ABSTRACT
At the 2011 inauguration ceremony of the Central Government Offices (CGO), then Chief Executive (CE) Donald Tsang Yam-kuen declared that the design of the complex was to be consistent “with the main themes of ‘Doors Always Open’, ‘Land Always Green’, ‘Sky Will Be Blue’ and ‘People Will Be Connected’. However, in the summer of 2014, the Square was officially closed off to the public, as three-metre high fences were installed around the forecourt amid the government’s concern over security risks. Creators of discursive illusions (typically powerful groups in society, or discourse clans), with access to proliferative mediums (e.g. mass/social media), often employ particular semantico-pragmatic and lexico-syntactic resources to persuade audiences of the legitimacy of their conceptualizations. Establishment of consent on part of audiences regarding a particular representation of reality can generate a collective illusion, resulting in homogeneity in terms of in-group beliefs and practices.
