Visual arguments and discriminatory discourse: Comparing modes and affordances in representations of Mainland Chinese in Hong Kong

Munkyung KANG

Research output: Journal PublicationsJournal Article (refereed)peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In the context of what has been referred to as the ‘Mainlandization’ of Hong Kong since 2003 (Yew & Kwong, 2014), I consider the affordances offered through different modalities by comparing the written linguistic mode to that of visual arguments used in a local political advertisement. The choice of modalities available as a means of expressing familiar topoi found in discriminatory texts provides alternative options for recontextualizing (van Leeuwen, 2008) discriminatory practices. I show that the affordances of specific modalities can be used to express certain topoi and/or support those expressed through other modalities.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)94-107
Number of pages14
JournalLanguage and Communication
Volume60
Early online date8 Mar 2018
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - May 2018

Bibliographical note

I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and to my research assistant, Arthur Chan, for careful translations of the data and local insights into the meaning making that is rife in social media interactions in Hong Kong. I am also grateful to audience members at the Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics conference in 2016 and the American Association of Applied Linguistics conference in Portland, OR in 2017, where preliminary versions of this paper were presented.

Funding

This research was supported by a Faculty Research Grant at Lingnan University [Funding Ref. 101825 (DA15A4) ].

Keywords

  • Multimodality
  • Visual communication
  • Recontextualisation
  • Intertextuality
  • Affective topoi

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