Language and Intercultural Communication

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Styling the occidental other: interculturality in

Chinese university performances

Trevor Grimshaw

To cite this article: Trevor Grimshaw (2010) Styling the occidental other: interculturality in
Chinese university performances, Language and Intercultural Communication, 10:3, 243-258, DOI:
10.1080/14708470903348564

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Language and Intercultural Communication
Vol. 10, No. 3, August 2010, 243
258

Styling the occidental other: interculturality in Chinese university

performances
Trevor Grimshaw*

Department of Education, University of Bath, Bath, UK

Essentialist representations of the Orientalised Other abound within the literature

of intercultural communication. The dominant discourse constructs Chinese-
speaking students as members of a homogenised collective: passive recipients of
knowledge who are reliant on a reproductive approach to learning. This article
seeks to offer a corrective to such notions, which underestimate the complexity
and dynamism of Chinese academic cultures. Using a critical ethnographic
approach, it examines interdiscourse communication within the context of
institutional performances. In ‘international evenings’ and ‘debate contests’
Chinese-speaking students are observed to engage in acts of ‘crossing’ and
‘styling’, involving the selective and playful appropriation of the discourses of the
Other. These communicative events are thus seen as sites of discursive struggle
and transculturation in which hybrid identities are negotiated and contradictory
subjectivities are produced.
Keywords: identities; styling; crossing; interculturality; otherisation

Introduction
Recent literature on intercultural communication has challenged the essentialist view
of the social world as a collection of discrete and mutually exclusive cultures which
constrain and determine the actions of individuals. Instead, research has increasingly
emphasised the diversity within cultures, as well as the blurring of boundaries that
occurs when communities interact (Holliday, Hyde, & Kullman, 2004; Kramsch,

*Email: [email protected]

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244 T. Grimshaw

2001; Piller, 2007). In particular, ethnographic sociolinguistics has provided insights

into the discursive practices of ‘crossing’ and ‘styling’, whereby participants transfer
linguistic and cultural forms across social and geographical space (Rampton, 1995,
1998, 1999, 2000, 2005). This highlights the importance of identity as the locus of
cultural continuity and change (Lin, 2007; Norton, 2000).
Meanwhile, with the continuing internationalisation of higher education and the
increase in academic mobility, it is more important than ever to develop our
understanding of the processes of interdiscourse communication within a globalised
context (De Wit, 2002; Golz, 2006; Jones & Brown, 2007; McNamara & Harris,
1997; Smart, 2001). More specifically, the growing significance of the Chinese-
speaking world as an economic and cultural force prompts serious consideration of
how members of Chinese educational cultures perceive, construct and interact with
their ‘Western’ counterparts (Postiglione, 2006; Yang, 2002; Zweig & Changgui,
1996). However, to date little research has been conducted in this area.
This article, based on ethnographic research conducted in universities in the
People’s Republic of China and the UK, seeks to address the gap in the literature.
The study was driven by the following research question: How are Chinese-speaking
students engaging with the linguistic and cultural forms of the Anglophone ‘West’?
In the article I describe and analyse two types of institutional performance:
‘international evenings’ and ‘debate contests’. I argue that these communicative
events serve as illuminative instances of the processes of intercultural interaction.
The findings highlight the complexity of intercultural discourse. They also offer a
more nuanced image of Chinese academic cultures than that which occurs in much of
the existing literature; and they prompt us to reassess some of the claims made by
theorists of linguistic and cultural imperialism. It is hoped that the conclusions will
resonate with researchers operating in other contexts.

Critical perspectives on interculturality and identity

Before presenting and analysing the data, we need a conceptual framework in which
to situate them. Several strands of literature are particularly pertinent to this study.
These deal with: our general view of culture; the conceptualisation of identity; the
role of ‘crossing’ and ‘styling’ in the formation of identity; and the implications for
our understanding of the notions of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’. A recurrent theme is the role
of performance in the creation and shaping of identities.
Let us start with culture. Much of the literature of intercultural communication
takes an essentialist perspective in that it treats cultures as homogenous, monolithic
entities which are associated with specific places (often countries) and languages (e.g.
Gudykunst, 2003; Hofstede, 2003). Moreover, it assumes that cultural ‘essences’ are
the primary influence on the formation of the character of the individual, i.e. that
people’s beliefs and behaviours are determined by their membership of a specific
(often national or ethnic) group. Although this perspective is associated with
reductionism and cultural stereotyping, it is for many people ‘the default way of
thinking about how we are different from each other’ (Holliday, 2005, p. 18). In
contrast, the non-essentialist view
which is underpinned by social constructivist
theory
encourages us to see culture as ‘a social force’; as something that ‘can be
characterized by a discourse as much as by a language’ (Holliday et al., 2004, p. 4).
According to this perspective, individuals ‘are influenced or make use of a
multiplicity of cultural forms’ (Holliday et al., 2004, p. 5).
 Language and Intercultural Communication 245

This has important implications for our view of identity. The link between
discourse and social identity is well established within the literature of social
anthropology (Gumperz, 1982; Scollon & Scollon, 2001). However, a non-essentialist
perspective highlights the complexity and dynamism of the cultural environment
within which identities are formed: an environment where global, national, local and
individual realities overlap and interact (Lin, 2007; Norton, 2000; Pavlenko &
Blackledge, 2004). It also places identity at the centre of the structure
agency
dialectic. Two aspects of identity exist in constant tension. On the one hand
individuals are determined by inherited identities, including the stereotypes that they
hold of one another. On the other hand, individuals make creative use of these
semiotic resources, turning and modifying them to form new identities (Holliday
et al., 2004, p. 19). The relationship between structure and agency is mediated by
discourses. These ‘map out’ the parameters of thought and action by classifying the
meanings which are available to us. However, it is by mastering and manipulating
these same discourses that we are able to ‘speak and write ourselves into existence’
(Scollon, 1995, p. 27).
In seeking to describe these complex processes, theorists often have recourse to
metaphors. In a statement that is of particular significance in the context of
the current study, Usher and Edwards (1994, p. 147) explain that: ‘as subjects, we
create and re-create ourselves through the stories that are told and where we
ourselves figure as the characters in the drama’. Dramaturgical metaphors
also feature prominently in the symbolic interactionist tradition of social theory,
which emphasises the centrality of performances in the maintenance of social
relations and the construction of self (Blumer, 1969; Goffman, 1990, 1991;
Pellegrino, 2005). The current study follows Goffman’s (1990, p. 32) definition of
‘performance’ as:
all the activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous
presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the
observers.

In his seminal studies of ‘the presentation of self’, Goffman views all communication
as performances in which each individual implicitly seeks to impress his or her own
version of reality upon others. Goffman describes how social actors, while ‘playing
their parts’, constantly redefine their identity in response to their audience. This is
most evident in Goffman’s (1991) ethnographic studies of public institutions, which
include analyses of ‘ceremonial practices’ such as institutional theatricals.
Of course, language is not the only semiotic resource. In performing commu-
nicative acts participants may employ multiple modalities (music, dance, para-
linguistics, etc.) and multiple discursive strategies (Cope & Kalantzis, 1999).
However, language plays a key role in these processes of identity construction and
impression management, serving as both a ‘prop for identity’ and an instrument for
empowerment. Linguistic practices are also intrinsic to the construction of social
categories.
In recent years, in a shift that reflects the movement from essentialist to non-
essentialist views of culture, sociolinguistics has displayed a change of emphasis from
speech occurring within contexts to speech occurring across contexts (Rampton,
1995, 1999). Previously researchers tended to treat speech communities as relatively
stable entities with firm boundaries: a view that was supported by the essentialist
246 T. Grimshaw

fallacy of assuming one-to-one connections between languages and cultures. It was

assumed that participants developed their communicative repertoires largely by
drawing upon the stylistic resources of the immediate community. The norms and
values associated with language styles tend to be discussed in terms of their
transmission between generations. However, it is increasingly acknowledged that
participants develop their repertoires by appropriating the linguistic codes and
behavioural norms of cultural out-groups. In his studies of multiracial urban youth
cultures in the UK, Rampton (1998, p. 291) uses the term ‘crossing’ to describe ‘the
use of a language which isn’t generally thought to ‘‘belong’’ to the speaker’. While
speakers sometimes appropriate out-group forms in order to express affinity, at other
times they do so in playful or ironic ways, thus expressing various degrees of distance
from the original users.
A related notion, which provides the main focus of the current study, is ‘styling’.
Rampton (2000, p. 421), defines this as the ‘ways in which people use language and
dialect in discursive practice to appropriate, explore, reproduce or challenge
influential images and stereotypes of groups that they don’t themselves (straightfor-
wardly) belong to’ (original italics). Sociolinguists have long recognised that people
identify themselves and others on the basis of speech styles (Coupland, 2007).
However, when linguistic and cultural forms are transposed and recontextualised, the
‘taste’ or ‘flavour’ of the regular usage is carried over to the new context (Bakhtin, as
cited in Bell, 1999, pp. 524
552). Moreover, social actors often rework the semiotic
resources of the ‘Other’ in order to create alternative messages. When engaging in
‘styling’, participants project their own identities; but, simultaneously, they also
project the identities of the original speakers. The interweaving of habitual and
appropriated elements creates a complex tissue of meanings and impressions. It thus
becomes difficult for the observer to know exactly where the ‘Self’ is separated from
the ‘Other’ (cf. Kramsch, 2001, p. 209).
The concepts of ‘Self’ and ‘Other’ are of central importance to the subject matter
of the current study. As Holliday et al. (2004, p. 5) point out, much of the literature of
intercultural communication operates according to the essentialist assumption that
‘to communicate with someone who is foreign or different we must first understand
the details or stereotype of their culture’. This is very evident in the case of Chinese
students, who, as members of ‘Confucian Heritage Cultures’, are commonly
described as being oriented towards a reproductive style of learning (Ballard, 1996;
Biggs, 1996; Brick, 1991; Flowerdew, 1998; Rastall, 2006). Pennycook (1998) notes
that, at its worst, this discourse constructs Chinese students as plagiarists who are
unable to achieve original expression. The stereotype of ‘the Chinese learner’ has
been linked to a long-established Orientalist discourse within which the liberating,
modernising ‘West’ portrays itself in self-flattering opposition to an unenlightened,
culturally deficient ‘Rest’ (Clark & Gieve, 2006; Grimshaw, 2007; Holliday, 2005;
Pennycook, 1998).
This is related to a broader literature which problematises various forms of
Western cultural imperialism, including education and the media (e.g. Sreberny-
Mohammadi, 1997). One aspect of this is the linguistic imperialism thesis, which
posits English as a ‘Trojan horse’, covertly carrying neo-colonialist ideologies into
the cultural domains of the ‘Periphery’ (Phillipson, 1992).
However, theories of cultural imperialism risk unfairly representing ‘non-
Western’ cultures as passive, disempowered victims. Such theories carry an implicit
assumption that the inhabitants of the ‘Periphery’ lack the resources to defend
 Language and Intercultural Communication 247

themselves against the impositions of the ‘West’ (Canagarajah, 1999). In the case of
China, all evidence seems to be to the contrary. Historical accounts from the field of
comparative education suggest that educational transfers have always been con-
ducted with caution and in full consciousness of the risk of dependency. At various
times Japanese, American, European and Soviet patterns have all been applied within
the Chinese context. But policies have always been driven by a discourse of principled
eclecticism (Agelasto & Adamson, 1998; Hayhoe & Bastid, 1987; Jing, 1993).
Attitudes towards English language education in China are similarly ambivalent
(Dzau, 1990; Lam, 2005; Ross, 1993). While following the global trend of teaching
English for the pragmatic purpose of engagement with the international community,
China remains ‘a nation which prides itself on its distinct cultural identity and
avowed antagonism towards imperialism’ (Adamson, 1998, p. 142).
In this regard, it is important to recognise that the ‘otherisation’ of cultural out-
groups is a universal phenomenon. Balanced against the Western tradition of
Orientalism (Said, 1978, 1993) is a well established tradition of ‘Occidentalism’,
which generates similarly enduring representations of ‘the Western Other’ within the
Chinese imagination. Chen (2002) explains that the notion of an essentialised ‘West’
has played an important part in the social transformation of China in the post-Mao
era (and, indeed, long before). Chinese Occidentalism occurs in both ‘official’ and
‘anti-official’ versions, on one hand operating as a counter-discourse against the
‘West’, and on the other hand prompting the appropriation of ‘Western’ discourses
for the purpose of social change.
A broad contemporary perspective on such issues is offered by Pennycook (2007)
who, like Goffman (1990, 1991), also emphasises the role of performance in the
production of identities. Pennycook draws links between the diversification of ‘global
Englishes’ and the phenomenon of hip-hop culture. His analysis suggests that fears
about the homogenising spread of Anglophone ‘Western’ culture are over-stated, as
discourses of power are constantly reclaimed by localised subcultures and subverted
in order to express resistance. The highly mediatised environment of the ‘Global
Village’ facilitates the circulation of commodified style markers, enabling social
actors to trade on the stereotypical features of diverse out-groups. Pennycook uses
the term ‘transcultural flows’ to describe the sharing and adaptation of cultural
forms within a globalised context (Pennycook, 2007, pp. 6
7, citing Appadurai). As
the pre-eminent global language, English plays a key role in these intercultural
processes, operating both as the means and the locus for discursive struggles. Thus,
Pennycook (2007, p. 5) argues that: ‘English . . . cannot be usefully understood in
modernist states-centric models of imperialism or world Englishes, or in terms of
traditional, segregationist models of language’. Instead, we must understand it ‘in
terms of new forms of resistance, change, appropriation and identity’ (Pennycook,
2007). It is in this spirit that I approach the subject matter of the current study.

Methodology and data

The dozen institutional performances discussed in this article were observed on
various occasions during the two decades in which I have worked with Chinese
students. This experience, which includes several years based in China, consists of
English language teaching, teacher education and curriculum development.
In exploring Chinese-speaking students’ engagement with the linguistic and
cultural forms of the ‘West’, I have used a qualitative methodology, the principal
248 T. Grimshaw

elements being participant observation and ethnographic interviews (Atkinson,

Coffey, Delamont, Lofland, & Lofland, 2001; Holliday, 2007). When I attended the
events described in this article I was accompanied by Chinese colleagues and students
who acted as guides and interpreters. I was able to gather their responses during or
shortly after the events. I subsequently checked the data against independent sources,
including other participants, reports in university newsletters and the local press.
The units of analysis were complete speech events. In line with the non-essentialist
conceptual framework, the analysis was interpretative. I pursued emergent themes
using a strategy of progressive focusing, seeking to identify user categories of
experience. My overall strategy was to develop a ‘thick description’ of the researched
culture (Geertz, 1993).
I wish to stress that the research is ongoing and that the conclusions are,
therefore, to some extent, open-ended. My development as a reflexive observer is of
key significance. In retrospect, the field notes dating from my initial engagements
displayed both naiveté and bias. However, through experience and continued
investigation I have developed a more informed appreciation of the observed
phenomena. I emphasise this because, when considering intercultural discourse, one
should avoid the temptation to take things at face value. Matters are often more
complicated than they at first seem, and actions commonly occur for reasons that
are not initially apparent.

International evenings
International evenings, which contain a variety of songs, sketches, dance routines and
the like, exemplify many of the ‘foreign’ cultural influences which have impacted on
Chinese academic cultures in recent decades. They contain numerous examples of
crossing and styling.
Of the events that I observed, several took place in Chinese universities. One
university organised an entire ‘International Culture Festival’ which also involved
film shows, speech contests and essay competitions. The international evenings that I
observed in British universities were organised by the Chinese Student Society
around the time of the Chinese New Year. In Chinese universities the events took
place in the main auditorium. In British universities they took place in either the
students’ union building or a lecture theatre used for public events such as cinema
screenings. On all occasions the venues were full and the general mood was festive.
The audience numbered several hundred, of whom the vast majority were Chinese
students. On each occasion I was one of no more than a dozen (in one case just two)
‘Western’ academic staff.
Several of the performers clearly displayed the influence of Anglophone ‘Western’
youth culture. These included ‘boy bands’ and ‘girl groups’ modelled on those that
have been popular in English-speaking countries since the 1990s. My field notes
include the following:
A duo of Chinese boys with acoustic guitars perform a song in English which [they
explain in Chinese] they have written themselves. One of them wears a T-shirt bearing
the Stars-and-Stripes and the letters ‘USA’. The song provokes excited whoops from
some of the girls in the audience. (Central University of National Minorities (CUNM))

However, in the case of the events that took place on Chinese campuses, the reference
group (i.e. ‘Westerners’) was largely absent, except for me and perhaps one or two
 Language and Intercultural Communication 249

other non-Chinese. The images on which the participants were styling their
performances were derived largely from the global mass media and from products
that could be sourced locally. Where events took place on British campuses the
Chinese participants had daily contact with members of the host culture. Arguably,
this increased opportunities for more immediate and localised cases of crossing. On
one such occasion I observed:
An 11-year-old boy takes to the stage. He is accompanied on the piano by his mother: a
Chinese scholar who has been resident in the UK for several years. Dressed like a British
choirboy, he sings ‘Walking in the Air’ [a secular seasonal song from an animated film
that is broadcast on British television each Christmas]. (University of Bath (UOB))

Certain items of dress struck me as ‘exotic’ within the context of a Chinese university.
These included sportswear and baseball caps bearing logos and names of American
sports teams. Although familiar to me from ‘Western’ contexts, these marked
elements stood out in relation to local norms, particular in the late 1990s, when the
experience of hip-hop culture was relatively recent.
However, in addition to these more obvious examples of cultural imports, it is
important to consider a number of other features of these events. To begin with, I was
surprised to note how many of the texts reproduced in the performances were derived
from previous eras. As such, they would be relatively unknown amongst ‘Western’
university students of the same generation. On numerous occasions in Chinese
universities I have heard renditions of ballads by John Denver and The Carpenters:
long-standing examples of the genre labelled ‘popular Western songs’.
Some performances took their inspiration from even older sources. At one
international evening I watched Chinese undergraduates performing a scene from
‘The Sound of Music’. I noted (in an, admittedly, rather patronising manner):
The students are all in their early twenties. The boys wear shorts; the girls wear bobby
socks and pigtails. They skip around the stage, play pat a cake. Then they join hands to
sing ‘Doe a deer, a female deer’. (Tianjin Institute of Foreign Trade (TIFT))

The same evening a couple re-enacted the famous final scene from ‘Gone with the
Wind’ (‘Frankly my dear, . . .’). Similarly, I have twice seen performances based on
scenes from the 1940 version of the romantic movie ‘Waterloo Bridge’ (entitled
in Chinese). My hosts explained that this was a particular favourite on
Chinese campuses; and that it was from this movie that many Chinese people came to
know the song ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
It is important to note that most of the performances were drawn from a limited
repertoire of ‘Western’ cultural products. In my early years on Chinese campuses I
wondered why the same films and songs were re-enacted in almost every student stage
show. Considering the vast output of Hollywood and the Anglo-American pop music
industry, it seemed all the more curious that such a narrow range of ‘Western’
cultural products had entered the Chinese canon. Why were so many of my Chinese
students fond of ‘Gone with the Wind’, and yet relatively unfamiliar with any other
films from the ‘golden age’ of Hollywood? Why did they seem to know every tune
from the ‘Sound of Music’ and yet they could recall no other American musical? Why
was it that extracts from the same films and novels seemed to be reproduced
frequently in publications such as Li Yang’s popular Crazy English (online)?
In an informal interview following one international evening, a graduate student
recalled the impact which these products of ‘Western’ popular culture had made on
250 T. Grimshaw

China in the late 1970s. For many years the Chinese popular media had been
dominated by the products of international socialist culture and by Madame Mao’s
six revolutionary operas:
In those days, there was so little. People didn’t have televisions. Few people owned tape
recorders. There was no such thing as ‘pop music’*. So, when these American movies
and songs appeared in China, they made a big impact. (my translation; *spoken in
English)

To this day, the opening bars of certain American tunes are enough to invoke a wave
of nostalgia amongst educated Chinese of that generation. The fact that the students
performing in the international evening were all undergraduates (i.e. no older than
22) is proof of the enduring appeal of these cultural products.
Subsequent ethnographic interviews confirmed that official censorship had been
a major factor. The ‘Western’ films had been amongst the few that were officially
approved in the early 1980s, because they were considered compatible with prevailing
Chinese political and moral values. The same criteria were applied to foreign films as
to foreign books, in that they were required to portray class struggle or other
acceptable themes (cf. Adamson, 1998, p. 143). Thus, the plots of ‘Waterloo Bridge’,
‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘The 39 Steps’ were judged to be politically correct,
because they unfolded against the background of the Second World War and the
struggle against Fascism. ‘The Million Pound Note’, a satire on the shallowness of
capitalism, was also found to be compatible with prevailing local values. Chinese
audiences empathised with the romantic heroine of ‘Gone with the Wind’ as she was
seen to rebuild her life in a country devastated by civil war. The eponymous
proletarian heroine of ‘Jane Eyre’, by exemplifying resilience and moral rectitude,
served as a role model to young Chinese women.
Local aesthetics also played a part. Certain ‘Western’ songs found acceptance
because their melodies appealed to the Chinese taste for gentle ballads, while their
melancholic lyrics contained the same motifs as Chinese classical poetry, such as
nostalgia (It’s yesterday once more . . .) and a yearning for the spiritual benefits of a
simple country life (Take me home, country roads, to the place where I belong . . . ).
In short, all of these cultural products were subject to selective appropriation. The
Chinese participants in the performances were projecting an essentialised ‘West’;
manipulating out-group stereotypes in ways that served the local culture. With the
passing of time and with China’s continued opening to foreign influences, newly
appropriated cultural forms are taking their place alongside the more established
ones. But these are still subject to a prevailing local discourse.
Furthermore, we must recognise that the performances were aspects of shows that
were International in their orientation. The performances were based on a variety of
models, not all of them ‘Western’. For example, although in recent decades Russian
language and culture have had far less influence in China, I recorded the following:
A choir of girls dressed in blue dresses with white bows on their left shoulder. Each holds
a rose. They sing a sentimental Russian ballad. (Beijing Language Institute (BLI))

In another show I observed:

The administrative staff perform a Bollywood dance routine, wearing stylised saris over
their tracksuits. (TIFT)
 Language and Intercultural Communication 251

One performance was a palimpsest of ‘Western’ and Asian cultural styles, illustrating
the complex identities that can result from crossing:
A girl in a bright yellow dress sings a bouncy Japanese hip-hop number, while three boys
dance in the background. The boys wear their baseball caps back-to-front, in the manner
of New York rappers. Their sweatshirts carry logos: ‘Redskins’, ‘Dodgers’ and ‘Chicago
Bulls’. (CUNM)

It is also important to stress that these International Evenings also contained several
standard features of Chinese variety shows, most notably the Chinese New Year
Evening Gala ( ) that has been broadcast annually on
Central Chinese Television (CCTV) since the early 1980s and is watched by millions
of Chinese families worldwide. As in this show, some of the students performed skits
based on current affairs. In some shows duos performed ‘crosstalk’ ( ): a comedic
genre similar to stand-up, involving rapid banter and wordplay. Other common
elements were folk songs, dances associated with various ethnic minorities and
Chinese pop songs performed with a karaoke machine.
The styling was not only done by Chinese participants. At one international
evening in Beijing a male Canadian student and a female Chinese student co-hosted
the show (CUNM). At another in Newcastle a British student of Chinese
participated in crosstalk, along with two Chinese friends (University of Northumbria
(UNN)). That same evening there was a display of martial arts by a team of British
and Chinese students. On such occasions the blurring of distinctions between ‘Self’
and ‘Other’ was most evident.
Besides providing entertainment, it should be noted that these international
evenings serve official purposes (cf. Goffman, 1991). In the Chinese universities
events such as the International Evening were organised by the university authorities,
operating through the Communist Youth League and the Students Union. Members
of the university executive sometimes attended, thus demonstrating their approval.
The Chinese New Year performances in British universities were partly funded by the
Chinese Embassy via the local Chinese Students’ Society.
In an interview, one Chinese professor cited the national College English Syllabus,
which suggested that, in addition to providing English lessons, educators ‘should also
try their best to create conditions favorable for setting up ‘‘second classrooms’’, and
encourage students to participate in all kinds of extracurricular activities in English’
(Dong, 1991, p. 11). Events such as the International Evening provided rare
opportunities to practise English outside of the classroom. Another Chinese
colleague pointed out the improvement of English language proficiency was officially
linked to the development the human resources of the nation and the creation of
‘citizens with an international consciousness’. She cited the current policy of ‘taking
the international track’. Clearly, the motivations for the performances were complex.
The same can be said for my second category of institutional performance.

English debate contests

In recent years English debate contests have become popular events in some Chinese
universities. With some local variations, the contests generally follow the conventions
of the English-Speaking Union (ESU, 2009): an organisation whose headquarters
are in Mayfair, London (online). These conventions are in turn based on the
traditions of the Oxford Union Debating Society (2009). The Chinese branch of the
252 T. Grimshaw

English-Speaking Union was founded in 1997 and a national competition
the

‘Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press Cup’
has also been held since then
(China University English Speaking Association [CUESA], 1997). In the contests
two teams of four debaters argue ‘for’ or ‘against’ a motion. The topics are usually
social issues, such as whether ‘smoking should be completely or partially banned in
public places’, whether ‘education should serve the individual or society’ or whether
‘it is possible for men and women to achieve true gender equality’. A chairperson
keeps order and introduces the various sections of the debate. A panel of judges
(usually senior academic staff or invited guests) decide who has argued most
eloquently and most convincingly. Prizes are awarded to the best team and the best
debater. The dress code and the general tone of the event are formal.
Given the origins of the genre, it could be argued that the Chinese students who
participate in these contests are simply imitating the linguistic and cultural modes of
the Anglophone ‘West’. However, once again, closer examination of these commu-
nicative events reveals a much more complex picture.
When attending English debate contexts two features that struck me were the
range and variety of references used in the speeches. One contest
which I observed
in the year preceding China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation
dealt with
the topic of economic protectionism. The speeches contained several extracts from
English language newspapers such as China Daily. There was a reference to the
widely respected Premier Zhou Enlai, who engineered the rapprochement with the
West in the early 1970s. There were official government statistics. There was a
reference to a Hollywood blockbuster movie which had recently been shown on
campus (Titanic). One English major lifted a phrase from the title of a book which
was on the recommended reading list for his course (The Pillars of the Earth). In
another debate contest one speaker borrowed a line from a Swedish pop song which
was at that time frequently played on the campus radio: ‘The rights of women will be
left to die, ‘‘fading like a flower’’’. There was rich intertextuality within the speeches.
The sources of these borrowings were not always as explicitly stated as members of
the Anglophone ‘Western’ academic tradition might expect, but the Chinese
references at least were recognisable to the audience (despite having been translated
into English).
Another feature that struck me, as a relative outsider to the observed culture, was
the frequent appeals to patriotism. In my field notes I remarked upon the regular
occurrence of phrases such as ‘Chinese people’ and ‘the People’s Republic of China’.
I felt it significant that, regardless of the topic, and regardless whether they were
arguing ‘for’ or ‘against’ a motion, both teams tended to play the nationalism card
with equal vigour. In one particularly powerful concluding speech, a debater invoked
the image of China’s most durable defensive structure:
Our challenges are great, but our ambition is greater. Let history be our witness. Let the
future be our proof. Anytime, anywhere, let all the Chinese people united together and
realise our beautiful dream. Forever stands our Great Wall! Forever prosper our great
China! (transcript, University of International Business and Economics (UIBE))

References to the lessons of history (ying jing ju dian) were frequent. Such references
were often signposted by markers such as: ‘Let’s look at the history’ and ‘Let’s return
to history’. The telling of the national narrative often involved the invocation of the
image of a foreign Other. For example, one speaker reminded the audience of
 Language and Intercultural Communication 253

the close relationship between China and the Soviet Union during the 1950s, and the
hardship which China suffered when Soviet foreign aid was suddenly withdrawn:
She asks the rhetorical question: ‘Why did that happen?’ She pauses for effect, then
answers: ‘It is the result of too much reliance on Russia’. She tightens both fists, throws
back her head, and says with great emotion: ‘I think it is a very good lesson, teaching us
that Chinese people should standing up like a biggest tree [sic], rather than a crooked
vine!’ (UIBE, Beijing)

Later, much to the approval of the audience, a member of the opposing team
celebrated the recent achievements of the Chinese nation:
The speaker . . . asks a question, delivered in a wheedling tone: ‘From your point of view,
our modernisation and industrialisation is a gift from foreigners?’ This is greeted with
loud clapping from the audience. (UIBE, Beijing)

In general, I was impressed by the passion with which the speeches were delivered.
Powerful rhetoric and dramatic gestures were particularly evident in the closing
sections of the debates, in which the speakers seek to invoke the solidarity of the
audience. On one occasion, as the only non-Chinese amongst an audience of several
hundred, I was left feeling quite uneasy:
I am shocked by the booming force of this final speech. But it is the kind of language
guaranteed to win the favour of a Chinese audience. The speech is greeted with sustained
and thunderous applause. Surely this will decide the result of the contest. [Indeed it did.]
(UIBE)

Even as I watched my first debate contest, I felt that I had been there many times
before. The arguments seemed so familiar: nationalism, self-reliance, reform,
modernisation. These same discourses, centuries-old, were being played out daily
in the Chinese media, in conferences and classrooms the length and breadth of the
country. In effect I was watching the Great Debate of Chinese society. And yet, this
time, it was being enacted in my native language, English.
I hasten to add that, despite the nationalist rhetoric, the overall atmosphere
remained festive throughout. After the ‘protectionism’ contest my students joked
with me and stressed that they were ‘just acting’. I was reminded of Goffman’s (1990,
pp. 77
78) argument that we should avoid the moralistic dichotomisation of the ‘real,
sincere, or honest performance’ and the ‘false one’, for even when people perform in
a ‘sincere’ manner, they are still performing.
In view of the above, it would surely be over-simplistic to view English debate
contests as evidence of a culturally imperialistic discourse emanating from the ‘West’.
In fact, through further investigation I found that to a large extent these
communicative events reflected the conventions of yanjiang: a well-established
Chinese tradition of public speaking. I had occasion to observe one such
performance through the open window of a lecture theatre:
There is a red flag draped over the lectern . . . The speech is loud and emotional. The
speaker wears a red arm-band. He uses gestures of the kind seen in propaganda
paintings and Maoist revolutionary operas . . . . He mimes: ‘hardship’, ‘pride’, ‘defiance’.
I can pick out certain words which are used repeatedly: ‘country’, ‘people’, ‘Communist
Party’. References to Comrade Lei Feng, Comrade Deng Xiaoping . . . Audience are
animated. Much applause. (People’s University (PU), Beijing)
254 T. Grimshaw

This tradition of stirring, patriotic speeches can be traced back at least as far as the
anti-imperialist May 4th Movement of 1919, although my students believed that
the origins of public rhetoric lay with Confucius and the other itinerant scholars of
the Warring States period (403
221 BC). My students also explained that these
events were usually organised around the time of National Day (October 1st), their
function being to promote political and moral awareness.
The style of yanjiang is consciously polemic. The exaggerated gestures and facial
expressions are part of a standardised code, as seen in socialist revolutionary art (cf.
Evans & Donald, 1999). One experienced speaker explained: ‘You should not only
remember your speech, but also use several well-chosen gestures to emphasise your
speech as well as move the audience’. This student explained that she prepared by
rehearsing in front of her dormitory mates. Another said that he rehearsed in front of
a mirror. One student explained that some speeches are intended to be humorous, in
which case the speaker smiles constantly throughout. He laughed: ‘It is like
acting . . . To a foreigner it probably looks a little silly and exaggerated. But it looks
good, at least from the Chinese point of view’.
The speeches are carefully written. When discussing the text, participants referred
to it as a wen zhang, which roughly translates as ‘article’ or ‘essay’. This suggests that
the production of a speech is as much a writing activity as a speaking activity. The
texts reflect the conventions of Chinese academic writing in that they are ‘rich in
references’ (páng zheng bó yin), including allusions to the works of famous scholars
and statesmen. They also commonly cite ‘four-character idioms’, familiarity with
these being traditionally regarded as the mark of an educated person.
All of these elements can also be observed in English debate contests. Indeed, I
wish to suggest that the popularity of English debate contests in Chinese universities
can to a great extent be attributed to their close fit with and their adaptability to local
conventions of public discourse.
It is also important to note that debate contests are already a well-established
tradition in many Asian countries. Moreover, to Chinese students the most well-
known debate contest is conducted not in English but in Mandarin. The biannual
‘International Varsity Debate Contest’ has since 1993 been hosted alternately by New
Media Singapore and China Central Television in Beijing (online). There are separate
contests for teams of native and non-native Chinese speakers, the latter including
teams from élite ‘Western’ universities such as Oxford, Yale or Harvard. The contest
thus serves to promote the use of Chinese as an international language.

Some conclusions
The situatedness of the phenomena I have discussed in this article and the
indeterminacy of their meanings suggest that the events can be interpreted from as
many different perspectives as there are participants. However, a number of general
points emerge from the data.
Firstly, these institutional ceremonies exemplify complex and contradictory
aspects of interculturality. The performances are woven from the many and varied
texts which constitute the symbolic universe of Chinese university students. In their
styling of ‘the Occidental Other’, these students exemplify aspects of both structural
determinism and agentive voluntarism. This dualism is familiar to theorists of
cultural studies. On the one hand, it can be argued that individuals are subject to
commercial and ideological manipulation by corporate forces which threaten
 Language and Intercultural Communication 255

individuality and independent thought. On the other hand, it can be argued that
consumers are free to construct their own identities by selecting from the multiplicity
of ‘lifestyles’ that are made available by the mass media and mass production (Hill,
1999; Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1991, 1997). In this context the very notion of ‘culture’
serves as a commodity that social actors can manage for pragmatic and ideological
purposes. This may account for apparent contradictions of identity; for example,
when members of a culture alternately represent themselves as ‘progressive’ or
‘conservative’, depending on the circumstances of the communicative event (Holliday
et al., 2004, pp. 10
15).
Secondly, the agency perspective challenges normative categories such as the
stereotype of ‘the Chinese learner’. In the communicative events discussed above we
see more than mere imitation. We see participants engaging in identity construction
of various kinds and for various purposes. The performances present opportunities
for gaining face and perhaps for gaining credits on academic transcripts. At the very
least, they may be a ‘workable assignment’: a ‘role release’ that frees the students
from lessons for a while (cf. Goffman, 1991, p. 92). Language plays a key role in the
creative and playful activities of crossing and styling. When participants speak (or
sing) in English, they tap into a linguistic resource which has associations with
influential discourse communities beyond the immediate setting. By demonstrating
mastery of this language they may enhance their status and obtain personal benefits.
Thirdly, while I would not wish to underestimate the power of globalised
discourses of language and culture, I believe the observed phenomena should not
lead us to hastily conclude the linguistic or cultural dominance of the ‘West’. The
performances I have examined demonstrate that, despite the availability of non-
Chinese discourses (English as an International Language, global youth culture, etc.),
Chinese discourses of identity continue to thrive and develop. Like Goffman’s (1991,
p. 90) ‘institutionalised get-togethers’, they serve to ‘express unity, solidarity, and
joint commitment to the institution’. In particular, the debate contests, by
emphasising moral and political development, reaffirm the values of the collective.
For such reasons, Chinese Occidentalism must be seen in terms of a discussion that
goes beyond notions of ‘Western imperialism’ or ‘postcolonialism’ (cf. Chen, 2002).
It has been noted elsewhere that the ‘processes of mediation and appropriation
always take place when cultures come into contact’ (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 176). In
the international evenings we see Chinese students appropriating the semiotic
resources of various cultures in the creation of hybridised identities. In the debate
contests we see this students working through an appropriated genre in order to
engage with issues of both Chinese and international relevance. The contests are also
sites of discursive struggle where actors formulate counter-discourses against an
essentialised ‘Occidental Other’: an action that Pennycook (1994) terms ‘writing
back’ against the ‘West’. The fact that the contests are conducted in English
the
international medium of diplomacy and international trade
makes them all the
more poignant.
It is also worth noting that, in the case of debate contests, Chinese universities
have chosen to adopt an aspect of ‘Western’ academic culture that is associated with
certain élite British and American universities. These are the institutions that Chinese
universities wish to emulate. Watching the contests I was struck by an irony. As a
curriculum developer I was one of many who had sought to implement certain
‘Western’ language teaching approaches (‘communicative’, ‘task-based’, etc.) in the
Chinese context; and yet after decades these still remained controversial on account
256 T. Grimshaw

of, amongst other things, their perceived narrow functionality and their emphasis on
the colloquial. In contrast, debate contests
with their roots in Classical Humanist
tradition and their use of formalistic, literate language
had been readily accepted
because they offered greater continuity with local discursive practices.
My final point concerns the discursive construction of ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’. The
‘China’ and the ‘West’ that were invoked in these student performances were, of
course, both imagined. But this does not mean that they are any less important. The
(his)stories that cultures tell of the ‘Self’ and the ‘Other’ are intrinsic to the creation
and maintenance of individual and collective identities (cf. Said, 1993, p. xiii). The
strategic essentialism of in-groups and out-groups is a fundamental feature of
intercultural discourse. However, once we acknowledge the notion of culture as
discourse, the very notion of an essential ‘Self’ or ‘Other’ is exposed as a myth.
Cultural forms, once shared, can never remain ‘pure’ or ‘intact’. The environment of
Chinese universities is already a composite of numerous cultural elements into which
new ones are constantly being adapted and absorbed. The process of adaptation may
not even be conscious, as members of the host culture interpret the imported
discourses according to their own preconceived categories of experience.
In today’s globalising cultural environment it is increasingly difficult to determine
what is truly ‘local’, ‘indigenous’ or ‘individual’. The phenomena of crossing and
styling are neither new nor limited to any specific context. But the compression of
time and space that characterises late modernity offers ever greater possibilities for
interacting with new ‘Others’ and creating of new ‘Selves’.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the Chinese colleagues and students from universities in Beijing, Tianjin,
Newcastle and Bath who very kindly invited me to attend the events described in this article.
Special thanks go to Dr Anna Simandiraki-Grimshaw for keeping me focused on the essentials.

Notes on contributor
Trevor Grimshaw PhD is director of studies of the MA TESOL programme at Department of
Education of the University of Bath. He conducts and supervises research in the areas of
international language education, intercultural communication and the sociology of language
learning. He has worked as a lecturer, researcher, translator and curriculum consultant in
China, Indonesia and several European countries.

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