Abstract
This research draws on elements of systemic functional linguistics to conduct a discourse analysis of dragon-boating in Asia, predominantly in the commercial areas of Hong Kong and Singapore, where this sport has both a long history and strong culture today. It seeks to understand how experiential and interpersonal meanings are related to this sport in a variety of online texts ranging from local news media sites, corporation team websites, sites from dragon boat companies specialising in training corporations, dragon boat paddlers’ websites and other popular sources such as ‘expatliving’. Findings demonstrate that dragon boating has certain unique characteristics which help to give it significance in this region. With the Duanwu Festival held annually, the sport is steeped firmly in mythology and legend. Additionally, the nature of the boat as a synchronised machine is exploited by corporations and linked to competitive performance. As an intense sport, physical and mental attributes such as ‘strength’ and ‘tenacity’ are associated with it; the upper body requirements of the practice also gives it a unique trait for breast cancer survivors. ‘Tragedy’ is also a part of dragon boat’s modern history with a fatal accident for the Singapore men’s team during an international race in Cambodia. In sum, the sport of dragon boating can be seen to have a rich schema of semiotic associations in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Highlights
The aim of the research is to explore the contexts in which dragon boating is presented and discussed in multiple texts in Hong Kong and Singapore to understand the cultural practices related to the sport
Dragon boating is consistently linked to positive AFFECT (Martin & White, 2005; Martin & Rose, 2007) and is given great historical, cultural and social value in the corpus collected
Dragon boating is strongly linked to corporate culture in Hong Kong and Singapore
Summary
The aim of the research is to explore the contexts in which dragon boating is presented and discussed in multiple texts in Hong Kong and Singapore to understand the cultural practices related to the sport. The objective is to provide an analysis which uncovers the discursive construction of dragon boating from a variety of texts from Hong Kong and Singapore; and to better understand its nature in these contexts. To develop this understanding, the experiential meanings related to the sport are presented. From initial analyses of multiple texts, these systems emerged to be the most relevant elements of the Appraisal framework for explaining the patterns of interpersonal meanings
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