This study of political press conferences allows a closer look at diplomatic talk to communicate political differences in a positive way to smooth out socio-political and ideological discrepancies that often divide prominent political figures. Taking a critical discourse analysis (CDA) perspective, this article analyses textual data from press conferences involving the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the US President George W. Bush, who come from different ideological backgrounds, also sharing differences in other dimensions such as age, experience, economic status, socio-political influence and political objectives. The findings reveal three major themes: positivity for the reinforcement of mutual trust, respect and progress; influence and power for subtle persuasion; and evasion to hedge or avoid responses to probing and inconvenient questions from the media.
Using the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong as an example, this article explores the construction of discursive illusions in the South China Morning Post's (SCMP) coverage of the event under discussion. More specifically, the article investigates how a multi-perspective analytical approach, namely that of the discourse of illusion, can allow a closer look at how and to what extent abstract constructs with significant social implications are discursively formed. In this respect, the framework draws on three interrelated components: historicity (habitus as key to the creation of discursive illusions, dealing as it does with the growth and change of perceptions over time), linguistic and semiotic action (subjective conceptualisations of the world give rise to certain linguistic and semiotic actions, often through metaphorical and dominant rhetoric) and the degree of social impact (as language and actions of individuals and groups engender many categories and stereotypes). The analysis reveals the use of various linguistic and rhetorical tools, including insinuation, temporal referencing, metaphor, recontextualisation and (re)framing by the SCMP, the most prominent English newspaper in Hong Kong, in its creation of multiple identity categories.
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