"This book explores socio-cultural meanings of 'self' in the Chinese language through analysing a range of conversations among Chinese immigrants to Australia qualitatively on the topics of individuality, social relationships and collective identity. If language, culture and cognition are major roads, this book is the junction that unites them by arguing that selfhood occurs at their interface. It provides an interdisciplinary approach to unpack manifestations and perceptions of 'self' in the contemporary Chinese diaspora discourse from the perspectives of Sociolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics and the newly developed Cultural Linguistics. This book not only discusses empirical and theoretical issues on the conceptualisation and communication of social identity in a cross-cultural context, it also reveals how traditional and modern ideas in Chinese culture are interacting with those of other world cultures. Considering the power of language, enduring and emerging beliefs and stances that permeate these speakers' views on their social being and outlooks on life impart their significance in cross-cultural communication and pragmatics"--.

• “Self ” in Language, Culture, and Cognition
• Editorial page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• In memory of my father
• Table of contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgement
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Migrating the Chinese self
  • 1.1 The contemporary concept of self
  • 1.2 Contemporary Chinese immigrants
  • 1.3 The discourse of contemporary Chinese identity
  • 1.4 An overview of the present research
• Chapter 2. Self-referential pronouns in Mandarin Chinese
  • 2.1 Pronominal references in Mandarin Chinese
  • 2.2 A discursive examination
    • 2.2.1 Assertion
    • 2.2.2 Mitigation
    • 2.2.3 Persuasion
    • 2.2.4 Accommodation
  • 2.3 Summary
• Chapter 3. Performing identities: Presenting the flawed self
  • 3.1 Performing identities
  • 3.2 Idealised self-representation
    • 3.2.1 Evaluating the private self
    • 3.2.2 Reflecting upon independence
    • 3.2.3 Assessing the real me
  • 3.3 From flawed to ideal
  • 3.4 Conclusion
• Chapter 4. Becoming Chinese: A discursive exploration
  • 4.1 Defining Chineseness in the global context
    • 4.1.1 Where is zhongguo ‘China’
    • 4.1.2 Who are Chinese people
    • 4.1.3 Representing the non-Chinese
  • 4.2 The emerging contemporary Chinese immigrant identity
    • 4.2.1 The Huaren ‘ethnic Chinese people’
    • 4.2.2 Australian born Chinese
    • 4.2.3 The guoneiren ‘people from within the country’
  • 4.3 Summary
• Chapter 5. Chinese conceptualisations of personhood
  • 5.1 The split self
    • 5.1.1 The controlling subject
    • 5.1.2 The unbounded self
  • 5.2 Image-schematic dyads
    • 5.2.1 Deep-shallow
    • 5.2.2 interior-exterior
    • 5.2.3 balance-imbalance
  • 5.3 Relationship metaphors in Mandarin Chinese
    • 5.3.1 The interpersonal path
    • 5.3.2 Interpersonal proximity
    • 5.3.3 The social container
  • 5.4 Conclusion
• Chapter 6. The self within: On the Chinese embodied self
  • 6.1 The embodied view of self
  • 6.2 The embodied self metaphor
    • 6.2.1 The metonymy of the inner heart
    • 6.2.2 the heart stores thoughts
    • 6.2.3 the heart accommodates feelings
    • 6.2.4 the heart brain bone eyes
  • 6.3 Discussion and conclusion
• Chapter 7. Conceptualisations of the migrant identity
  • 7.1 A bounded area
    • 7.1.1 A cultural group is a bounded area
    • 7.1.2 The exclusiveness of the bounded area
  • 7.2 Viewpoints and perspectives in space
    • 7.2.1 The space in discourse
    • 7.2.2 Social proximity across cultural groups
    • 7.2.3 From the perspective of women zhebian ‘we here’
    • 7.2.4 From the perspective of “others”
  • 7.3 The exemplar identity
  • 7.4 The exemplar identity and beyond
• Chapter 8. From perceptual to socio-cultural cognition
  • 8.1 The self in language and culture
    • 8.1.1 The self in language
    • 8.1.2 The cultural self
  • 8.2 Cognition of the self in discourse
    • 8.2.1 The representational principle
    • 8.2.2 The intersubjective principle
    • 8.2.3 The emergent principle
  • 8.3 Chinese self in diaspora discourse
• References
• Index