IN CULTURAL DIALOGUE WITH CDA

Abstract

Critical Discourse Analysis has excelled with its functional and ideological analysis of socio-political texts. Its capacities and achievements notwithstanding, this tradition is constituted of Western concepts, values, ways of thinking, analytic tools and topics of interest; such becomes problematic when universalised and globalised in international academic discourse. It is against this backdrop of cultural and intellectual tension that a culturally conscious and critical paradigm of discourse and communication research is emerging: Cultural Discourse Studies (CDS). It is manifested in the forms of (a) participation by searchers from the Developing World in significant proportions, (b) development of locally grounded, globally minded research frameworks; and (c) a growing multicultural awareness in the discipline. Inspired by Third World experiences, aspirations and scholarships on the one side and drawing on culturally critical insights in the human and social sciences on the other side, this multicultural scholarship endeavours to deconstruct ethnocentrism, construct culturally diversified modes of research and propel intercultural dialogue and debate in the discipline, all with a view to enhancing human cultural coexistence, harmony and prosperity. One exemplar of this new trend is Chinese Discourse Studies, characterised by a holistic philosophy, equilibrium and discrepancy theory, all-encompassing methodology and development-minded research agenda.