Decoding intentions in evaluations

A discursive study of disputants’ discourses in Chinese family mediation

Dados Bibliográficos

ID6421764
AutoresMeiqi Li (0009-0007-3472-8672, Chongqing University), Ting Jiang (0000-0002-2276-9174, Chongqing University, autor correspondente), Yuanpeng Zou (0000-0003-3482-3112, Chongqing University)
Ano2024
Volume36
Fascículo2
Páginas248-266
Data de publicação2024-07-25
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoDiscourse & Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0957-9265 • E-ISSN: 1460-3624
EditoraSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/09579265241264884
OpenAlexW4400987723
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas57

Applying discourse analysis, this paper scrutinizes disputants’ discourses in Chinese family mediation, with an aim to reveal how evaluations are employed to manifest their intentions. By adopting a mixed method combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this article analyzes the transcriptions of six authentic recordings of family mediation sessions in Chinese mainland. The results indicate that, first, three categories of evaluations encoding intentions are identified in disputants’ discourses including ethical evaluation, affective evaluation, and informative evaluation; second, disputants’ particular intentions are decoded by their evaluations expressed through specific semantic forms. Additionally, these evaluations conveying varied intentions, are deeply motivated by Chinese socio-cultural values of mianzi (face), renqing (emotion), and guanxi (relationship

China · Discourse analysis · Face (sociological concept · Guanxi · Linguistics · Mainland China · Mediation · Political science · Sociology · Conflict Management and Negotiation · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Psychology · Social Psychology