Dissertation

What's China's comment?

On the 25th of February, Peng Wu successfully defended his doctoral thesis and graduated. The Leiden University Centre for Linguistics congratulates Peng on this achievement.

Author

Peng Wu

Date

25 February 2020

Links

Leiden University Repository

Abstract

Adopting the pragma-dialectical approach to argumentation, this research intends to provide a fully-fledged analysis of a crucial phase in the spokespersons’ argumentative replies at the regular press conferences of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (China’s MoFA for short), viz. the empirical counterpart of the confrontation stage in the spokespersons’ argumentative exchanges with the questioning journalists. The central aim of this research is to make clear how the spokespersons maneuver strategically in responding to the journalists’ questions and how their confrontational maneuvering can be instrumental in convincing the intended audience.

In realizing this central aim, three main research questions are to be answered:

1. What are the institutional preconditions applying to China’s MoFA’s regular press conferences as a communicative activity type that serve as extrinsic constraints for the strategic maneuvering of the spokespersons in responding to the questions of the journalists?
2. What modes of confrontational maneuvering are prototypically adopted by the spokespersons in responding to the questions of the journalists in complying with the institutional preconditions of China’s MoFA’s regular press conferences?
3. How are these modes of confrontational maneuvering designed to contribute to making a convincing case for the audience the spokespersons would like to reach?