ABSTRACT
This is the first chapter to approach PDA at the contextual level. The chapter begins with an exploration of the nature of context in politics, arguing that context defines politics, i.e., the notion ‘context’ resides in its orders of manifestation, models of theorization and modes of representation, and that context makes politics, i.e., the semiotic context construes, enacts and endangers political meaning in context. Then applying the matrix of instantiation-stratification, this chapter moves on to explore the political culture in Hong Kong by examining the political context, democratic movement and political institutions before focusing on the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong. Thirdly, it situates political events in the functional model of context of language and discusses the contextual parameters of a televised meeting between the government officials and student representatives in the middle of the Umbrella Movement. Fourthly, it constructs the explicated political agendas of the two political parties in the meeting through the discourse historical approach and finally highlights their hidden agendas through a genre analysis of the meeting.
