Mourning: How We Get Aligned

Abstract

This article takes up an interpersonal perspective on discourse, which focuses on what we might think of as the rhetorical power of language. In particular, it emphasizes the role of evaluation, and the constructive role it plays in organizing sociality – how we share feelings in order to belong. It considers in some detail the texture of an editorial from a Hong Kong lifestyle magazine published 10 days after 11 September 2001 (9/11), outlining the ways in which the editor negotiates solidarity with his expat readership, naturalizing a range of reading positions both within and between those readers.