Freedom in Exile: A Linguistic-discursive Analysis of the Representations of the China x Tibet Conflict in the 14th Dalai Lama’s Autobiography

Thiago Henrique Nunes Dos Santos,Solange Maria De Barros

doi:10.11114/ijecs.v4i1.4998

Thiago Henrique Nunes Dos Santos, Solange Maria De Barros

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https://doi.org/10.11114/ijecs.v4i1.4998

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Abstract

This article is part of an undergraduate course paper that studies the autobiography of the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso: Freedom in Exile. We analyse the discursive-linguistic representations of the conflict between China and Tibet within this autobiographical narrative through systemic functional linguistics. We understand the potential of the autobiographical narrative as a means to construe and organize life experiences through language and also giving new meanings to them. In this study we employ the theoretical and methodological apparatus of critical discourse analysis and the philosophy of critical realism in the attempt to understand the representational aspect of the texts. We use a qualitative research approach. The general objective of this study is to analyse the representations that the narrator creates of the contents of his vital experience by privileging and working with the ones that emerge from the conflict between China and Tibet. The specific objectives include: (i) to identify the lexical-grammatical choices regarding the constituents that structure these representations; (ii) to explore autobiographical writing; (iii) to analyse the representations discursively, in order to proceed to an explanatory critique of the discourse; (iv) to discuss and reflect upon the intransitivity of moral values to human emancipation and meta-Reality.

Highlights

This research study is outlined as a qualitative bibliographic study that aims to analyse discursive-linguistic representations of an autobiographical narrative, whose author identifies himself as the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet
The main research question is presented as follows: How are the Dalai Lama’s discursive-linguistic representations regarding the conflict between China and Tibet structured in his autobiography? The general objective of this research is to analyse the representations that the narrator creates from the contents of his own vital experience by selecting the ones that emerge from the conflict between China and Tibet
The selected theoretical framework is in tune with both the general and specific objectives, since with (i) Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (1994, 2004, 2014) we analyse the lexical-grammatical choices, by classifying participants, processes and circumstances that appear from the textual representations; (ii) We explore autobiographical writing, borrowing from Philippe Lejeune’s (1989) The autobiographical pact, in which he explores the matters of authorship and the self that narrate the autobiography of the 14th Dalai Lama; we focus on (iii) an explanatory critique of the discourse based on Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (1999, 2003) and concludes with (iv) a brief reflection on the intransitive moral values revealed by Roy Bhaskar (1978, 2012) within critical realism

Summary

Introduction

This research study is outlined as a qualitative bibliographic study that aims to analyse discursive-linguistic representations of an autobiographical narrative, whose author identifies himself as the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. The selected theoretical framework is in tune with both the general and specific objectives, since with (i) Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (1994, 2004, 2014) we analyse the lexical-grammatical choices, by classifying participants, processes and circumstances that appear from the textual representations; (ii) We explore autobiographical writing, borrowing from Philippe Lejeune’s (1989) The autobiographical pact, in which he explores the matters of authorship and the self that narrate the autobiography of the 14th Dalai Lama; we focus on (iii) an explanatory critique of the discourse based on Norman Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (1999, 2003) and concludes with (iv) a brief reflection on the intransitive moral values revealed by Roy Bhaskar (1978, 2012) within critical realism

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