Before the outbreak in this international city, Hong Kong citizens, who are mostly technologically literate, have already got updates about the pandemic through different sources. It is commonly agreed among those Hongkongers that the pandemic is from Wuhan, China, and together with the political movement against the Hong Kong government, those Hongkongers are active in producing propaganda and spreading the news that China is an evil country. In this article, political stances and opinions will not be the focus of discussion. Instead, the language and the images of related propaganda will be the main talking points. 

Among the propaganda, most of the pictures employed ironic and humorous ways to express their dissatisfaction towards the government or related authorities, or to convey the message that COVID-19 is originated from, or even made in China. As the virus is identified after a series of political movements against the introduction of Extradition Bill in Hong Kong, the propaganda often involves elements about the political ideology of the creators. Figure A is an example of the propaganda mentioned above. 

Figure A

In the left-hand side of the graphic, the woman standing and talking is Carrie Lam, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong. She once infamously said, ‘it was no longer meaningful to close the border.’ This is exactly what first line of the texts in bottom left means. In the second line, ‘攬炒之母’ means ‘the mother of mutual destruction,’ which is used to describe Carrie Lam action is destroying the whole Hong Kong. 

            Solely from these texts, we already know that there is some sort of dissatisfaction from the creator of this graphic and those who have the same stance. If we are to analyse this with the definition in (3-2), it, obviously falls into the aspect of satisfaction in Appraisal– the creator wants to convey a sense of anger through writing ‘攬炒之母’. In the right-hand side of the picture, there are a lot of green zombie-looking objects, rushing through a door, above which is a sign with simplified Chinese, meaning ‘welcome’ Those ‘zombies’ symbolise mainlanders who rush to Hong Kong for shelters as mainland China has been regarded as a dangerous place even by the mainlanders. The sign of ‘welcome’ is an irony addressing Carrie Lam’s rejection to close the border. In this context, the creator of the graphic wants its audience, who are generally Hongkongers, to apply judgement in Appraisal – to think that Carrie Lam acts in a reckless way (tenacity), if not an immoral way (propriety). This is, overall, an effective picture with its implication well conveyed. 

            Figure A is only an example of such propaganda against the government. The picture is extracted from https://wars.vote4.hk/poster-gallery, from which a lot of pictures are worth analysing. Humour and irony is often used to express the hopelessness and ridiculousness in the users’ eyes. Propaganda, albeit biased, is a good way to spread ideology and use humour and irony to express opinions. 

The Sims Freeplay: Free to PLAY or Free to PAY?

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Kitty Chan

If you have not played The Sims Freeplay at all, you should have heard of The Sims before.  They are both life-stimulation games offered by the Electronic Arts.  Some people play videogames to escape from the real world.  Our world is full of neoliberalist values.  People consume in exchange of values.  Things are commodified and quantified.  We work and study hard to compete for social mobility.  Do you know you have been fed with these 3Cs through the game as well?

Comsumption

n the game, nearly all items are obtained by buying.  From the screenshot above, we can see that it is the first long instruction directing players to buy a toilet from the “Home Store”.  By applying register analysis, the field is to teach first-time player to obtained items from the store and inventory through the action of buying given the setting of misconstruction of the toilet plus a common sense of the need to visit the toilet after a long trip in transportation, creating an atmosphere of “moving in to the town permanently”.  The tenor is missing because it is a tutorial teaching the player how to play in written mode.  Given that the game developers are in a stronger position than the vulnerable player in the power wrestling process, sentences are constructed in second person imperatives and end in exclamation mark just to show excitement instead of ordering the player to obtain the toilet.

That is not enough.  The game also has a strong tendency to encourage players to spend money in exchange of time.  The mechanism of the game is to interact with different items or people in the environment by controlling a Sim each time to earn Experience Points or Simoleons.  Every action takes time, ranging from several seconds to a whole day.  Most actions can be skipped by using an in-game currency called Lifestyle Points, which can be obtained easily by purchasing with real money, but comparatively difficult if you wish to earn them by completing tasks and quests.  Look at the screenshot above, the game also established a hierarchy of VIP Perks to be achieved by accumulating points in purchasing with real money.  These VIP Perks can help earning Experience Points or Simoleons or even unlock special features of the game.  Although it is named and advertised as “freeplay”, it is never free in nature.  The more you pay, the more you can play.

All the in-game items are non-transferrable, meaning that players can only obtain them individually.  They can be obtained with by buying with Simoleons or Lifestyle Points or by completing tasks.  On surface, it is about whether players are willing to spend more time individually on the game.  But previously I have mentioned about how the game will be easier by purchasing with real money and accumulating VIP perks.  The truth is that life gets a lot easier with more money spent into the game.  Players consume both inside and outside the game.

Commodification

In the game, pets can hunt Simoleons.  They had been commodified as a money earning machine.  The same is also applied to hobbies and relationship in which players practice hobbies in exchange for Simoleons and other in-game items such as clothing or hairstyles.  Can you imagine that you can gain XP from making friends with another sim as shown in the picture?  Besides, players can visit their in-game friends’ town to complete some task or goals to obtain Social Points, which can never be purchased with money.  Therefore, players establish “friendship” for the purpose of completing game missions only.  Imagine in our real world where people establish friendship, practising hobbies and keeping pets for the sole purpose of profits only, there would not be love and affection.  This is the neoliberal world where everything can be monetized.

Competition

Competition strengthened the desire to pay and consume the game and paying becomes part of the game.  The SimChase Event offers a rival sim to complete with player’s sim of completing a list of designated tasks.  On Reddit, players reflected that they need to sacrifice their sleeping time in real world to complete the tasks while the rival sim virtually completes all the tasks and recognized it to encourage players to activate the paid functions in order to complete tasks easier.  This shows that the game is a neoliberalist by encouraging you to compete by offering a rival.

After reading this article, I hope that you won’t stop playing The Sims Freeplay if you’re already playing it, but to think about what ideology the game is trying to shape for you and avoid falling into the trap of the neoliberal reality especially under the current pandemic!

Power Relations Between Police Officers And Suspects

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Sam Chan

Have you ever rejected your doctor’s prescription or your boss’s order? The answer would mostly likely be no. It is common and natural for us to obey and listen to others who have higher status and are more knowledgeable than us. Unlike doctors and bosses, who have power over certain kinds of people, police officers have power over every citizen despite their social identity and status. This is not just about the power of arresting you or controlling your action, it is also about the power on the language level. Police officers use different language strategies during interrogation to control the topic and process of the conversation. 

We are going to look into the asymmetrical power relations between police and suspects by analyzing a video of an authentic interrogation between an American police officer and a Dubai Lamborghini driver. 

YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1DCda5Cabo

Interruption

The police officer interrupted the driver for 15 times in their short 5-mintue conversation. Power-oriented interruptions are made to change the discourse from the speaker by gaining control of the conversation content and/ or process. It usually includes topic change attempts achieved by requests and questions (process control strategies) or by statement or assertions (content control strategies), the latter being less face-threatening. There are 2 kinds of power-oriented interruptions shown in this video. 

  1. Content control

D: It’s a temporary import.

P: It’s a what?

D: It’s a TEMPORARY import. It’s not a permanent thing, we fly our cars here, we do our trips and we fly them back, that’s how it works. 

D: I know it’s confusing [but-]

P:                                                             [No,] it’s not confusing it’s very simple. Alright? If you have some sort of import, that that’s to get into the country, OK?

D: I’’ll- [I’ll-]

P:                [Let] me see what you have that says you can drive it on the road in Oregon.

D: You will understand in a second.

P: Pardon me?

D: You’re gonna understand in a second, I’m gonna [provide-]

P:                                                                                                                           [I’m] pretty sure I know what I’m talking about right now.

The police repeatedly assured the driver that he was not confused and knew what he was talking about, whenever the driver mentioned the complicated documents. The officer was attempting to reassert his dominating position as a role who has expertise in this area. 2.

2. Process control

P: D: A EPA exemption and then a Carnet De Passage.

P: Do you have any of that?

D: Of course yeah, I’m gonna [provide everthing-]

P:                                                                          [Do you have] something that says you can drive this car on the road?

D: Yes sir.

When the driver explained to the police how he could legally drive in the US for multiple times. The police interrupted his explanation and shifted the focus on providing permission and insurance. The police held more power in the process of the conversation. 

Resistance

The Lamborghini owner has a high social status and has experience in travelling in his own car. He attempted to resist to the power and control of the police by asking questions towards the end of the interrogation using two strategies.  

1. Asking question

D: Alright, why are you being so defensive? I’m trying [to-]

P:                                                                                                                                      [Pardon] me?

D: Why are you so defensive? I’m trying to [provide-]

P:                                                                                                             [No,] I’m just asking for these documents and you won’t quit talking about other stuff.

In a police interview, the police typically is the one who asks question. However, the driver reversed the questioner-responder roles and tried to gain some control. 

2. Direct accusation

A police officer should have full knowledge of the laws and regulations. In this case, the police seemed to be confused of the kinds of required documents. Therefore, at the very end of the video, after the driver provided the necessary documents, he challenged the police’s position by saying that police didn’t know the federal law. 

P: Here-here’s your stuff here. You gotta get a temporary permit, OK? I have another call I have to go [to.] Be safe pulling out into traffic.

D:                                      [Sir…]

D: It’s a federal law, you don’t know the law. To conclude, police has more control and power over a discourse due to their identity as a law enforcer and professional knowledge in rules and regulations. Yet, the police is not always right. Citizen, who has less power in default, can also attempt to overthrow the imbalance power relation. Through this analysis, I hope the issue of extremely imbalance relation between the Hong Kong police and the protestors could be brought to public attention.

HOW NEWS REPORTS CONTRIBUTE TO PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF GENDER STEREOTYPES

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

By Cindera Guan

Nowadays, people are paying more attention on sex, gender and feminism than before. More and more feminists emerge, hoping to eliminate the gender stereotype, and win a higher social status for women. However, it is not easy to achieve gender equality with the influence of mass media and their reports, which contribute towards people’s perception of gender stereotypes.

According to Bullen (149), one person would be exposed to approximately 16000 ads and news reports a day, from which they tend to fit in the gender stereotype showing what men and women should be, without realizing themselves being affected by mass media. 

Then, in what ways do the news reports people read daily show and express gender stereotypes? In news reports sentences, transitivity, referring to who does what to whom and how, usually express an attitude towards gender stuff.

Girl, 7, murdered while mom drank at the pub.

(Sun, 20 December 1986)

This headline expresses two things: girl murdered and mom drank. With the murderer, the murder action’s actor, completely omitted, this kind of words arrange implies that the mom is the one to blame, because she was in the pub where she should not have been to. The gender stereotype shown in this report is that the only right thing for women to do is care and nurture, rather than going to pub and having fun. Nurturing is women’s compulsory responsibility and women who do not nurture would get more blame than a murderer – that is the horrible gender stereotype disseminated from this kind of news reports.

Omitting the identity of abuser while reinforcing the characteristics of the victim turns public attention to the  victim.

A scantily dressed young woman was raped at night.

(Liaoning Evening, 2 August 2015)

Similar as the previous one, with the actor, the murderer being omitted and  description being made of how improper the young woman wore, the news implied that the young woman is not blameless for her being raped. And it might scare the readers that if women wear scantily, she would be the one to blamed for whatever happened. Or even nothing happens, it is regarded as inappropriate. Therefore, the gender stereotype expressed in this news report is that , for women, dress conservatively means dress proper.

According to Simpson (80), much media language is constructed based on the concept of ‘essentialist’ of women. This is the notion that women tend to care and nurture but not to do something violent. If women do not conform to cultural stereotypes of motherhood, caring and monogamy, they would be treated especially harshly by the mass media. In this way, huge influences were made on people’s perceptions on gender stereotypes.

References:

Hannah, Goodall. “Media Asia.” Singapore, vol. 39, no. 3, 2012, pp. 160-163.

James, Potter. “Media Literacy.” Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, vol 32, no.5, 2001, pp. 35-36.

Julia, Wood. “Gendered lives communication, gender and culture.” Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2011.

Rebecca, Bullen, R. R. “The power and impact of gender specific media literacy.” Youth Media Reporter, vol. 4, no.2, 2009, pp. 149-152.

Simpson, Paul, et al. Language and power: A resource book for students. Routledge, 2018, pp. 73-80.

Talmadge, Guy. “Learning who we (and they) are: popular culture as pedagogy.” New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, vol. 115, no. 7, 2007, pp. 15-23.

How do the visuals of the Hong Kong Protest 2019 in online news articles tell you the story?

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

By Iris Po

The Hong Kong Protest has started since June 2019 and the movement has been continued for a few months. Medias have reported the movement at different angles, some of them described the protesters as ‘rioters’, while some of them highlighted the growing police brutality. It has been argued that some of the mainstream medias were biased when they reported related events of the movement. The language used in the news reports is certainly powerful in conveying the intended message to the audience, but what about the power of the pictures attached? Do you have a habit of reading ‘e-news’? 

Approach: Multimodal Discourse Analysis

The focus of this analysis is how the visuals (e.g. images) interact with the text (e.g. choice of vocabulary) in the three chosen news articles.

Image 1

South China Morning Post, July 2019
Title: Protesters and police fight pitched battles in late-night showdown after mass rally against Hong Kong extradition bill

It was taken when a clash between the protesters and police officers in Mong Kok broke out. The photo was taken as if the photographer was one of the police officers as it showed the angle of them confronting the protestors. The police officers were raising batons and formed a cordon line to prevent the protesters from going any further. Meanwhile, the black-dressed protestors, who wear masks, were holding black umbrellas to avoid being dispersed by the police. They also showed that they were ready for the confrontation through their firm gaze at the police officers. The situation was described as ‘chaos’ and ‘running battles’ in the article. The vocabulary chosen echoes when looking at the photo alone, as it may give an impression that facing the uncontrollable crowd of demonstrators, the police used reasonable force to handle the chaos after the original peaceful demonstration.

Image 2

Bloomberg, October 2019
Title: Hong Kong Protests Flare for 21st Weekend Amid Global Unrest

It captured the moment when the protestors gathered during a protest in Tsim Sha Tsui. Though it was mainly a crowd of demonstrators waiting for their turn to move, an obvious big black flag that one of the protestors raised has brought to the spotlight. The Chinese words on the flag has the meaning of “liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our time”. The slogan was used by a candidate in an election campaign in 2016. It was reused in the Hong Kong protests 2019 as the main slogan and caught the world’s attention. The author did not mention the slogan or the content of the flag captured in the photo. Nonetheless, the photo provided the real scene of the protest that adds extra information to the article. The other feature of the protestors discovered in the photo was that they were mostly masked. 

Image 3

Hong Kong Free Press, December 2019
Title: In Pictures: Pepe frog and protest pig – Hongkongers bring internet memes to life at protest

Various images of demonstrators wearing different kinds of over-sized animal masks have been showed. The photo chosen showed that most of the people wore the oversized ‘Pepe the Frog’ masks and showed the gesture of “five demands, not one less” with their right hands. The ‘Pepe the Frog’, originated in a comic and later used as a hate symbol in the US, was used in the Hong Kong protests as a symbol of liberty and resistance. The author suggested that it was used as a disrespectful symbol of their dissatisfaction with the Beijing’s rule, explaining the reason why the protesters wore the oversized ‘Pepe the Frog’ masks or carried the frog dolls when joining the rallies. One of the interviewees pointed out that the frog symbolizes humour, confidence and positive thinking for the ongoing movement. The photos attached with the news add lively protest scenes and revealed the fact that the symbol was widely used for the protest.  

Sources:
1. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-and-crime/article/3017627/protesters-and-police-fight-pitched-battles-late-night

2. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-25/hong-kong-protests-set-for-21st-weekend-as-unrest-circles-globe

3. https://hongkongfp.com/2019/12/09/pictures-pepe-frog-protest-pig-hongkongers-bring-internet-memes-life-protest/

Language and power in China–United States trade war

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Wendy Chen 

In March, 2018, the American president, Donald Trump, claimed that China steals American intellectual property and trade secrets, and America would accordingly ask U.S. trade representatives to impose tariffs on goods imported from China, from which China-United States trade war started. As stated by BBC News, “The dispute has seen the US and China impose tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of one another’s goods…Trump has long accused China of unfair trading practices and intellectual property theft. In China, there is a perception that America is trying to curb its rise as a global economic power.” This period has witnessed series of negotiations between China and U.S. It is not only an economic war but also a public opinion war, for the global and domestic public views have force and power on politicians and governments nowadays. Thus, apart from conversations in senior meetings between the two countries, numerous reports relevant to official claims on this issue appear on social media.
(Picture from Forbes)
The official statements play functions of two levels, where the first is to show power to respond to measures of the other party while the second targets at domestic readers and have the potential functions of leading their reactions for support. Thus, how the language in politics performs and functions can be seen through languages applied by the authorities in China–United States trade war. We select a corpus involving tweets by President Trump on Twitter, and posts by People’s Daily on Weibo, from China. We will analyse from the views of political discourse and CDA to explore how languages reconstruct power relations in the trade dispute.

Statement from America:
Statement from China (translated into English)
The usage of pronoun is an important way to call for inclusive support from the domestic citizens. From the texts, both America and China use the first-person pronoun when talking about the trade war, in which America mentions ‘Our Country’ with capital, and China says ‘Our position’ and ‘We’ to call for inclusive power and for national solidarity and position the other party as the third person.

For the written language, it can be seen that Trump applies series of capital to emphasize certain words like ‘HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS’. In this way, Trump implies that America has taken over huge loss of interests because of the trading relationship, and this also harms the American taxpayers’ interests. Here Trump applies implicature to state that the war will help to reduce the loss of interests of Americans. Though it is implication, these capitals play the functions of emphasis and leave a deep impression to audiences. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s discourses see neo-liberalism and post-truth. He uses fear to persuade audience. When saying ‘with no end in sight….’ and ‘a great burden to the American Taxpayer’, he highlights the endless harms of individual interests and gives citizens an impression on the negative aspects of importing goods from China. From this, it shows neo-liberalism and post-truth in the U.S. market where the citizens consider and take their own responsibility, and people’s fear about loss of resources occupied by outsiders. This situation makes Trump’s strategy a persuasive one.

Apart from America, China also applies political discourse in the trade war. The most characteristic one is metaphor. In the transcript, China uses ‘Lift the ladder, or throw bricks’, and ‘not a 'blessing' but a 'nightmare'’ as source domain to describe policies from America as target domain. By using metaphors, China is representing America as a negative figure of imposing pressure in this war, to take the dominant power position, and these expressions can leave a simpler and deeper impression to audiences for support. 
The differences between the two sides show distinctive social ideology from the strategies that Trump highlights the negative aspects in economic for Americans to continue trade relationship with China, while China does not stress its influences to Chinese people but to Americans. However, combining the use of metaphors, China condemns the U.S. for breaking the treaty and hurting both sides, and it reconstructs the relation of dominance by showing as a passive figure. As the value of being restrained, solidarity, and nationalism has long been part of cultural and social ideology in China, the strategy related with social ideology helps in getting recognition from some domestic citizens.
By studying languages used in the trade war, we explore the strategies involving pronoun, implicature, personal style, modality, and metaphor on this issue. With social ideology and shared identity, value and interests of groups. To deal with the position in power relation, future study may focus on various rhetoric strategies applied with regard to detailed contexts and social situations in countries by political figures.

Effectiveness of Hong Kong social movement propaganda on social media

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

By Anthony Lee

In 2010, Jasmine revolution broke out in Tunisia. The situation of protesters being brutally suppressed by the police force was broadcasted on social media. This raised public anger and people’s compassion towards the protesters. As a result, the social movement earned more support. The ideas that tyranny can be defeated through civilians’ resistance even encouraged the revolution in many other Arabic countries, such as Syria, Yemen, Algeria, Saudi Arabia. Social media was proved to have an important role of encouraging the social movement.

In 2020, large scale protest also broke out in Hong Kong. Protesters actively used social media to spread their ideas and ask for help. Would social media be influential as it was in the Jasmine revolution?

Propaganda of Hong Kong social movement

In informative propaganda, speakers focus on sharing facts and information to others. A great number of them shares about police brutality. They describe how Hong Kong police has been handling the movement inappropriately:

In Emotional propaganda, the words affect the audience emotionally. Most of them encourage protesters to insist, or raise public anger on the police and the government.

In ironic propaganda, words are used to mock at the absurdity on the views of the opponents, while exaggerating the logical flaw of them:

Effectiveness

For informative propaganda, I believe some of them could be too tiring for people to read. P2, for example, is full of words and it looks likes news. P1 also have too many words in total with a small font, which is not friendly for elderly or uneducated people to read. They may cause compassion Fatigue[1], which makes people feel like the bad news are happening on themselves. Victims of compassion Fatigue feel that they must do something to help the others, otherwise they will bare sense of guilt or sense of helplessness. In order to prevent these negative feelings, many people would hate reading propaganda. 

For emotional discourse, I believe they have few actual impacts on the movement. While many social media users ask for revenge on the police, the police receive few formal complaint, compared to those on the internet. As a result, few of their misconduct are investigated as many of them lack a complainer. As Chiluwa& Ifukor (2015) stated in their research on #BringBackOurGirls campaign, these propaganda are purely slacktivism. People pressed the like button and felt like they made a contribution, but there is few impact except making themselves happy.

For ironic propaganda, they are difficult to understand. A forum user[2]states that his mother did not understand the irony in P5. She sincerely believes that the content of the photo is true and she had worse impression on the protesters since then. It proved that some people cannot see the flaw implied by the irony and is an irony is only comprehensible to people who support protesters. They are not effective in asking the opponents to change their views.

Conclusion

Comparing to #BringBackOurGirls campaign studied by Chiluwa& Ifukor, the promotion in Hong Kong is more successful in urging for concrete action. However, these propaganda is still the minority. Within three major types of discourses, informative propaganda is boring, emotional discourse is impractical solutions, and ironic propaganda is hard to understand. To create propaganda that is more effective, writers should pay more effort making their discourses interesting, specific and simple.

References

Chiluwa, I., & Ifukor, P. (2015). ‘War against our Children’: Stance and evaluation in      #BringBackOurGirls campaign discourse on Twitter and Facebook. Discourse & Society, 26(3), 267–296. doi: 10.1177/0957926514564735

Freehongkong. (n.d.). Retrieved from            https://www.facebook.com/pg/freehongkong2019/posts/?ref=page_internal LIHKG. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://lihkg.com/thread/1476374/page/1

200008. (2019, November 11). 【吹水台】[認真問]有無D文宣勁少少,易吸收既     Facebook page?? by 200008. Retrieved from https://md.hkgolden.com/view_amp.aspx?message=7142353&page=1

香港加油文宣站. (n.d.). Retrieved from       https://www.facebook.com/102716824426741/posts/102723374426086/

全民罷買日 Bye Buy Day HK. (n.d.). Retrieved from         https://www.facebook.com/byebuydayhk/posts/179510303407422

金水2 – 黃金同路人. (n.d.). Retrieved from             https://www.facebook.com/116734329726606/posts/147802233286482/

[1]張玉如 (2020, March 26). 【心理健康】對負面消息感麻木　關心人反而易患「情感疲勞」？. Retrieved from https://www.hk01.com/健康/389178/心理健康-對負面消息感麻木-關心人反而易患-情感疲勞

[2] 200008. (2019, November 11). 【吹水台】[認真問]有無D文宣勁少少,易吸收既   Facebook page?? by 200008. Retrieved from https://md.hkgolden.com/view_amp.aspx?message=7142353&page=1

What’s happening between the World Health Organization and China?

Posted on by Benedict J. L. ROWLETT

by Mona Ng

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) has taken obvious stances to different countries. Their full support and continual praises to China’s control over the outbreak has sparked the interests and concerns of different parties. Are there any impacts of such claims from the WHO? What are the reasons behind such mysterious relationship? Let’s find out.

The following is the summary of the transitivity analysis on WHO Director-general’s statement on IHR Emergency Committee on Novel Coronavirus, breaking down their stance on China. This speech by Tedros (WHO Director-general) is given at the end of January, when the virus has already spread to 18 countries including Germany, Japan, Vietnam and the United States of America.

  • Material process

‘In many ways, China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response. 

It’s not an exaggeration.’

Setting a new standard for outbreak responseChina’s outbreak response was the top in the world and faster than before
ActuallyPlace emphasis; element of surprise;shows that China’s response was out of expectation
Use of active voicePlacing China as the clear subject;Place emphasis
  • Verbal process

‘The Chinese government is to be congratulated for the extraordinary measures it has taken to contain the outbreak, despite the severe social and economic impact those measures are having on the Chinese people.’

CongratulatedOffering praise; positive
Extraordinarybeyond standards and remarkable
Use of passive voicePlacing ‘Chinese government’ at the front of the sentence; bring attention
Power and organisationWHO’s approval of ChinaInfluencing audiences to follow

I also offer my profound respect and thanks to the thousands of brave health professionals and all frontline responders, who in the midst of the Spring Festival, are working 24/7 to treat the sick, save lives and bring this outbreak under control.  Thanks to their efforts, the number of cases in the rest of the world so far has remained relatively small.

offer my profound respect and thanksPraise; positive
bring this outbreak under controlStated as a fact, showing as truth;Ensuring audiences
Thanks to their efforts, the number of cases in the rest of the world so far has remained relatively small.the small number of cases outside China at that time was small because of China’s professionals; approves China’s influence on the world; Giving China a high status
  • Behavioral process

WHO continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to control the outbreak.

ContinuesHas confidence from the start, and is willing to continue;Showing positive attitude
Power and organisationEnsuring audiences with the power and trust of the WHO

What can we see from the analysis?

The WHO is positive in China’s outbreak response and are confident in their control of the outbreak. They kept praising China and ensured the audiences that China has everything under control. Instead of alerting countries to prepare for possible outbreak, there is no doubt the WHO’s praise on China has created a false sense of security to the public, which possibly stimulated the virus’s spread.

Why be the flatterer?

There are many reasons for the WHO to be so supportive of China. Firstly, as the Chinese government has been helping many African countries throughout the decades, such as lending money and building railways, a lot of African countries are in favour of the Chinese government. In 2017, Tedro’s campaign to become the director-general of the WHO needed the vote and support from many countries, and by supporting China, he has also earned votes from many African countries which are following China, and in the end he had successfully defeated the UK candidate.

Powers of organisations

Organizations use language to show and impose their power. They use language to pose their ideology on people, shaping how people think. In this case, the WHO was trying to use their power to show their ‘trust’ in China’s capability, and was using their power to influence the audience to trust the organisation’s decisions. What they stated as facts (“China has the outbreak under control”) will be taken as a fact by others as the WHO is the authority. If the WHO has taken a more neutral role and stated true facts, the public can be better informed, countries could note the seriousness and have taken actions, as well as restricting the global spread of the virus.