The Routledge Handbook of Cultural Discourse Studies: (Routledge Handbooks in Linguistics)

In response to the cultural challenges in society and scholarship, this handbook presents the conceptions, assumptions, principles, methods, topics and issues in the studies of cultural forms of human communication—cultural discourses—by experts from around the world. A culturalist programme in communication studies (CS), cultural discourse studies (CDS), as represented in this handbook, is a new current of thought in human and social science and a form of academic activism, but above all, it is a fresh paradigm of research committed to enhancing cultural harmony and prosperity on the one hand and facilitating intellectual plurality and innovation on the other hand. This handbook is the first of its kind; it is concerned with the identities of, and interactions between, the world’s diverse cultural communities through locally-grounded and globally-minded, culturally conscious and critical approaches to their communicative practice. Contributors apply such insights, precepts and techniques, not merely to discover and describe past and present communication, but also to design and guide future communication. This handbook is ideal for scholars and students interested in cultural aspects and issues of communication/discourse, as well as researchers of other fields looking to apply cultural discourse methods to their own projects.

Table of Contents:
Introduction PART I: Philosophical Foundations 1. Cultural Discourse Studies: A culturalist approach to communication 2. Representing Discourse Studies: The unequal actors of an international and multidisciplinary field 3. Asiacentricity and the Field of Asian Communication Theory: Today and Tomorrow 4. Intercultural Communication and Interactions: A History and Critique 5. Entangling the discursive and the material PART II: Theoretical Developments 6. Situating and Unwinding “Intercultural Struggles” in Critical Intercultural Communication Studies 7. Transcultural Communication 8. Biculturalism and Bicultural Identity Negotiation 9. Gender, Culture, and Emancipation: A Paradigmatic Outline of Asiacentric Womanism 10. Contemporary Chinese discourse in times of GLOBAL turbulence: Reconstructing cultural capacity and crafting international strategy 11. Ethnic media in multicultural Russian society: A Cultural Discourse Studies approach 12. A Cultural Discourse Called Science 13. Freedom Discourse PART III: Methodological Considerations 14. Infusing “Spirit” Into the “Power/Other” Dialectic and Dialogue 15. Analysing Multimodal Cultural Discourse: Scope and Method 16. Cultural Discourse Analysis as a Methodology for the Study of Intercultural Contact and Circulation 17. Cultural Discourse Analysis: Discourse Hubs as Heuristic Devices 18. Understanding social justice in language teacher education from a Freirean Southern decolonial perspective PART IV: Empirical Explorations 19. Trust in Language: Exploring the Speech-Action Nexus 20. Hate speech we live by 21. Anonymity and radicalisation in Argentinian social media: Identity as a strategy for political dispute 22. Where Neoliberal and Confucian Discourses Meet: The case of female fitness influencers on Chinese social media 23. Recontextualizing Global Warming as Opportunity: On not seeing the trees for the forest 24. (Re)location of discourses in institutional space 25. The normalisation of impoliteness in political dialogue: Latin America, Spain and the USA 26. Duality of Facework in Hotel Responses of Shanghai and London to Negative Online Reviews: A Transculturality Proposal 27. Beyond the “one-key-to-the-universe view”: Expanding critical perspectives in Cultural Discourse Studies 28. The Harmonization of African Orthographic Conventions: The CASAS Experience

About the Author :
Shi-xu is Changjiang Distinguished Professor and Director of the School for Contemporary Chinese Communication Studies at Hangzhou Normal University, China. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Multicultural Discourses (Routledge, ESCI) and General Editor of the Cultural Discourse Studies Series (Routledge). His books in English include Cultural Representations (1997), A Cultural Approach to Discourse (2005), Read the Cultural Other (as lead editor) (2005), Discourse as Cultural Struggle (as editor) (2007), Discourse and Culture (2013), Chinese Discourse Studies (2014) and Discourses of the Developing World (2015).

Review :
Cultural Discourse Studies is a field committed to locally grounded research and critical engagement with human communication as a global system of diverse cultural discourses enmeshed in unequal relations of power. The globally diverse contributions to this handbook exemplify that commitment while advancing the field in many important ways. Robert T. Craig, University of Colorado Boulder, USA Cultural Discourse Studies is a remarkable edited collection certain to shape the field of communication powerfully. The book is theoretically sophisticated, wholly imaginative, and more importantly exactly what we need to read right now to improve the world. Cynicism, insults, and oppression harm the ability for humans to cooperate; Cultural Discourse courageously seeks to improve the conversation, steering it toward more healthy dialogues and outcomes. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to live in a world where people get along! Kent A. Ono, University of Utah, USA Shi-xu has assembled a remarkable collection of studies on culture and discourse studies that should be of interest to scholars and students. The book offers a sweeping survey of key concepts and case studies from contributors from around the world. The contributions address classic debates as well as recent cases about the way groups and organizations use discourses to mobilize meaning, as well as the challenges for intercultural communication in a global world. All in all, this is a stimulating book that raises important questions and lays out rich empirical findings. Silvio Waisbord, George Washington University, USA Of all the fields of Discourse Studies, Cultural Discourse Studies, starting with Dell Hymes in the 1960s, was the first, and, as shown in this much needed Handbook, still is a crucial approach to the study of text and talk all over the world, as is also shown in the selection of topics and the impressive international team organized by the prominent cultural discourse studies scholar Shi-xu. Teun A. van Dijk, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain The Handbook of Cultural Discourse Studies represents an ambitious effort to map out the philosophical underpinnings, theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and empirical challenges faced by humanity as we (fail to) come together to communicate about how to avoid the global existential threats we are facing today. Ingrid Piller, Macquarie University, Australia With a wealth of fresh perspectives and innovative case studies, this is an exciting, provocative volume which undoubtedly helps expand the scope of discourse studies. Crispin Thurlow, University of Bern, Switzerland