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The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: An

Analytical Framework and a Comparative Study
of Policy Speeches in the United Kingdom and
Hong Kong
Jun Pan
Associate Professor of Interpreting and Translation Studies, Translation
Programme, Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kong SAR, China
janicepan@hkbu.edu.hk
Abstract
Political discourse, situated at the intersection of language, media and politics,

involves the participation of pragmatics at different levels. The progress of postcolo-
nialism and globalisation have resulted in emerging themes of research in this aspect
that merit further exploration. This study aims to add to the literature a ‘pragmatic
framework’ for political discourse analysis, incorporating the recent development of
corpus analysis tools. Pragmatic features including reference and co-text were exam-
ined in and illustrated by examples from a corpus consisting of policy speeches in the
United Kingdom (UK) and Hong Kong (HK) during the period of 1997 and 2017. The
study provides a unique integration of three aspects of pragmatic comparison, i.e., a
comparison of political language in a previous coloniser (i.e., United Kingdom) and
colonised region (i.e., Hong Kong), a cross-cultural juxtaposition through the lenses of
translated/interpreted language, and a historical analogy of the policy speeches deliv-
ered in the past 21 years. The study, interdisciplinary in nature, contributes to the exist-
ing research an analytical framework for the study of pragmatics in political discourse.
It also provides new insights into our knowledge of political language in the media.
Keywords
pragmatics – political discourse – analytical framework – corpus – media
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The Pragmatics of Political Discourse 253
1 Introduction
Political discourse is featured by the interaction between language, media

and politics. It underlines the significance of language in the study of poli-
tics, wherein language is not only used as a device but also consists of the
object of study in politics. For instance, scholars including Connolly (1983)
and Van Dijk (2002) have highlighted that political discourse forms a highly
ideological expression that is different from other types of discourse. It in-
cludes many different genres of political language, in particular politician and
institutional texts and talks, which constitute an important subject of study
(Wodak 1989; Van Dijk 1997, 2002; Chilton & Schäffner 2002; Chilton 2004). Po-
litical discourse analysis is empowered by both linguistic and extralinguistic
devices (Wodak 1988; Van Dijk, 1997, 2002; Fetzer & Lauerbach 2007), wherein
pragmatics is playing an increasingly significant role (Fetzer 2013a; Blas Arroyo
2015).
With the advancement of technology, media has been, in addition to serv-
ing as a platform displaying political talks and texts, playing an increasingly
important and sometimes even dominant role in modern politics. According
to Van Dijk (2002: 18), political discourse mainly includes ‘parliamentary de-
bates, bilis, laws, government or ministerial regulations’, and other genres such
as ‘propaganda, political advertising, political speeches, media interviews, po-
litical talk shows on TV, party programs, ballots, and so on’. Most of these polit-
ical activities are now presented on media platforms in forms of texts, videos,
audio recordings, etc.
As a result, growing attention has been paid to the study of political dis-
course in the media, with the view of even merging it with media discourse
(Fetzer & Lauerbach 2007; Fetzer 2013b). Among the different genres of po-
litical discourse in the media, mediated politician talks and interviews, espe-
cially those through translation or interpreting, have been particularly studied,
which have helped to provide new insights into the field of political discourse
analysis (Schäffner 1996, 2004; Schäffner & Bassnett 2010).
2 The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: An Analytical Framework
2.1 A ‘Pragmatic Framework’ for Political Discourse Analysis

Political discourse, situated at the intersection of language, media and poli-
tics, involves the participation of pragmatics at different levels. Fetzer (2013b:
2) summarises the close interplay between political discourse and pragmatic
analyses in three aspects:
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254 Pan
Because of its multilayered status regarding (1) production, recep-

tion, transmission and distribution in traditional media and new me-
dia, (2) discourse domain, viz. professional politics, grass root politics,
ordinary-life-anchored political action, public-life-anchored political
action, and media-life-anchored political action, (3) participation, viz.
politicians as professional politicians vs. ‘non-professional politicians’,
e.g. lay persons, activists and ordinary people on the one hand, and pro-
fessional political journalists and other media representatives on the
other, political discourse has become a prime candidate for pragmatic
analyses.
In order to provide pragmatic analysis of political discourse, it is important to

look into the very question of what pragmatics offers. Yule (1996) defines four
areas that pragmatics concerns with, i.e., speaker meaning, contextual mean-
ing, how more gets communicated that is said, and the study of the expression
of relative distance. The aspects addressed include deixis and distance, refer-
ence and inference, presupposition and entailment, cooperation and impli-
cature, speech acts and events, politeness and interaction, conversation and
preference structure, and discourse and culture. Ariel (2010) proposes the idea
of a ‘big-tent’ pragmatics, which includes: 1) the canon of deixis and reference,
speech acts, meaning determination, presupposition, intonation, topicality
and discourse structure, and implicates and explicated interferences, 2) func-
tional syntax that addresses the added value of construction, extragrammatical
functions, encoded construction meanings, etc., and 3) other aspects consid-
ered as beyond pragmatics, including politeness, stance, nonliteral reference,
interactional patterns, discourse styles, sociolinguistic variation and psycho-
linguistic phenomena. Archer et al. (2012) provide an updated view of the field
by bringing into the picture new paradigms of pragmatics such the pragmatics
of prosody (and gesture), cross-cultural pragmatics, historical pragmatics, and
pragmatics and power.
Almost every aspect of the aforementioned pragmatic paradigms is closely
relevant and applicable to the study of political discourse. Based on a review of
the works in both pragmatics and political discourse, a ‘pragmatic framework’
for political discourse analysis should encompass the following three layers:
1) The meaning of meaning: This layer of analysis focuses on the realisation

of (intended/implied) meaning production and reception in political
contexts (cf., speaker and contextual meaning in Yule 1996; ‘the meaning
of meaning’ in Archer et al. 2012: 24; the first layer of political discourse
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

in Fetzer 2013b). It addresses issues such as the usage of deixis and refer-
ence, presupposition and entailment, implicature and inference, speech
acts and metaphor. Studies employing analysis at this layer can often help
to anchor speaker’s (mostly politician’s) intended or implied meaning or
how it is received by the public, findings of which often contribute to (in)
effectiveness of communication in political settings. For instance, Proc-
tor and Su (2011), through a study of the first person plural in American
politicians’ interviews and debates, find that politicians’ usage of this
personal pronoun reveals their self-identification and is decided by ex-
ternal context rather than topic.
2) The structure of meaning: Analysis at this layer relates to the organisa-
tion of (intended/implied) meaning at a text and discourse level, based
on the study of texts and speeches produced in different political settings
(cf. conversation and preference structure in Yule 1996; the canon of into-
nation, and topicality and discourse structure, as well as functional syntax
in Ariel 2010; the second layer of political discourse in Fetzer 2013b). It
includes the study of pragmatic markers, conversation and preference
structure, and prosody and gesture. Relevant studies often help to unveil
certain political genres and style, and can contribute to political rhetoric.
Furkó and Abuczki (2014), for example, through analysis of bbc and cnn
interviews with political figures, examined the frequently used pragmatic
markers and highlighted their roles and strategic uses in mediatised po-
litical discourse.
3) Meaning in extended spheres: This layer of analysis addresses meaning
of the above two layers in extended spheres of politics including culture,
society and history (cf., discourse and culture in Yule 1996; most of the
other aspects considered as beyond pragmatics in Ariel 2010; the third
layer of political discourse in Fetzer 2013b). It includes aspects such as
facework and politeness, pragmatics and power, cross-cultural pragmat-
ics, and historical pragmatics. This is a relevantly new layer developed
with the advancement of research in areas such as (critical) discourse
and media analysis (also see Ariel 2010; Archer et al. 2012; Fetzer 2013b).
Sivenkova (2013), for example, offers a cross-cultural pragmatic perspec-
tive to political discourse analysis through the comparison of the sequen-
tial structure of questions and answers in British, German and Russian
political texts (debates and interviews).
It should be noted that the three layers of analysis are interrelated with each
other. Whilst elements at the layer of meaning of meaning mostly constitute

256 Pan
the building blocks of the ‘pragmatic framework’, analysis at the layer of struc-
ture of meaning focuses on the connection of these building blocks, or the
entire construction of a political discourse. The third layer, i.e., meaning in
extended spheres, nevertheless helps to situate political discourse in a broader
universe of humanities and social science.
2.2 The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: New Constellations

in Research
In the aforementioned ‘pragmatic framework’ for political discourse analysis,
research in the third layer has started to boom in the recent decade (also see
Archer et al. 2012). The progress of postcolonialism and globalisation have re-
sulted in emerging themes of research that can help to extend this exploration
of meaning in extended spheres and thus merits further exploration.
2.2.1 After Colonialism: Political Language of the Coloniser and

the Colonised
Language plays a political role in most processes of colonialism, and language
of the coloniser itself stands for a discourse of power (Errington 2008). Rel-
evant studies often pinpoint the spread of language of the coloniser as a kind
of linguistic imperialism or linguisticism, defined as ‘ideologies, structures,
and practices which are used to legitimate, effectuate and reproduce an un-
equal division of power and resources (both material and immaterial) be-
tween groups which are defined on the basis of … language’ (Skutnabb-Kangas
1988: 13; also see Phillipson 1992: 46), in particular, English linguistic imperial-
ism, as English is the language in which ‘the global process of structural and
ideological incorporation … is taking place (form), and the structures and ide-
ologies connected with English operate globally (content)’ (Phillipson 1992:
58–59).
However, as Van Dijk (1989: 21) suggests, the analysis of power should take
into consideration ‘various forms of counterpower or resistance by dominated
group’, the study of the political meaning of language of the coloniser should
also be done in relation to that of the colonised. Scholars address such rela-
tionship in particular by bringing into the discussion a ‘conversation’ with the
colonised. Pennycook (1998: 106), when addressing English and the discourses
of colonialism, brings up the very theme of riots and resistance to the British
colonial rule in Hong Kong, which ‘had led to a tendency to stress the social
and political stability of the colony, the political acquiescence and passivity
of the population, and the supposedly ubiquitous interest in financial rath-
er than political questions’. As mentioned by Pennycook (1998: 59), a further
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

exploration of postcolonial Hong Kong can offer much to the study of colo-
nialism, featured by its ‘simple pasts’ and ‘complex presents’. It is therefore
interesting to see how this ‘conversation’ between the coloniser and the col-
onised continues in a postcolonial era, which will certainly offer much to a
more updated understanding of the relationship between political discourse
and power.
2.2.2 Political Language and its Translation/Interpreting

Subsequent to the ‘cultural turn’, Translation Studies (including both trans-
lation and interpreting) has experienced a ‘power turn’ (Snell-Hornby 2006;
Strowe 2013), which ‘connects with wider studies of politics, culture, and soci-
ety as well as with discussions of translation and gender, post-colonial theory,
and translation ethics’ (Strowe 2013: 134). Translation (including interpreting)
is seen as a means to ‘power’ and/or ‘resistance’ (ibid). Strowe (2013: 140) also
points out that social media and internet provide ‘fertile ground for investigat-
ing the role of translation in political struggle, social change and revolution’.
In a postcolonial and globalised era, political texts and speeches are pre-
sented through media to the general public and sometimes translated/inter-
preted into a different language (most often English) to a global audience.
Translation/interpreting in this case forms ‘an integral part of political activ-
ity’ (Schäffner & Bassnett 2010: 13; also see Evans & Fernández 2018: 2), which
not only provides a means of ‘providing increased accessibility to information
and services’, but also a way to ‘exclude’ … “unfit”’ information, resulting in an
image of ‘how communities are represented and, consequently, understood’
(Evans & Fernández 2018: 2–4). Therefore, the study of translated/interpreted
political language allows a unique lens on cross-cultural pragmatics (cf. Siven-
kova 2013).
2.2.3 Political Discourse across Time

The study of political discourse across time has much to offer, just as historical
pragmatics can bring to us from the ‘more cognitive and universal’ to ‘the more
social and local’ (Culpeper 2010: 188). Chilton (2004), although using only two
political speeches, illustrates the ‘continuity’ of political representation over
time that goes beyond particular institutions of political talk. A retrospective
look at political discourse can also provide important information on political
history and political change (e.g., Heath et al. 1991).
The proliferation of political texts and recordings, especially with the ad-
vancement of modern technology and media channels, allows the possibil-
ity of examining political discourse through the lens of time. Similar to what

258 Pan
has been proposed in historical pragmatics (e.g., Culpeper 2010; Jucker &
Taavitsainen 2014), the usage of corpora data and corpus linguistic tools, if
employed systematically and appropriately, can help to identify patterns, not
necessarily at the lexical level, but at a more macro level, of political discourse
structures (cf. Van Dijk 1989).
2.2.4 The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: What Can Corpus/

Corpora Contribute?
The development of modern corpora and corpus analysis tools has helped
greatly to advance research in different fields. Mayaffre & Poudat (2013: 64–66)
highlight the multiple roles played by political corpus/corpora in political dis-
course analysis:
The notion of political corpus is therefore very specific within the current
scientific landscape, most likely due to its obvious multidisciplinary di-
mension: indeed, while political corpora are made up of linguistic mate-
rial (words, sentences, documents, discourses …), their scope is basically
social (e.g., understanding the political organisation of men in society,
where language is of prime importance, analysing institutional function-
ing, in which texts are determinant, understanding social or ideologi-
cal balances, exploring the balance of strength and power throughout
speeches). (Italics in the original)
When we look into the ‘pragmatic framework’ proposed above, all the three lay-
ers, especially the aforementioned new constellations of research at the third
layer of the analytical framework, when interacting with political corpora, can
generate micro (the first layer; cf. the lexical level in Van Dijk 1989) and macro
(the second layer; cf. political discourse structures in Van Dijk 1989) analysis
results that reflect on a meta-structure of political discourse (the third layer,
esp. the new constellations in research). Pan and Wong (2018, forthcoming),
for example, tapping into corpora and corpus linguistic tools, have explored
into macro analysis (i.e., pragmatic markers) that reflect on the meta-structure
of political discourse (i.e., a cross-cultural juxtaposition through the lens of
translated/interpreted language).
Figure 1 summarises the relationship between the three-layer analytical
framework and their interaction with corpus linguistics. As can be seen, the new
constellations appearing at the third layer of the analytic framework overlap
somehow with its building blocks (the first layer) and their structures (the
second layer). Corpus linguistics, grounded in the first and second layer, pro-
vides means to link matters to the third layer, esp. the new constellations in
research.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

Figure 1 The pragmatics of political discourse: an analytical framework.
3 A Corpus-based Comparative Study of Policy Speeches in the

United Kingdom and Hong Kong
3.1 Background
Hong Kong used to be a colony of the United Kingdom till 1997. In 1972, Gov-
ernor Sir Murray MacLehose issued the first policy address in colonial Hong
Kong, i.e., Address by the Governor, modelled after the Queen’s Address in the
United Kingdom.1 Simultaneous interpreting was first introduced in the leg-
islative council meetings, through which, the policy addresses were rendered
into Cantonese.2 Since its return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997, Hong Kong’s
Chief Executive followed this tradition and delivered his first policy address on
8 October in Cantonese (and interpreted into English). Parallel to the delivery
of the policy address, the Financial Secretary also delivers an annual budget
1 Hong Kong Hansard (1972–3): https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr72-73/h721018.pdf. Retrieved 31

May 2017.
2 Hong Kong Hansard (1972–3): https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr72-73/h721018.pdf. Retrieved 31
May 2017.

260 Pan
speech, a second most important policy speech by the government. Bilingual

versions of the speeches and their transcripts were published and archived
online,3 similar to the practice of the UK parliament.4
3.2 The Corpus: An Overview

Due to their significance to government policies, the policy addresses and
budget speeches delivered in postcolonial Hong Kong and their counterparts
delivered in the United Kingdom5 were chosen as subjects of study. A corpus
was constructed,6 consisting of the bilingual transcripts of these two types of
speeches delivered in the two places during a 21-year span (1997–2017).
Standard procedures for corpus compilation were performed, including data
cleaning, conversion of text encoding and character set, parallel text alignment
and insertion of header information. The corpus was then ready for analysis by
corpus linguistics analysis tools such as WordSmith 7.07and LancsBox 4.0.8
Table 1 shows the basic statistics of the corpus. As can be seen from the table,
the corpus consisted of six subsets, each included over 0.2 million word tokens,
except for UK_Policy, which was slimmer than the other subsets. Therefore,
standardised procedures were employed in the follow-up analysis to ensure
the comparability of data in each section.
Type-token ratio (ttr), a measure of lexical variation was calculated by
WordSmith 7.0 for each subset. Standardised ttr, a normalised version of the
ttr, was also calculated to obtain comparable results between the subsets (see
McEnery & Hardie 2012). According to the results, the subset HK_Policy has a
higher sttr than the rest of the English subsets, suggesting a higher level of
lexical variation in the Chief Executive speeches (and also their interpreted
versions). In comparison, the subset UK_Policy, instead of its counterpart,
UK_Budget, has the lowest STTR, suggesting a comparatively lower level of
lexical variety in this subset. One may argue that such difference is resulted
3 Hong Kong Hansard: https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/timeline/council_meet-

ings_9798.htm .Retrieved 31 May 2017. In particular, archives of the policy addresses can be
accessed from https://www.policyaddress.gov.hk/2018/eng/archives.html (Retrieved 31 Dec
2018); and those of the budget speeches from https://www.budget.gov.hk/2018/eng/previous.
html (Retrieved 31 Dec 2018).
4 Hansard: https://hansard.parliament.uk/. Retrieved 31 May 2017.
5 They are the State Opening of Parliament speeches delivered by the Queen and the Spring
and Autumn Budget Statement of the British Government delivered by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer on behalf of HM Treasury.
6 It is part of a main deliverable of a big project on political interpreting and translation (Pan,
forthcoming).
7 https://www.lexically.net/wordsmith/. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
8 http://corpora.lancs.ac.uk/lancsbox/help.php. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

Table 1 Basic statistics of the corpus
Subsets of the Corpus1 Token Type ttr sttr (per 1,000 words)
HK_Policy (Chinese) 234,769 21,113 9.15 52.24

HK_Budget (Chinese) 255,989 18,721 7.54 50.65
HK_Policy (English) 293,124 9,668 3.37 41.10
HK_Budget (English) 292,844 9,383 3.33 39.78
UK_Policy 24,850 2,433 9.82 39.49
UK_Budget 278,176 19,182 7.1 40.53
* Note:
1. HK_Policy stands for the subset of policy addresses delivered by the Chief Executives in Hong
Kong, and HK_Budget stands for the subset of budget speeches delivered by the Financial Sec-
retaries. UK_Policy stands for the State Opening of Parliament speeches delivered by the Queen
and UK_Budget for the Spring and Autumn Budget Statement delivered by the Chancellors of
the Exchequer.
from the variety of speakers of these texts, since the subset of UK_Policy is ba-
sically generated by one single speaker, i.e., the Queen. Still, it is interesting to
see that in comparison to HK_Budget, the HK_Policy subset features a slightly
higher level of lexical variety (although the number of speakers was similar),
perhaps due to the fact that it covers a wider range of topics apart from budget.
What is also worth noting is the slightly higher sttr of UK_Budget in com-
parison to HK_Budget (English) (but not to its source texts, i.e., HK_Budget
[Chinese]), which shows a possibility of (lexical) simplification in the process
of translation/interpreting.
Table 2 shows the top 50 high frequency words in the subsets of the corpus
(calculated based on relevant frequency to allow cross-subset comparison). An
interesting similarity is the highly repetitive pronoun ‘we’ (‘我們’ in Chinese)
and its possessive form ‘our’ (‘我們的’ in Chinese), and the two nouns ‘people’
(‘市民’ in Chinese) and ‘government’(政府), mostly indicative of government
and/or its people as a collective whole. There were some differences across
the subsets, though. Whilst ‘we’ and ‘our’ (and their Chinese counterpart ‘我
們’) were the most frequently used pronouns in almost all subsets, the sub-
set UK_Policy features ‘my’ (‘我的’ in Chinese) instead, suggestive of a possible
‘monarch’ perspective on policy matters. Also, the subset UK_Budget was the
only subset that ‘people’ was repeated more often than ‘government’. Another
aspect that is worthy of attention is that whilst ‘Hong Kong’ and its Chinese
counterpart ‘香港’ were repeated often in the HK subset, the proper noun
‘United Kingdom’ (UK; ‘英國’ in Chinese) had much less prominent frequency
in the UK subsets (with a relevant frequency lower than 20).

262 Pan
Table 2 Top 50 high frequency words in the subsets of the corpus
Notes:
1. Relevant frequency is calculated at the basis of every 10,000 words.
2. Although not in the list, ‘people’ had a relevant frequency of 16.86 (SD=6.49) and ranked 63
in HK_Budget (English), and ‘government’ had a relevant frequency of 23.93 (SD=12.30) and
ranked 54 in UK_Buget.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

Table 3 Top 15 2-grams of the subsets
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

The Pragmatics of Political Discourse
Notes:
1. Relevant frequency is calculated at the basis of every 10,000 words.
2. Although not in the list, ‘government will’ has a relevant frequency of 8.07 (SD=5.11) in HK_Budget (English), and 2.85(SD=2.58) in
UK_Buget. ‘We will’ has a relevant frequency of 0.46 (SD=1.82).
263

264 Pan
Apart from individual words, Ngrams (i.e., clusters of n items) were also
computed to see the preferred clusters of words that feature the policy speech-
es. Table 3 lists the top 15 2-grams computed by LancsBox 4.0. Again, relevant
frequency was reported to allow for cross-subset comparison. A similarity was
found that all subsets had the high frequency 2-gram ‘we will’ (‘我們會’ in Chi-
nese) and/or ‘government will’ (‘政府會’ in Chinese). Different from policy ad-
dresses, budget speeches featured more often ‘we have’ (‘我們已’ in Chinese)
instead of ‘government will’. Also, the subset UK_Policy most often repeated
the 2-gram ‘my government’ and ‘government will’, instead of ‘we will’, which
may again, relate to a possible ‘monarch’ perspective on policy matters.
The above basic statics offer a glimpse to the lexical features in political texts
of different cultures (HK vs. UK). The results also show the possible manipu-
lation of translation/interpreting (e.g., simplification) in political contexts. In
the following sections, in-depth analyses will be provided on the meaning of
meaning and structure of meaning, in relation to meaning in extended spheres.
3.3 The Meaning of Meaning: ‘Government’, ‘People’ and ‘We’

From a pragmatic point of view, the high frequency words, i.e. ‘government’,
‘people’ and ‘we’ refer to different yet interrelated perspectives. For instance,
‘government’, when unspecified, usually suggests the perspective of the ad-
dresser, who speaks on behalf of the government.
To ensure that Government will facilitate this process, responsibilities

now divided between several bureaux will be regrouped. One Bureau
Secretary will lead and co-ordinate the work of all those throughout the
Government organisation involved in information technology and the
related areas of broadcasting and telecommunications. (Paragraph 80,
HK_Policy subset)
It may sometimes be specified, for instance in the HK_Policy (64 occurrences;

with a relevant occurrence of 2.24) and HK_Budget (29 occurrences; with a rel-
evant occurrence of 1.01) subset to refer to the ‘Central Government’. Neverthe-
less, these cases may still suggest a speaker stance, if government is regarded a
macro term suggesting the mechanism of governance (see Palumbo 2010), of
which the addresser is part of.
The other high frequency noun, ‘people’, when unspecified, however, usu-
ally refers to the addressee of the home region/state (in this case the addressee
of the policies):
I believe that the people of Hong Kong will rise to the challenge of this
brave new era. (Paragraph 8, HK_Policy subset)
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

A Bill will be introduced to ensure that as many people as possible have

access to the benefits of the National Lottery including for health and
education projects. (Paragraph 12, UK_Policy subset)
Likewise, even though ‘people’ is sometimes specified to refer to people of oth-

er nations/groups, it is still indicative of a macro-level addressee perspective as
they may be the potential addressee of the speeches.
The pronoun ‘we’ may simply be used to refer to the addresser and other
people mentioned in the previous text:
The Duke of Edinburgh and I look forward to receiving State Visits by His
Excellency the President of Brazil in December and by Their Majesties
the Emperor and Empress of Japan next year. We also look forward to our
visit to Canada and to our State Visits to Pakistan and India. (Paragraph
2, UK_Policy subset)
Alternatively, it can be used to refer to the ‘government’, i.e., the addresser’s

perspective:
Education remains my Government’s top priority. To raise standards in

our schools, we must raise standards in teaching. (Paragraph 43, UK_Pol-
icy subset)
As compared to ‘government’, the personal pronoun ‘we’ may help to raise em-
pathy in the addressee. Sometimes, ‘we’ can even serve the purpose of uniting
the perspectives of the addresser and the addressee:
As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration

of Human Rights, my Government remain committed to the effective
promotion of human rights world-wide. (Paragraph 75, UK_Policy subset)
The high repetition rate of these three words in the corpus and their potential
indication of different yet related addresser-addressee stances made it neces-
sary to further explore their role in the discourse.
3.3.1 Distribution by Text Types and Time

Figure 2 summarises the relevant frequencies of the three words in the Eng-
lish subsets of the corpus, which were further divided into three time periods,
i.e., 1997–2003, 2004–2010, and 2011–2017. In general, the subsets HK_Policy and
HK_Budget (the right end of Figure 2) show a similar distribution of the three
high frequency words, with ‘we’ repeated more often than ‘government’ and

266 Pan
Figure 2 A comparison of the relevant frequency of ‘we’, ‘government’ and ‘people’ in the
subsets of the corpus across time.
then ‘people’, although their relevant frequencies in the latter were smaller.
Whilst the UK_Budget subset had a similar relevant frequency of ‘we’ and ‘peo-
ple’, its usage of ‘government’ was much less frequent (23.93). The UK_Policy
subset differed from the other three by featuring a much higher relevant fre-
quency of ‘government’ (209.67), a slightly higher number of ‘people’ (35.87)
and a much less frequently used ‘we’ (9.20).
Figure 2 also shows the change of the relevant frequency of the three words
over the past 21-year span. In the HK_Policy subset, whilst ‘people’ had main-
tained a relevant stable use across time, the past 21 years has seen a clear growth
of the use of ‘government’, but a decrease in the use of ‘we’, in particular during
the period 2011–2017, when it was used even less frequently than ‘government’,
similar to its pattern in the UK_Policy subset. The HK_Budget subset shows a
similar pattern of change over time, only that the word ‘we’ always remained
with the highest relevant frequency. In the UK_Policy subset, whilst ‘govern-
ment’ always remained at the top of the relevant frequency chart, its frequency
dropped drastically after reaching a peak in the period 2004–2010. A similar yet
less dramatic pattern could be found on the usage of ‘we’. An interesting finding
is the use of ‘people’ shows an opposite direction of change, although small in de-
gree, as compared to that of the other two words. The UK_Budget subset shows
a simpler pattern of change over time in which the use of all three words tends
to grow over time, except for a small recession in the use of ‘government’ in the
period 2004–2010 – exactly the opposite of its change in the UK_Policy subset.
Figure 3 provides the three high frequency words in the Chinese subsets –
‘我們 ’, ‘政府 ’ and ‘市民 ’ – which can be translated to or to a certain extent
comparable to the aforementioned three words in English. A similar pattern
can be identified, suggesting a strong source text influence posed on the Eng-
lish target texts. Nevertheless, certain differences can be identified, including
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

Figure 3 A comparison of the relevant frequency of ‘我們’ (i.e., ‘we’ in English), ‘政府’ (i.e.,
‘government’ in English) and ‘市民’ (comparable sometimes to ‘people’) in the
Chinse subsets of the corpus across time.
the much apparently reduced use of ‘市民’ and ‘我們’ in the HK_Policy sub-
set during 2011–2017 as compared to the decrease of ‘people’ and ‘we’ in the
same subset, and a less prominent use of ‘政府’ as compared to ‘我們’ in the
HK_Budget subset than in the HK_Policy subset. These nuances may suggest a
certain degree of manipulation by translation. For instance, the decreased use
of ‘people’ and ‘we’ in the Chinese source texts were slightly smoothed in the
English version, with possible influences from similar speeches in English such
as those in the UK_Policy and UK_Budget subsets, especially the latter.
3.3.2 Reference and Co-Text

As illustrated by some examples at the beginning of this section, ‘government’
is indicative of an addresser stance, ‘people’ the addressee, and ‘we’ a combina-
tion of the two. However, the analysis of the ‘intended referents’ should take
into consideration the co-text (Yule 1996: 21). Using LancsBox 4.0, the high ten-
dency collocates of the nodes can be visually represented to allow for pattern
examination across the subsets. According to Brenzina, McEnery et al. (2015)
and Brenzina, Timperley et al. (in prep), the closer the collocate is to the node,
the stronger the collocation is, and the darker the colour of the dot, the more
frequent the collocate appears.
Figure 4 shows the collocation graphs of the word ‘government’ in the Eng-
lish subsets9 of the corpus. The results indicate that whilst ‘government’ had
9 Due to the syntactic differences between English and Chinese (which is not the focus of
this paper), only the English subsets were compared in the analysis of reference and co-text

268
Figure 4 Collocation graphs of ‘government’ in the subsets of the corpusHK_Policy HK_Budget UK_Policy UK_Budget.
Note: cpn: 03 – MI (5.0), L5-R5, C: 10.0-NC: 10.0.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

Pan

the strongest collocation with ‘current-term’ in the HK subsets, the node in the
UK subsets featured the strongest collocation with ‘(commonwealth) heads’
and ‘coalition’ respectively. In addition, ‘government’ tends to ‘earmark’, ‘at-
tach’ or ‘propose’ things in HK policy addresses, but to ‘facilitate’ things in HK
budget speeches; it tends to be ‘committed’ to things in UK policy and budget
speeches. However, ‘government’ will often ‘continue’ to do things in almost all
types of speeches, except for the UK_Budget subset.
Figure 5 shows the collocation graphs of ‘people’. Interestingly, the word
tends to refer to ‘young’ people in all four subsets. Apart from ‘young’ people,
HK policy speeches also frequently referred to ‘talented’ people, and at the
outlying circle, sometimes the more disadvantaged people (e.g., the ‘elderly’,
people with ‘disabilities’, etc.). ‘People’ tend to be described as a group ‘live’ in
(HK_Policy) or ‘join’ (HK_Budget) a particular area or situation, or who are in
‘work’ (UK_Policy).
The referents of ‘we’ look more complicated (Figure 6). Whilst there was
no specific strong/frequent left collocate to ‘we’ in the UK subsets, the HK
subsets featured ‘what’ we do/are doing when mentioning ‘we’. ‘We’ tend to
‘expect’ or ‘endeavour’ in HK policy speeches, and ‘look (forward to)’ in UK
policy speeches. In UK budget speeches, the emphasis was, however, on what
‘we’ ‘inherited’. Whilst ‘we’ usually ‘must’ do things in HK policy speeches, ‘we’
frequently ‘have’ done things in HK budget speeches.
From a historical perspective, the change of co-text over time is also worthy
of exploration. Since the use of ‘government’ seems to be a more prominent
word that may help to distinguish the four subsets (‘we’ or ‘people’ has much
fewer collocates in the UK_Budget subset to allow meaningful comparison),
the change of its co-text over time was further examined. As shown in Fig-
ure 7, the (significant) collocates of ‘government’ tend to increase overtime.
Whilst the strongest collocate of ‘government’ in the HK_Policy subset was at
the beginning ‘sar’ (Special Administrative Region), which was then replaced
by ‘hksar’ and finally ‘current-term’ , its closest collocate in the HK_Budget
subset was ‘central’, then ‘leads’ (in theme of the 2004 budget speech, ‘Market
leads, Gov’t facilitates’) and finally ‘current-term’. ‘Government’ is in general
‘committed’ to things in policy addresses, but often relates to ‘expenditure’,
with a tendency to ‘facilitate’ and finally be ‘committed’ to things in the budget
speeches.
In the UK_Policy subset (Figure 8), ‘government’ had a closer relationship
to policies of ‘Ireland’ (but still most often linked to ‘my’ government) during
to allow focused discussion. The same also applies to the next section on “the structure of
meaning”.

270
Figure 5 Collocation graphs of ‘people’ in the subsets of the corpus.

Note: cpn: 03 – MI (5.0), L5-R5, C: 10.0-NC: 10.0.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

Pan

bandung 6 (2019) 252-284
The Pragmatics of Political Discourse
Figure 6 Collocation graphs of ‘we’ in the subsets of the corpus.

Note: cpn: 03 – MI (5.0), L5-R5, C: 20.0-NC: 20.0 (C: 10.0-NC: 10.0 for UK_Policy).
271

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Figure 7 Collocation graphs of ‘government’ the HK subsets across time.

Note: cpn: 03 – MI (5.0), L5-R5, C: 10.0-NC: 10.0.
Figure 8 Collocation graphs of ‘government’ the UK subsets across time.

Note: cpn: 03 – MI (5.0), L5-R5, C: 10.0-NC: 10.0.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

1997–2003, and then ‘my’ government after 2004. It tended to be ‘committed’

to things during 1997–2010, and then ‘continue’ to do things after 2011. In the
UK_Budget subset, ‘government’ at the beginning tended to be associated
with ‘previous’ government during 1997–2003, and then ‘coalition’ govern-
ment during 2011–2017, although ‘this’ government is still the most frequent
collocation.
3.4 The Structure of Meaning: ‘Government Will’ and ‘We Will’
Since the structure ‘government will’ and ‘we will’ were in general repeated
most often in the corpus, it is worthwhile to look into their underlying struc-
ture of meaning. Using LancsBox 4.0, the high tendency collocates of the two
phrases can be visually represented and cross-examined. The results can be
seen Figure 9. In the HK_Policy subset, ‘government’ and ‘we’ will both ‘seek’,
‘launch’, ‘consider’, ‘continue’, ‘strengthen’, ‘introduce’ and ‘implement’ things,
although ‘we will’ more proactively ‘endeavour’ to do or ‘explore’ things and
‘government will’ more often ‘provide’ things. In the HK_Budget subset, ‘gov-
ernment’ and ‘we’ will both ‘continue’ to do, ‘allocate’ or ‘work’ on things, but
‘we will’ most probably ‘spend’ and ‘government will’ most probably ‘provide’
or ‘pay’ things. ‘Government will’ often ‘continue’ things in the UK_Policy
subset, while ‘we will’ often ‘consult’ people on things in the UK_Budget
subset.
As a matter of fact, the only time ‘government will’ appeared in the UK_
Policy subset was to ‘continue’ to do things:
My Government will continue to work for a more effective global effort

to reduce poverty, building on the United Nations Millennium Develop-
ment Goals and on progress achieved at the recent Monterrey Confer-
ence on Financing for Development. Britain’s aid budget will be increased
and we will work to implement the Africa Action Plan in response to the
New Partnership for Africa’s Development. (Paragraph 248, UK_Policy
subset)
If the statistical significance of the collocation is lowered to the default

setting in the UK_Budget subset, ‘government will’ most probably ‘con-
tribute’ to things, in a way similar to its preferred structure in the HK
subsets.
As the phrase ‘government will’ seems to favour a ‘providing’ (except for
the UK_Policy subset) subsequence in general, a cross-time comparison was

274
Figure 9 Collocation graphs of ‘government will’ and ‘we will’ in the subsets of the corpus.
Note: cpn: 03 – MI (5.0), L0-R5, C: 10.0-NC: 10.0.
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Pan

Figure 10
Collocation graphs of ‘government
will’ in the UK_Budget subset.
Note: cpn: 03 – MI (3.0), L0-R5,
C: 5.0-NC: 5.0.
erformed to test if this relationship sustains over time. According to Figure 11,
p
whilst the frequent collocates of ‘government will’ increased over time, the
phrase favoured ‘continue’ first, then ‘allocate’, and finally ‘earmark’ (HK_Poli-
cy) or ‘pay’ (HK_Budget) – the favoured ‘providing’ structure grows over time
in the HK subsets.
Likewise, in the UK_Budget subset (the UK_Policy subset has too small a
number of the phrase to be taken into consideration), ‘government will’ tend
to ‘continue’ things during an earlier stage (1997–2003) and then ‘be’ in a spe-
cial status more recently (2011–2017).
4 Conclusions and Implications
The study set out to investigate the pragmatics of political discourse based on
a three-layer analytical framework that examines the meaning of meaning, the
structure of meaning and meaning in extended spheres. Applying corpus anal-
ysis tools and software and through a comparative study of policy speeches in
the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, the study addresses new issues in this
discipline and provides rigours findings relating to the three layers of analysis,
touching upon matters such as political language of the coloniser and the colo-
nised in a postcolonial period of time, political language and its translation/
interpreting, and political discourse across time.
4.1 ‘Government’, ‘People’ or ‘We’: to Include the Addressee or Not

‘Government’, ‘people’ or ‘we’ were found to be frequently repeated words in
most UK and HK policy speeches. According to Chilton (2004: 201), language
choices and features including ‘forms of address … that express distance or
solidarity’ may ‘indexcially’ express ‘group boundaries and bonding’, which
can further ‘implicitly signal political distinctions’. The mixed use of the three
words identified in the corpus – ‘government’, ‘people’ or ‘we’– which refer to

276
Figure 11 Collocation graphs of ‘government will’ in the HK subsets overtime.
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Pan
Note: cpn: 03 – MI (3.0), L0-R5, C: 5.0-NC: 5.0.

Figure 12 Collocation graphs of ‘government will’ in the UK_Budget

subset overtime.
Note: cpn: 03 – MI (3.0), L0-R5, C: 5.0-NC: 5.0.
different perspectives of address, suggests some ambiguity/certainty of ad-

dresser stance (change) that may ‘implicitly signal political distinctions’ (ibid).
Among the different text types, the Queen’s policy speeches were the most
prominent in that they feature the greatest extent of addresser stance as far as
the usage of ‘government’ is concerned, although its frequency had dropped
significantly during 2011–2017 after a peak in 2004–2010. The distance between
‘government’ and ‘people’ is one that can hardly be bridged by the compara-
tively low frequency of the word ‘we’. The UK budget statements, nevertheless,
employ a comparatively safer term ‘we’ to unite the addresser and addressee,
in the meanwhile by keeping the use of ‘government’ low – this trend has be-
come more prominent over the years, especially during 2011–2017. Both the
policy and budget statements show a clear addresser stance highlighting ei-
ther the absolute addresser (i.e. ‘government’) or mixed addresser (i.e. ‘we’),
and the tendency of including more addressees by the small yet increased use
of ‘people’ over the years.
In the HK subsets, ‘government’ seems to be awkwardly sandwiched be-
tween ‘we’ and ‘people’, with ‘we’ on the top yet dropping over the years, sug-
gesting an uncertain addresser stance. The struggling addresser stance can be
especially seen when the use of ‘government’ for the first time surpassed that
of ‘we’, accompanied by the slightly reduced use of ‘people’ in the HK policy
addresses during 2011–2017. This change may also be reflective of a growing
self-recognition of an addresser identity as part of the ‘government’ system by
chief executives in postcolonial Hong Kong, after enjoying 14 years of political
autonomy since 1997.
4.1.1 ‘People’ and ‘We’: Distance and Time

Different from the usage of ‘government’, the co-texts of ‘people’ and ‘we’ sug-
gest some shared features relating to distance and time. For instance, when
‘people’ were mentioned, all types of policy speeches seem to employ a ‘remote’
addressee stance by addressing ‘young people’, or the future generation. This
may seem contradictory to one of the central claims by Chilton (2004: 204),
‘role-players in the discourse world are “positioned” more or less close to “me”
or “us”’, yet as a matter of fact suggests that ‘government’ is ‘forward-looking’

278 Pan
as it takes into account the future generation, the way it takes into account
‘people’ in need (e.g., elderly, people with disabilities, working class, etc.).
In addition, the use of ‘we’ implies significantly different subsequent action
in policy and budget speeches in general, with a ‘forward-looking’ perspective
in policy speeches, and ‘retrospective’ perspective in budget speeches, since
the latter is based on more concrete (i.e. financial) resources a government has
access to.
4.1.2 What (of) ‘Government’

When the word ‘government’ and its co-text are examined, the Queen’s policy
speeches were the most prominent again as it is the only text type that features
most frequently the collocation of ‘my government’ (although policies of ‘Ire-
land’ has a greatest tendency to be addressed during 1997–2003). Likewise, ‘this
government’ has been the most frequent collocation in UK budget speeches
over time, although a new tendency is to refer it to a ‘coalition government’
(in particular during 2011–2017), possibly triggered by the recent wave of Brexit
uncertainty.
The HK policy addresses, however, shows again an uncertainty of addressee
stance, as they feature at the beginning an ‘other’s’ perspective via the ten-
dency of using the ‘sar’ and ‘hksar’ government, and then more recently
the use of ‘current-term’ government. In the HK budget speeches, the ‘other’s’
perspective is even more prominent as ‘central’ government appears to be
the closest collocation before 2004, and then more recently the ‘current-term’
government. The shared tendency of using ‘current-term’ government,
again, may be indicative of a postcolonial stance reflection and growing
self-recognition.
4.2 ‘Government will’: ‘Continu’-ing is Safe

As compared to what ‘we will’ do, ‘government will’ in policy speeches in gen-
eral ‘continue’ to be in a status, or at most ‘provide’ things, in either postcolo-
nial Hong Kong or its previous coloniser (United Kingdom), and even across
time.
From the government’s perspective, ‘continu’-ing is safe as it show the
previous measures or policies of the same or the macro government system
are correct and have merits. This does not go against the fact that politicians
sometimes attack the measure of the previous or opposite government. What
is strengthened here is the discourse of governance, either the ‘network forms
of organisation’ or the ‘rearticulation of national authority between the state
and a growing number of territorial and functional jurisdictions located above,
beneath and beside it’ (Palumbo 2010: xvi-xvii).
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

When government will ‘provide’ things, the emphasis then becomes the re-
sources that a government has. This is especially the case in budget speeches
when resources are planned for allocation. Again, the pattern underlies some
safe governance under which the resources are sufficient.
Findings of the study therefore in general support the other central claim by
Chilton (2004: 205) that ‘the self is positioned at the intersection that is con-
ceptualised not only as “here” and “now” but also as “right” and “good”’. Such
an emphasis on ‘right’ and ‘good’ should be considered in association with the
fact that political discourse is becoming a ‘media politics’ discourse (Iyengar
2018), and the political texts analysed in the study are those posted through
media (i.e. the internet).
4.3 New Constellations in Research: What Has Been and Is

Yet to Be Offered
The present study provides insights into the new constellations in the research
of pragmatics of political discourse, and at the same time, suggests new direc-
tions of exploration.
4.3.1 Political Language of the Coloniser and the Colonised in a

Postcolonial Period of Time
As mentioned, the delivery of policy addresses and budget speeches in Hong
Kong was initially modelled after the practice of its previous coloniser. The
language features identified in these speeches, nevertheless, indicate a gradual
process of maturation of its own ‘political distinctions’ (Chilton 2004: 201).
Different from the UK policy and budget statements, which has its distinc-
tive features regarding the usage of the three high frequency words, HK policy
and budget speeches seem to share much similarities with each other (e.g., fre-
quency rates, collocation patterns). In addition, the structure ‘government will’
and ‘we will’ share certain action verbs in the HK policy and budget speeches.
These findings suggest that in postcolonial Hong Kong, addressers of policy
addresses and budget speeches, different from the Queen and the Chancellors
in the United Kingdom, seem to act more collectively and in a consistent way,
perhaps in search of an identity to be associated to the macro-system of the
‘government’, which, seems to gradually emerge during the period 2011–2017 in
policy addresses.
On the other hand, budget speeches in HK and UK share slightly more than
their policy statements, for instance, the shared focus on what ‘we’ have in the
past, which, to a certain extent, supports a continuation of ‘the supposedly
ubiquitous interest in financial … questions’ (Pennycook 1998: 106) in postco-
lonial Hong Kong.

280 Pan
In sum, the study indicates that the political language of the coloniser
seems to exert a much smaller influence on the colonised in a postcolonial
period of time, except perhaps in more formalised texts such as those dealing
with f inancial issues. The previously colonised, nevertheless, takes some time
to seek its own language with ‘political distinction’ (Chilton 2004). Future stud-
ies may take into consideration the comparison of political language in the
colonised during colonial and postcolonial periods of time, and find out more
about how language features reflecting the ‘counterpower’ or ‘resistance’ (Van
Dijk 1989) change over time.
4.3.2 Political Language and its Translation/Interpreting

The study is relevant to translation and interpreting at two levels. First of all,
all English texts of the HK subsets analysed in the study were translated/in-
terpreted from their Chinese originals. The results of the actual occurrences
of the high frequency words in the Chinese source texts and their English
counterparts indicate certain degree of manipulation through translation/in-
terpreting, which helps to draw the translated English language closer to its
target language in similar political settings. Such a practice may aim to make
the target texts more acceptable among the target language readers so that
translation can provide ‘increased accessibility to information and services’,
and also, through the ‘smoothing’ process that reduces certain differences, can
therefore ‘represent’ the translated as similar to its target language readers (Ev-
ans & Fernández 2018: 2–4).
On a different level, the policy addresses and budget speeches in HK can
to some extent be regarded as translated from the coloniser to the colonised,
and sustained in a postcolonial period of time. When translation is looked at
through this macro-lens of view, the different representation of ‘government’
and the structure of meaning unveiled by ‘government will’ may be interpreted
as a process of ‘ideology’ construction (Evans & Fernández 2018), and at the
same time may imply a certain kind of ‘counterpower’ or ‘resistance’ (Van Dijk
1989) to the previously colonised. The shared features in the process of repre-
senting ‘people’ in the political discourse of the two places, however, unveils
‘the need to establish a shared political language that allows understanding
between a variety of social agents while encouraging social transformation’
(Evans & Fernández 2018: 8).
Whilst the specific strategies of translation/interpreting of political lan-
guage is worthy of further exploration, an extended look at the translation of
political language in other ideologies will definitely have much to offer to the
understanding of translation and politics at large.
bandung 6 (2019) 252-284

4.3.3 Political Discourse across Time

The present study, tapping into corpus analysis tools, looks into the change of
political discourse in two different places over a 21-year span. The changing
pattern of the language features identified in the study suggests two interre-
lated trajectories. First of all, political discourse takes time to stabilise and it
is especially so for new (esp. postcolonial) governments, as suggested by the
changed language features in HK policy speeches. At the same time, some po-
litical events or happenings may find their narratives in certain language fea-
tures in the political discourse, as suggested by the constantly repeated theme
of the 2004 HK budget speech, and the increased collocation of ‘coalition
government’ in the HK budget speeches during 2011–2017. The two trajecto-
ries, when combined, contribute to Chilton’s (2004: 204) idea of ‘path schema’,
which ‘because it is involved in the conceptualisations of time and also of ac-
tion, appears in political discourse as a means of representing policies, plans,
national history and grand ideas like “progress”’.
The significance of the present study lies in that instead of using political
events/happenings as the starting point of analysis (cf. Chilton 2004), it sort of
let the data speak for itself and unveil the possible trend of ‘progress’. Future
studies in this aspect may, however, use a mixed approach to organise data by
politic events/happenings on a regular time frame, e.g., by government terms
or election periods.
In conclusion, the present study, tapping into the development of modern
corpus linguistic tools, provides rich findings on policy speeches in the United
Kingdom and Hong Kong that show how the analysis of the meaning of mean-
ing and the structure of meaning can be explored in association with meaning
in extended spheres. Whilst the study generated vigorous findings that can
shed light on the pragmatics of political discourse, it should be noted that the
corpus used in the study only covers the period of postcolonial Hong Kong
and policy speeches, which consist of only one genre of political discourse.
It will be useful, therefore, to include much more varieties of political texts
and a longer period of time in future analyses. Also, the study only focused on
highly repeated linguistic features relating to reference and co-text. It will also
be interesting to look into other linguistic features that can help to distinguish
different political text types overtime, for instance through methods such as
the multi-dimensional approach (Biber 1988).
Despite its limitations, the study proposed a three-layer analytical frame-
work for the study of pragmatics of political discourse and employed the
framework in a case study of policy speeches in the United Kingdom and Hong
Kong. The study provides findings that can shed light on issues such as political

282 Pan
language of the coloniser and the colonised in a postcolonial period of time,

political language and its translation/interpreting, as well as political discourse
across time, all of which may serve as starting points for future explorations
that can help to enrich the new constellations of research in an era language,
media and politics are closely related to and interacting with each other.
Acknowledgements
This study is sponsored by hksar’s Research Grants Council under its Early
Career Scheme (Project Number: 22608716).
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The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: An

Political discourse, situated at the intersection of language, media and politics,

pragmatics – political discourse – analytical framework – corpus – media

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2019 | doi:10.1163/21983534-00602006

Political discourse is featured by the interaction between language, media

2 The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: An Analytical Framework

2.1 A ‘Pragmatic Framework’ for Political Discourse Analysis

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Because of its multilayered status regarding (1) production, recep-

In order to provide pragmatic analysis of political discourse, it is important to

1) The meaning of meaning: This layer of analysis focuses on the realisation

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2.2 The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: New Constellations

2.2.1 After Colonialism: Political Language of the Coloniser and

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2.2.2 Political Language and its Translation/Interpreting

2.2.3 Political Discourse across Time

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2.2.4 The Pragmatics of Political Discourse: What Can Corpus/

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Figure 1 The pragmatics of political discourse: an analytical framework.

3 A Corpus-based Comparative Study of Policy Speeches in the

1 Hong Kong Hansard (1972–3): https://www.legco.gov.hk/yr72-73/h721018.pdf. Retrieved 31

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speech, a second most important policy speech by the government. Bilingual

3.2 The Corpus: An Overview

3 Hong Kong Hansard: https://www.legco.gov.hk/general/english/timeline/council_meet-

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Table 1 Basic statistics of the corpus

HK_Policy (Chinese) 234,769 21,113 9.15 52.24

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Table 2 Top 50 high frequency words in the subsets of the corpus

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via communal account

3.3 The Meaning of Meaning: ‘Government’, ‘People’ and ‘We’

To ensure that Government will facilitate this process, responsibilities

It may sometimes be specified, for instance in the HK_Policy (64 occurrences;

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A Bill will be introduced to ensure that as many people as possible have

Likewise, even though ‘people’ is sometimes specified to refer to people of oth-

Alternatively, it can be used to refer to the ‘government’, i.e., the addresser’s

Education remains my Government’s top priority. To raise standards in

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration

3.3.1 Distribution by Text Types and Time

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3.3.2 Reference and Co-Text

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via communal account

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Figure 5 Collocation graphs of ‘people’ in the subsets of the corpus.

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via communal account

Figure 6 Collocation graphs of ‘we’ in the subsets of the corpus.

via communal account

Figure 7 Collocation graphs of ‘government’ the HK subsets across time.

Figure 8 Collocation graphs of ‘government’ the UK subsets across time.

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1997–2003, and then ‘my’ government after 2004. It tended to be ‘committed’

3.4 The Structure of Meaning: ‘Government Will’ and ‘We Will’