Understanding recommended intertextual practices in Chinese composition guidebooks in postcolonial Hong Kong

Abstract

Traditional Chinese culture constituents a key part of the secondary Chinese language curriculum in postcolonial Hong Kong, while how it has been presented, interpreted, and transmitted to school students remains understudied. To inform curriculum development, we delved into a collection of Chinese composition guidebooks currently available in the local market to understand how intertextual practices constructed in these instructional materials might position traditional Chinese ideologies in relation to some special aspirations of the postcolonial territory (including the forms of “democracy” opposed by the Chinese central government). Drawing upon the language socialization theory (Duff & May, 2017) and adopting a critical discourse analysis perspective on educational texts (Luke, 1995), we regard these guidebooks—written by academics, textbook compilers, school teachers, “star” private tutors, and high-scoring school graduates—as a powerful means that socializes students into competent members of a target discourse community. Data-driven textual analyses revealed that the words and deeds of Chinese personalities in classical and contemporary times exemplifying the Confucian heritage were valued intertextual resources and students were encouraged to flexibly apply them to different writing topics; at the same time, it was also found that contemporary personalities and social issues in Hong Kong—including those that would have been construed as “anti-government” forces—were also part of the intertextual repertoire. Given the on-going changes of the political environment in Hong Kong, we anticipate that the hybridity of the discourses observed in the study would continue to evolve in the coming years. Our study has implications for intertextual education in postcolonial contexts and language socialization research focusing on the schooling processes. Analysis of the recommended intertextual practices in these guidebooks, which may also have prevailed in secondary school writing courses, can trigger critical reflection of the cultural content and ideologies embedded in such practices, and facilitate renovations of writing pedagogies. Keywords: Intertextual practices; Traditional Chinese culture; Critical discourse analysis References Duff, P., & May, S (Eds.) (2017). Language socialization: Encyclopedia of language and education. Springer. Luke, A. (1995). Text and discourse in education: An introduction to critical discourse analysis. Review of Research in Education, 21, 3-48.