The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons (Culture and Communication in Asia)

Book Cover......Page 1
Half-Title......Page 2
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 7
Figures......Page 8
Series Editor’s Foreword......Page 9
Preface......Page 11
1 How to read dragons......Page 12
Dragons at the gate: Sinology and the study of Chinese culture......Page 13
The semiotics of Chinese culture......Page 18
Discourse and power in China......Page 21
Sinologism and the discursive construction of China......Page 23
New options for the study of China......Page 28
Reading China from the West: the problem of interpretation......Page 29
Postmodern China and a new curriculum......Page 31
2 Reading style......Page 36
The imponderable risks of saying ‘hello’......Page 37
The meanings of accent......Page 43
Reading calligraphy......Page 46
Literary style and the conquest of tradition......Page 53
3 Writing and the ideological machine......Page 58
Language and ideology in Chinese......Page 59
The endless dance of opposites and the Chinese ideological machine......Page 61
Circles of mediation......Page 65
Conservative radicals......Page 68
Reforming the Chinese character......Page 73
Reading ideology in written texts......Page 76
4 Grammar as ideology......Page 81
The grammar of culture......Page 83
Linguistic ideology in action......Page 86
Sentence patterns and the ideological base......Page 90
The functions of transformations......Page 94
The grammar of judgements......Page 98
Modality and the reality factor......Page 102
5 Living with double-think......Page 109
Discourse at the limits: the unfortunate case of Li Jian......Page 110
Staking the terrain......Page 112
Clichés pointing everywhere and nowhere......Page 116
Drunk among slogans......Page 119
Policing the discourse: ambiguity found and lost......Page 123
Mapping discursive change in contemporary China......Page 126
6 The cult of the hero......Page 132
Wen-wu and Chinese masculinity......Page 134
Guan Yu and images of nation......Page 138
Guan Yu and the cultural unconscious......Page 143
From cult to comics: forms of circulation in popular culture......Page 146
Deconstructing the classics......Page 150
The new Sinologism and the problem of change......Page 156
Imploding the square: Farewell my Concubine, Welcome Chinese Sinologism......Page 162
‘Everything’s a laugh’: Jackie Chan and the Hong Kong perspective......Page 170
Triple happiness: Taiwan and the third of two options......Page 176
Bibliography......Page 185
Index......Page 191