The Discursive Construction Of Hong Kong Identity-A Critical Analysis Of The Policy Addresses Of The Hong Kong Governments Pre-vs. Post-Transition

The study of the discursive construction of identity has been one of the major concerns in sociolinguistics. People living in Hong Kong, who are ethnic Chinese, have not been considered to be either British or Chinese due to the 150 years of British colonial history of Hong Kong. This present dissertation investigates the discursive construction of Hong Kong identity based on an analysis of 22 annual Policy Addresses of the Hong Kong governments, of which 11 were taken from the pre-transitional British Colonial Hong Kong Government during the period of 1986 to 1996 and the other 11 from the post-transitional HKSAR Government from the year 1997 to the year 2008. Through the application of the research method of Critical Discourse Analysis, particularly Wodak's (1999) discourse-historical approach and van Dijk's (1997) social-cognitive approach, the present dissertation attempts to study the issue of the discursive construction of Hong Kong identities in the political discourse of Policy Address, to unveil the relationship between socio-political change and discursive practices, and to uncover how language and power mould the ideologies of the masses.The present framework consists of macro-strategies and micro-strategies, with the former focusing on the content of the discourse and the latter on linguistic devices in the discursive construction of an identity. Macro-strategies in the present study are further developed into the three aspects that Policy Address involves, and topics that contribute to the construction of Hong Kong identity. Results of the analysis of the macro-strategies show that the three aspects—economy, politics, and culture—contribute to the construction of intra-Hongkong sameness and uniqueness, and that the topic analysis shows that the Policy Addresses tend to construct China as out-grouped before the 1997 Transition and as in-grouped after the Transition. Micro-strategies in the present framework are approached from the three perspectives—referential strategies, rhetorical strategies and intertextual strategy, which try to elaborate the positive image of the in-group and the negative image of the out-group, that is a negative China image before the Transition and a positive China image after the Transition.The theoretical approach of critical discourse analysis in the present dissertation applies a combination of Wodak's (1999) discourse-historical approach and van Dijk's (1997) social-cognitive approach. According to Wodak's approach, the present data is processed synchronically and diachronically, taking the different levels of contexts into consideration. Van Dijk (1997) takes ideologies as basic forms of social cognition and perceives discourse analysis as ideology analysis, therefore, according to him, ideologies are polarized between positive in-group and negative out-group. Thus our present dissertation adopts a two-process analytical approach: first, the construction of in-group and out-group or the inclusion and exclusion of in-group; second, the attachment of certain values to the different groups. Moreover, the two processes correspond to the macro- and micro-strategies in our analytical framework respectively.Results of the study show the discursive constructability of an identity and demonstrate that the dynamicity of an identity is subject to socio-political change. The specific findings of the study are briefly summerised as follows:Both before and after the Transition, Hong Kong remains a community with its own uniqueness, which can be seen from the content analysis of the three aspects—economy, politics and culture—in the two Hong Kong governments' Policy addresses.The pre-transitional Hong Kong Government's Policy Address constructs mainland China as out-group of Hong Kong and Hong Kong people are identified as people under British rule, whose internationalness is emphasized.The post-transitional Policy Address constructs mainland China as in-grouped with Hong Kong and Hong Kong people are constructed as Chinese Hongkongers with their Chineseness focused.The two distinct identities of Hong Kong people reveal that identities are dynamic, subject to socio-political change like the transfer of Hong Kong sovereignty from Britain to China.The transfer of Hong Kong identities is subject to Hongkong-China relationship.In conclusion, the study has revealed the discursive construction of the two Hong Kong identities in the Hong Kong governments' Policy Address, both pre- and post-transition. One of the contributions of this study is that it works out a framework for the analysis of the discursively constructed identity which proves to function in this present research. We believe that the discursive construction of identity is a fascinating topic that deserves our further endeavors. Although the present study has yielded some fruitful findings, more extensive research is desired so as to achieve a fuller and deeper understanding of this sociolinguistic concern.