About us

Who We Are

 

 

After the successful organization of a pilot event in February 2010 with a lecture on “Discourses on the Cross-Strait Rapprochement”, which resulted in a discussion of potential collaborative projects, the core working group consisting of two KU Leuven researchers, prof. Lutgard Lams (Faculty of Arts) and prof. Frank Gotzen (Law Faculty), decided to launch a center for interdisciplinary research into Chinese Discourse Studies (Brussels Center for Chinese Discourse Studies, BCCDS), embedded within the Faculties of Arts and Law at the KU Leuven Campus Brussels, where both disciplines of communication and law studies (in particular IPR studies) have a longstanding history and provide the BCCDS with sound academic pillars. The initiative reflects the current trend of growing international interest in the participation of the Chinese communities on the global stage. It also emphasizes the workgroup’s commitment to academic research objectives and its openness to the international research dimension.  

 

Over the years, the group has been extended by two extra distinguished professors, studying Chinese Discourse: Prof. Qing Cao (Durham University) and Prof. Chris Shei (Swansea University). Two PhD students have also joined the core team: Lin Hsienming (KU Leuven Social Sciences/NSYSU, Kaohsiung), studying identities of Taiwanese/Chinese diaspora in Belgium is also in charge of the BCCDS administrative affairs and its website. Ying Xu (KU Leuven Campus Brussels) has been examining presuppositions in Chinese media narratives. The workgroup’s interdisciplinary nature is now situated in the fields of media and political communication, regional studies (China/Taiwan), and linguistics. 


Prof. Dr. Lutgard Lams

Faculty of Arts

KU Leuven Campus Brussels


·       Director of BCJS (Brussels Center for Journalism Studies), KU Leuven Campus Brussels  (https://bcjsblog.wordpress.com/)

 

·       Member of MIDI  (Multimodality, Interaction, and Discourse) in the subunit ‘Discourse and Identity’, KU Leuven  (https://www.arts.kuleuven.be/midi/members/lut-lams


Prof. Dr. Qing Cao

Associate Professor, School of Modern Languages and Cultures

(Durham University, UK)


Prof. Dr. Chris Shei

Associate Professor

Department of Applied Linguistics

College of Arts and Humanities

(Swansea University

UK)


Dr. Ying Xu

More about us

Prof. dr. Lutgard Lams


Research Interests


The central research question within my research deals with the dynamics of language and ideology in the media construction of reality and is thus situated within the theoretical and methodological approaches of Language Pragmatics, Discourse Theory and Ideology Critique. As can be seen from the online introduction to my research group BCCDS (Brussels Center for Chinese Discourse Studies-workgroup: www.bccds-workgroup.net), I focus on discursive practices in and about the Greater Chinese Region (including Hong Kong and Taiwan).

 

Special attention goes to (more or less essentialist and/or hegemonic) identity construction (we and the others), nationalism and myth-building in historiography. The discursive practice of Othering is examined in Eastern as well as Western perspectives of the Self and the Other. Hence, I concentrate on framing practices of China in foreign news products and Chinese journalistic representations of the foreign Other. I'm particularly interested in discursive media practices in the various Chinese communities with a view to how they project their constructed media reality to the outside world. This explains my primary focus on the English-language media in China/Taiwan but I am equally interested in comparative research of narratives in the vernacular press and the foreign language press in China/Taiwan. Besides regional comparisons of representational techniques in the official and media discourse I also conduct diachronic research into continuity and change in the Chinese media landscape and look at discursive practices of journalists and politicians against the backdrop of globalisation and democratisation processes in that region.

 

This presupposes an interdisciplinary investigation into media interpretation and production processes, global information flows, the wider political and sociocultural context within which the news workers operate, as well as the changing (regional and global) media landscape. The research thus belongs to various domains such as Linguistics (Pragmatics, Discourse analysis), Communication Science and Journalism (Media studies, Press freedom), Sinology (China/Taiwan political discourse, media landscape), Political Science  (China/Taiwan.US/Europe relations), Sociology and Cultural Studies (Identity studies, nationalism, ideology critique).

 

Case studies and longitudinal projects

·       Discursive strategies in Taiwanese presidential discourse since 2000

·       Discursive strategies in Taiwanese presidential election campaigning

·       Strategic narratives in official Chinese discourse under President Xi Jinping

·       Discursive characteristics of totalitarian/authoritarian discourses

·       European perspectives of Taiwan/China:  a discourse analytical study of EU-official documents and media accounts of the cross-Strait issue   and on EU-Taiwan trade relations

·         Belgian press representations of Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan (qualitative analysis)

·         International media coverage Hong Kong sovereignty transfer (1997)

·         International media coverage collision US surveillance plane with Chinese jetfighter (2001)

·         Comparative analysis of European press framing of immigration crisis 2015-2016 (analysis of transitivity and other discursive mechanisms)                    

 

Research Project at KU Leuven


2016-2019:  co-promotor of ‘FRIENDS’ project on cross-cultural analysis of media representation of refugees (C2-project with internal funding KU Leuven)


 

Publications: see Bibliography 


A selection (until 2019):


Edited book/journal

·       ‘Totalitarian/Authoritarian Discourses – a Global and Timeless Phenomenon?’, Peter Lang Publ., 2014 (co-edited with Crauwels, G. & Serban, H.A.)

·       ‘The Role of Discourse as the Interface between various Disciplines studying Chinese Society’, Universa Press, 2012 (co-authored with Liao, L.W.)

 

Journal article

·       ‘Puppet, Comrades and Souls in Heaven: a Critical Discourse Analysis of Chiang Kai-shek’s Early Wartime Rhetoric’, (co-authored with Lu W.L.), Journal of Current Chinese Affairs (in print), 2019

·       ‘Issue salience and framing in the Taiwanese 2016 presidential election campaign: an analysis of the KMT and DPP campaign discourses’, International Journal of Taiwan Studies 1 (2), pp. 301-330, 2018

·       ‘Examining strategic narratives in Chinese official discourse under Xi Jinping’, International Journal of Chinese Political Science 23 (4), pp. 387-411, 2018

·        ‘Discursive constructions of the summer 2015 refugee crisis: a comparative analysis of French, Dutch, Belgian Francophone and British centre-of-right narratives’, Journal of Applied Journalism and Media Studies 7 (1), pp. 103-127, 2018

·       ‘Othering in Chinese official media narratives during diplomatic standoffs with the US and Japan’, Palgrave Communications 3(33), pp. 1-11, 2017

·       ‘China: Economic Magnet or Rival? Framing of China in the Dutch- and French-Language Elite Press in Belgium and the Netherlands’, International Communication Gazette 78 (1-2), pp. 137-156, 2016

·       ‘Tracing 'Taiwanization' Processes in Taiwanese Presidential Statements in Times of Cross-Strait Rapprochement’,  The Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 40 (1),pp. 63-98, 2011

·       Newspaper’s Narratives Based on Wire Stories: Facsimiles of Input?”,   The Journal of Pragmatics 43 (7), pp. 1853-1864, 2011

·       ‘Towards a linguistics of news production’ (co-written with Catenaccio et al.), The Journal of Pragmatics 43 (7), pp. 1843-1852, 2011

·       ‘Reconnecting theories of  language pragmatics and critiques on logocentric methodological approaches to media discourse analysis’, The Romanian Review of Political Sciences and  International Relations 7 (1), pp. 94-110, 2010

·       ‘Linguistic Tools of Empowerment and Alienation in The Chinese Official Press Accounts about the April 2001 Standoff between the US and China’, Pragmatics 20 (3), pp. 315 -342, 2010

·       ‘Involving Taiwan in the dialogue with European civil society and its public sphere: information, communication, interpretation, and interaction, (co-written with Liao, L.W.)The Taiwan International Studies Quarterly 4 (1), pp.249-258, 2008

·       ‘Media Panic or Manic: the 2004 Taiwan Parliamentary Election in the Local English-Language Press’, The Taiwan International Studies Quarterly 4 (4), pp. 145-184, 2008

·       ‘Language and politics in the Chinese English-language newspaper The China Daily’,  The Stockholm Journal of East-Asian Studies, 15, pp.109-137, 2005

 

Book chapter

Prof. dr. Qing Cao


Research Interests


My research focuses on Chinese media and communication with three strands. The first is concerned with the role of the mass media in transforming traditional China into a modern society. The second looks at the power and impact of language use in shaping people’s perceptions of reality, and the way in which people respond to rapid social changes. The third examines mutual representations between China and the West in the media, focusing on reproduction of cultural identities through images of the other. My central concern in all these strands is the way in which the mass media impact on the ability of people to make sense of the world they live in in a cross-cultural context. Currently I am working on a project that looks at the press of late Qing and early Republic period. This UK Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project translating modernity: a linguistic investigation of the migration of western ideas to China around the turn into the 20th century examines how new concepts rooted in European  post-enlightenment values were linguistically reconstructed in the newly emergent late imperial Chinese press. It seeks to understand the linkage between the rise of modern vocabularies and a fundamental shift of worldview of the Chinese cultural and political elites around the turn into the 20th century.

 

Selected Publications (until 2019)


Book

·       China under Western Gaze: Representing China in the British Television Documentaries, 1980-2000, World Scientific, 2014

Edited book/journal

·   Brand China in the Media: Transformation of Identities (co-edited with Wu, D & Tomaselli, K.G.), Routledge, 2019

·       Brand China (co-edited with Wu, D) A Special Issue of Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies, 31 (6): 2017

·       Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China, (co-edited with Tian, H & Chilton, P) John Benjamins, 2014

Journal article

·       Rupture in Modernity: A Case Study of Radicalism in Late Qing Chinese Press Debate', Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 31(6), pp. 9-28, 2017

·       'Modern Chinese Identities at the Crossroads: Introduction' (co-authored with Wu, D), Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies  31(6), pp. 1-8, 2017

·       'Modernity and Media Portrayals of China', Journal of Asian Pacific Communication 22(1), pp. 1-21, 2012

·       'The Language of Soft Power: Mediating Socio-political Meanings in the Chinese Media', Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 25(1), pp. 7-24, 2011

·       'The re-imagined West in Chinese Television: a Case Study of the CCTV Documentary Series the Rise of the Great Powers', Journal of Language and Politics 9(4), pp. 615-633, 2010

·       'China's Cultural Soft Power: An Emerging National Cultural Security Discourse' (co-authored with Renwick, N.), American Journal of Chinese Studies 15(2), pp. 69-86, 2008

·       'China Through Western Eyes: a Case Study of a BBC Television Documentary Series Road to Xanadu', European Journal of East Asian Studies 7(2), pp. 275-297. 2007

·       'Confucian Vision of a New World Order? Culturalist Discourse, Foreign Policy and the Press in Contemporary China', International Communication Gazette 69(5), pp. 431-450,2007

·       'The Discourse of Technology in Western Representation of China: A Case Study', Global Media Journal 5(9), pp. 1-14,2006

·       'Journalism as Politics: Reporting Hong Kong’s Handover in the Chinese Press', Journalism Studies 1(4), pp. 665-678, 2000

·       'China's political discourse towards the 21st century victimhood, identity, and political power,'(co-authored with Renwick, N), East Asia: an international quarterly 17(4), pp. 111-143,1999

·       'Signification of Hong Kong’s Handover: the Case of the British Press', Journal of International Communication 6(2), pp. 71, 1999

Book chapter

·   ‘Introduction: Continuities and Changes for an Alternative Modernity (co-authored with Wu, D & Tomaselli, K.G.), in Cao, Q, Wu, D & Tomaselli (eds) Brand China in the Media: Transformation of Identities, Routledge, 2019

·   'Identity discourse in modern China: Political and cultural construction of the Chinese nation', in Shei, Chris (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis, Routledge, 2019

·   'Chinese Developmentalism and Television Representation of South Africa', in Batchelor, K. & Zhang, X. (eds.), China-Africa Relations: Building Images through Cultural Co-operation, Media Representation and Communication, Routledge, pp. 199-217, 2017

·   'The Politics and poetics of television documentary in China', in Rawnsley, Gary & Rawnsley, Ming-Yeh (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Media, Routledge, pp. 355-371, 2015

·   'China's Soft Power: Formulations, Contestations and Communication', in Cao, Q, Tian, H & Chilton, P (eds.), Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China, John Benjamins, pp. 171-194, 2014

·   'Introduction: Legitimisation, Resistance and Discursive Struggles in Contemporary China', in Cao, Q, Tian, H & Chilton, P (eds.), Discourse, Politics and Media in Contemporary China, John Benjamins, pp. 1-22, 2014

·   'From revolution to business: China's changing discourses on Africa', in Chan, S. (ed.), The morality of China in Africa: the middle kingdom and the dark continent, Zed Books, pp. 60-69, 2013

·   'China’s Evolving Human Security Discourse'(co-authored with Renwick, N.), in Iwatake, Mikako (ed.), New Perspectives from Japan and China, Renvall Institute Publications 27, University of Helsinki, pp. 27-50, 2010

·   'Journalism and Political Change: the Case of China', in Stuart, A (ed.), The Routledge Companion to News and Journalism, Routledge, pp. 138-148, 2009

·   'Western Representation of the ‘Other’', in Shi-xu (ed.), Discourse as Cultural Struggle, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, pp. 105-122, 2006

·   'Modern Political Communication in China'(co-authored with Renwick, N.), in Rawnsley, G & Rawnsley, M. (eds.), Political Communication in Greater China: The Construction and Reflection of Identity, Routledge, pp. 62-82, 2003

·   'Selling Culture: Ancient Chinese Conception of the ‘Other’ in Legends', in Chan, S., Mandeville, P. & Bleiker, R. (eds.), The Zen of International Relations: IR Theories from East to West, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 178-202, 2001


Prof. dr. Chris Shei


Research Interests

 

My primary research interests are corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, translation studies and language education. I am particularly interested in the use of computer and web resources for linguistic research, language education and translating. Recently I have been expanding my research into Chinese Studies (notably including Chinese sociology and political science) through my existing engagement with political discourse analysis, by compiling a Routledge Handbook in Chinese Studies, which is designed to give a comprehensive and in-depth new definition of the term Chinese Studies. The handbook is scheduled to be released in 2021.

Selected Publications (until 2020)

 

Books

 

Shei, Chris (2014). Understanding the Chinese Language: a Comprehensive Linguistic Introduction.

London/New York: Routledge.

Shei, Chris & Zhaoming Gao (eds). (2018). The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Translation.

London/New York: Routledge.

Shei, Chris (ed). (2019). The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis. London/New York:

Routledge.

Shei, Chris, Monica E M Zikpi and Der-lin Chao (eds). (2020). The Routledge Handbook

of Chinese Language Teaching. London/New York: Routledge.

 

 

Book chapters

Shei, Chris (2013). “How ‘real’ is reality TV in China? On the success of a Chinese dating programme”

in Lorenzo-Dus, N. and Garces-Conejos Blitvich (eds) Reality Television: A Discourse Analysis Approach, Basingstoke: England: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 43-65.

Shei, Chris (2018). “Teaching and Learning Translation: Traditional Approach and New Direction” in

Shei, Chris & Zhaoming Gao. (eds). The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Translation. London/New York: Routledge.

Shei, Chris (2019) “Introduction: Discourse Analysis in the Chinese Context” in Chris Shei (ed) The

Routledge Handbook of Chinese Discourse Analysis. London/New York: Routledge.

Shei, Chris (2020) “From ‘Chinese to Foreigners’ to ‘Chinese International Education’:China’s efforts in 

promoting its language worldwide” in Chris Shei, Monica E M Zikpi and Der-lin Chao (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Language Teaching. London/New York: Routledge.