TY - JOUR

T1 - Motivational discourse and campaign-style mobilisation

T2 - A positive discourse analysis of language poverty alleviation discourse in China

AU - Li, Run

AU - Yu, Yating

AU - Chan, Tayden Fung

A2 - Xue, Bing

PY - 2023/10/12

Y1 - 2023/10/12

N2 - Many studies have investigated language poverty related to aspects of economic assistance, water scarcity, gender inequality, climate change, etc. However, a focus on language policy discourse has been lacking. Language policy discourse is vital because it can be deemed as preliminary to language poverty alleviation action, influencing the success of its implementation. To fill this gap, this study employed positive discourse analysis to investigate discursive strategies used in the discourse of language poverty alleviation in Chinese language policies. The finding shows that through four main discursive strategies–nomination, argumentation, perspectivisation, and predication–official documents concerning language poverty alleviation constructed motivational discourse and applied campaign-style mobilisation to encourage people to follow the implementation of language poverty alleviation. This study sheds light on the official purpose of using certain discursive strategies in language poverty alleviation discourse and some ideological implications behind it and sets an example of the popularisation of official languages to tackle poverty alleviation from a linguistic perspective for other countries/regions.

AB - Many studies have investigated language poverty related to aspects of economic assistance, water scarcity, gender inequality, climate change, etc. However, a focus on language policy discourse has been lacking. Language policy discourse is vital because it can be deemed as preliminary to language poverty alleviation action, influencing the success of its implementation. To fill this gap, this study employed positive discourse analysis to investigate discursive strategies used in the discourse of language poverty alleviation in Chinese language policies. The finding shows that through four main discursive strategies–nomination, argumentation, perspectivisation, and predication–official documents concerning language poverty alleviation constructed motivational discourse and applied campaign-style mobilisation to encourage people to follow the implementation of language poverty alleviation. This study sheds light on the official purpose of using certain discursive strategies in language poverty alleviation discourse and some ideological implications behind it and sets an example of the popularisation of official languages to tackle poverty alleviation from a linguistic perspective for other countries/regions.

U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0292834

DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0292834

M3 - Journal article

VL - 18

JO - PLoS One

JF - PLoS One

SN - 1932-6203

IS - 10

M1 - e0292834

ER -