Review: The Politics of Chinese Language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons
Author(s)
Keane, Michael
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
1999
Metadata
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ln the preface to The Politics of Chinese language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons,. Bob Hodge and Kam Louie state that this book is the result of a 10-year 'conversation'. What Hodge and Louie have sought to do is to adapt elements of Hodge and Kress's social semiotics (language as Ideology, 1979,- 2nd edn, 1993; Social Semiotics, 1988) to the study of Chinese language and culture. Their rationale is that Chinese culture is 'semiotically promiscuous' (p. 8). More importantly, Hodge and Louie advocate a plurality of pedagogical approaches to unsettle the conservative foundations of Sinology, which in their reckoning ...
View more >ln the preface to The Politics of Chinese language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons,. Bob Hodge and Kam Louie state that this book is the result of a 10-year 'conversation'. What Hodge and Louie have sought to do is to adapt elements of Hodge and Kress's social semiotics (language as Ideology, 1979,- 2nd edn, 1993; Social Semiotics, 1988) to the study of Chinese language and culture. Their rationale is that Chinese culture is 'semiotically promiscuous' (p. 8). More importantly, Hodge and Louie advocate a plurality of pedagogical approaches to unsettle the conservative foundations of Sinology, which in their reckoning has become 'sinologism', a branch of orientalism that essentialises 'Chineseness' and claims knowledge of the classical written code as the key to interpretation.
View less >
View more >ln the preface to The Politics of Chinese language and Culture: The Art of Reading Dragons,. Bob Hodge and Kam Louie state that this book is the result of a 10-year 'conversation'. What Hodge and Louie have sought to do is to adapt elements of Hodge and Kress's social semiotics (language as Ideology, 1979,- 2nd edn, 1993; Social Semiotics, 1988) to the study of Chinese language and culture. Their rationale is that Chinese culture is 'semiotically promiscuous' (p. 8). More importantly, Hodge and Louie advocate a plurality of pedagogical approaches to unsettle the conservative foundations of Sinology, which in their reckoning has become 'sinologism', a branch of orientalism that essentialises 'Chineseness' and claims knowledge of the classical written code as the key to interpretation.
View less >
Journal Title
Media International Australia
Volume
91
Issue
1
Subject
Studies in Human Society
Studies in Creative Arts and Writing
Language, Communication and Culture