ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates how various Chinese discourses interact—Chinese in the sense of being practiced in contemporary China and undeniably influenced by its underlying culture. It focuses on three types of discourse. The first is political and represented by Chinese leaders’ speeches, the second is legal and practiced by the legal community, and the third is public and manifests in how the news media comments on both the political and legal contexts via print. The chapter shows the vertical relationship of authority and power via a widely publicized legal case, the so-called “Huugjilt case,” characterized by the quick sentencing of Huugjilt for murder in 1996 and its complete reversal in 2014: one case, two verdicts. It examines some of the abovementioned contingencies unique to Chinese language, culture and politics which are helpful in understanding the interplay of the discourses involved.
