The discursive construction of identity in chinese english bilingual advertising a critical inquiry 6

CHAPTER THE CONSTRUCTION OF MODERN IDENTITY FOR CHINECE PEOPLE The conception of modern identity, as introduced in the very beginning, represents the notion of modernity proposed by Giddens (1990) that lays emphasis on cultural “particularism”, as well as “universalism”, in response to unique social, cultural and political contexts. Cultural particularism marks a search for new, specific discourses of modern identity against the western model. The task of this chapter is to investigate the distinctive features of modern identity constructed for Chinese people in the data, and discuss the role of English in constructing imagined communities of Chinese people and ideologies underlying it. This, as designed in Chapter 5, is to be examined by looking at the headlines and slogans in the form of English-only or bilingual parallel within the technological and real estate advertisements. Reflected on the particular choice of English words, modern identities of Chinese people are principally articulated in six aspects in the form of orientation---(1) emotion, (2) success, (3) internationalization, (4) innovation, and (5) future. As analysis shows below, while these aspects of modern identity perhaps seem as universally available as in other places, in the Chinese context there is some locally situated definition or meaning for some of them. In the following discussion, both sides of each aspect will be considered if applicable. In most cases, English is used to activate and present in an explicit way these aspects of modern identity embedded in the meaning of headlines and/or slogans. This way of constructing modern identities, compared with its Chinese equivalent in terms of semantic meaning, is much more pertinent and persuasively powerful, given the symbolic 132 value of English in relation to modernity. Sometimes English is also employed to make up semantic nuance or cultural meaning that its Chinese counterpart lacks. Yet, the role of English in constructing modern identities is not separably single but often complicated. In the analysis that follows I first examine how English is essentially relied upon for presenting the orientation of emotion and whether Chinese people are experiencing the same tokens of modernity in particular relation to “emotional capitalism” (Illouz 2007). 6.1 Emotion Orientation It is normally assumed that modernity has created an a-emotional world dominated by rationality (Giddens 1992: 201). But according to Illouz, the culture of capitalism has already fostered an intensely emotional culture, and emotions are “principle characters in the story of capitalism and modernity” (2007: 4). Illouz further demonstrates practically how emotions contribute to individual and group identity formation, and the expression and presentation of the self. The significance of emotion to identity construction is in its “capacity to create new identities” and “mak[ing] the difficult and unnatural appear easy and natural” (Berezin 2001: 84). Like in countries of late modernity, emotional culture has significantly become one of principle characters in the story of China’s modernity. The data, especially among the technological advertisements, privilege the orientation of Chinese people toward emotional world as one of the most visible dimensions of modern identity. In most cases, these advertisements suggest direct ways to find a diversity of emotion including amusement, excitement, happiness, passion, pleasure, joy, romance, and surprise. The evocation of these aspects of emotion is quantitatively perceptible particularly among the advertisements for auto and watch often conceptualizing the promoted products as the cause or signal of emotions. The following headlines and slogans in the form of Englishonly or bilingual parallel taken at random from them are illustrative of how the choice of 133 particular English words related closely to these aspects of emotion evokes and presents them explicitly: Amusement (Delux)1 Big Pleasure (Mitsubishi Motors) Delighting you always, 感动常在佳能 gandong chang zai Jianeng (lit. always being moved at Canon) (Canon) Driven to Excite (Mitsubishi Motors) Excitement Guaranteed (Mini Cooper) Happiness from Accent (Hyundai) Happy New Year, 纵容自己的时刻到了! zongrong ziji de shike dao le! (lit. It is time to indulge yourself!) (Chevrolet) I love my view (View Sonic) 激情共享 jiqing gongxiang (lit. passion shared), Sharing the passion (Panasonic) 激情 · 为奥运而动 jiqing wei ao’yun er dong (lit. passion for the Olympics) Passion for movement (Audi) Romance in heart, 浪漫在心 langman zai xin (lit. Romance in heart) (Ernest Borel) Romantic Moment, 买表送礼表心意 maibiao songli biao xinyi (lit. buy watch to express love) (Ernest Borel) Sheer Driving Pleasure (BMW) The Power to Surprise (Kia) In these headlines and slogans, the use of English (sometimes alongside its Chinese translation) works as “contextualization cues” (Gumperz 1982) that direct the target audiences to reinterpret referential contents it expresses. Being the marker of modernity, English is apparently much more highly pertinent than its Chinese counterpart to semantically presenting and activating the list of emotions embedded in these headlines and slogans. In other words, the function of English is dual in such cases. It not only conveys or generates referential contents, but simultaneously comes to work for the “decorative” purpose (McArthur 1998). In constructing this dimension of modern identity, sometimes English is also used for generating semantic nuances that cannot be fulfilled by its Chinese counterpart. One good example is the advertisement for Suzuki Jimny, a mini Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) by the Suzuki Auto Corporation of Japan. The persuasive power of this advertisement is in its describing the theme of the Suzuki life as exciting and passionate, and the possession of Word(s) in the bracket refers to the brand name of the product being advertised. 134 the Jimny as a means of having this modern life. Interpreting what a modern image of emotional orientation this advertisement intends to present and how the use of English within it functions requires a conceptual integration network with several mental spaces. Identical elements in each mental space are finally brought into, and partially fused with each other in the blended space. Figure 6.1 The ad for Suzuki Jimny Prior to the very analysis, a point of relevance needs to be added. While I am always trying to make analysis as appropriately short as possible, this one is deliberately made in detail with the purpose of providing a far clearer illustration of how the proposed integrative framework works in exposing the significance of English in constructing different aspects of modern identity. Attention is simultaneously paid to explaining why 135 the finding would not have been possible if “pure” CDA, without the aid of frames and blending, had been used. Look now closely at the Suzuki Jimny advertisement illustrated in Figure 6.1. Besides the brand name “JIMNY”, the occurrences of English in this copy are exclusively in the structural domains of slogan and headline. They are the English slogan “Way of life!” below the company name and the emblem in the top right-hand corner, and “High” highlighted inside the headline in the form of intrasentential mixing “越野越 High!” yue ye yue High (lit. the wilder, the more exciting!) above the sample product. The sample product is parking at the football field located oddly at the middle halfway of steep mountains. The verbal and visual information evokes at least four mental spaces: A JIMNY space, a SUZUKI LIFE space, a blended space of Yue-Ye-Yue-High, and a FOOTBALL MATCH space. These four mental spaces are selected as the input spaces to the conceptual integration network. Allow me to start with the headline where the word High is inserted into the latter position of the fixed Chinese structure “越…越…” yue…yue…. The salience of High is plain given its italic style and its first letter being capitalized. The Chinese structure yue…yue… is the same as its English counterpart “the more…, the more…” in that both describe some change or development through comparison. In contrast to the simple assumption by the previous studies (i.e., Piller 2001; Lee 2006; Gao 2005) that English is mixed for symbolic function and always plays an important role in identity construction, I following Hougaard (2005) disintegrate the headline into four parts in terms of its structure (Table 6.1) so as to have a clearer account of the essential role High may have in the construction of the headline’s meaning. What is now apparent is that “ 野 ” ye (lit. violent, wild, or robust) becomes the source domain and High, the target domain. The choices of the Chinese word ye as the source domain and the English term High as the target domain for comparison, notably, are fundamentally strategic for 136 meaning construction. The main reason is that there exist semantic nuances between them and their usual translation equivalents respectively of English and Chinese. To be precise, when reading ye, the viewers may conjure up many conceptual elements, such as “wildness”, “rudeness”, “violence”, “vigour”, and so on. However, its possible English equivalents, either “rude”, “violent”, or “wild”, individually cannot be exhaustive in generating all of these conceptual elements; rather, they have to work jointly in order to have the same effect as ye intends. Similarly, in contrast to its Chinese counterpart “高” gao (lit. high) that refers exclusively to the degree of height when used and interpreted discretely, High in its own right is sufficient to evoke a number of conceptual elements implicitly related to emotions such as “enthusiasm”, “excitement”, “passion”, and “joy”. As analysis develops later, these conceptual elements activated by the use of High as an instance of “textualization cue” (Chan 2004) but not by gao play an essential role in the formation of emotion orientation. Table 6.1 Segmentation of the headline in the Suzuki Jimny ad Frag. Frag. Frag. Frag. 越 (yue) 野 (ye) the more violent; wild; rude, . 越 (yue) the more High Exciting; happy; passionate, . In the local integration network of the headline, the YE space and the HIGH space can be combined to create a blend in which being ye causes High. It is through this way that the Cause-Effect relation between Frag. ye and Frag. High is established. By virtue of this vital relation, the conceptual elements “wild”, “violent”, “rude”, and “vigorous” contained in the YE space as the source space become the factors that cause the generation of the emotions in the HIGH space as the target space. In the blended space of Yue-YeYue-High, cause and effect have been emerged and present each other directly. To recognize one is to recognize the other. The Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend now becomes an 137 input space in the conceptual integration network, other input spaces of which are the JIMNY space and the FOOTBALL MATCH space. The JIMNY space has a schematic SUV conventionally associated with powerfulness and wildness. The parking place of the sample product oddly at the middle halfway of mountains is a piece of crucial information visually adding to and strengthening this property of the Jimny. But the text body tells us more of this SUV. First of all, the Jimny has high quality based on the phrase “整车原装进口” zhengche yuanzhuang jinkuo (lit. an imported car installed in production place) and the stereotyped perception among Chinese people of imported products usually being superior in quality. Furthermore, the Jimny is metaphorized simultaneously as a spirit2 and a warrior, in light of the two Chinese phrases “都市精灵” doushi jingling (lit. cosmopolitan spirit, fairy or elf) and “越野 勇士” yueye yongshi (lit. SUV warrior) just below the brand name and its Chinese transliteration “吉姆尼” Jimuni. Following this, in addition to being powerful and wild, the properties of the Jimny as a SUV include warrior-like, spirit-like, and high quality. The FOOTBALL MATCH space evoked by the picture of football field, then, has a schematic image of a team sport played between two teams of eleven players, who are full of energy fighting against their opponents. With its stereotypical connection to vigour, wildness, and masculine violence, football match additionally carries over excitement and passion to audiences. On this realization, at least the following conceptual elements are contained in this space: fighter-like players, violence, vigour, excitement, passion, and wildness. As in the previous discussion of the possible English translation equivalents for the Chinese word “野” ye, the possible counterparts in English for “精灵” jingling might be “spirit”, “fairy”, or “elf”. Despite not being ideal, the term “spirit” is often used interchangeably with “fairy” and “elf” for translating jingling in China. This somewhat crude simplification is intended not to suggest that there is no difference between the English terms and jingling in conveying cultural meaning. The same is applicable to other examples literately translating Chinese terms into English, or vice versa. 138 Diagrammed in Figure 6.2, a cross-space connection may first take place between the Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend and the FOOTBALL MATCH space, because of the shared conceptual elements of wildness, vigour and violence in both spaces. The inner-space relation of Cause-Effect in the Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend projects to the first local blended space and will be “exploited to induce a compression for the focus input” (Fauconnier & Turner 2002: 129). Given this inner-space relation, in the local blend I football players inferably have the intended effects of causing Chinese audiences to be excited and passionate. The Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend Ye High Players Vigorous Wild Violent Exciting Passionate The blended space I The Football Match space The Jimny space Players Vigorous Wild Violent Exciting Passionate Warrior Spirit Powerful Wild Modern High quality Players/Warrior Vigorous/Powerful Wild/Wild Exciting Passionate The blended space II Figure 6.2 A simplified network diagram of the Suzuki Jimny local blends In the same way, an Identity mapping occurs across the FOOTBALL MATCH space and the JIMNY space due to the shared information of wildness and powerfulness (vigour). The fighter-like football players and the warrior-like Jimny are cross-space counterparts that are fused in the second local blended space, entailing the description of 139 the Jimny with reference to football players. Not least because football players may make viewers excited and passionate during football match, the Jimny has the intended effects of evoking corresponding emotions of passion and excitement among the target audiences. This emergent inference information is useful to yield a Cause-Effect relation in this local blended space, which can further be compressed into a Property relation within it. Hence, in the local blend II the Jimny is added to the properties of being passionate and exciting which, it must be pointed out, are chiefly derived from its inherent ones of being powerful and wild. The blended space II Warrior/Jimny Wild Powerful The Suzuki Life space Suzuki Life Exciting Passionate Ye High The Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend Jimny/Suzuki Wild Powerful Life Exciting Passionate The blended space III Figure 6.3 A simplified network diagram of the Suzuki Jimny blend In Figure 6.2, solid lines represent the cross-space correspondences that constitute the mapping across the input spaces, dotted lines represent projections between spaces, the dashed line between Ye in the Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend and football players in the local 140 blend I represents the fact that football players in the local blend I is associated with the YE source space, and the dashed lines between the emotions of excitement and passion in the local blend II and those in the local blend I represent the fact that the emotions developed from the local blend II is closely related to, or resulted from, the inner-space relation of Cause-Effect yielded inside the local blend I. These lines are also applied to the conceptual integration network of other examples. The local blend II now becomes an input space to the final blend, another input of which is the SUZUKI LIFE space triggered through the recontextualization of the English slogan. The specific information about the property of Suzuki life, however, cannot be determined if based merely on the slogan itself. It has to be inferred and elaborated in the final blend fused with information projected from the local blend II. Illustrated in Figure 6.3, a Part-Whole mapping takes place between the local blend II and the SUZUKI LIFE space, considering the metonymy that the Jimny stands for the Suzuki Auto Corporation. Elements within the local blend II are selectively projected to the blended space III, the final blend. Developed from the blend, being exciting and passionate become the main property of the Suzuki life. At the same time, because of the shared information of being wild and powerful by the local blend II and the local Yue-Ye-Yue-High blend, it allows us to describe ye in terms of the Jimny, or vice versa. Differently stated, the Jimny in the local blend II can be linked to the YE space. It becomes inferable for the Jimny to be a specific example of ye and the Jimny stands for this kind of life. In other words, the Suzuki Jimny advertisement sets an exciting and passionate life as its orientation, and the possession of a Jimny provides the access to such life. At this moment, I want to foreground the essential role the use of English word High plays throughout this constructive process. As we have seen, the elements “passionate” and “exciting” projected into the blend from the local blend II are part of the HIGH space. Alternatively put, the blend inherits partial structure of the HIGH space. The 141 striking scenery. Nuoting Jun, the translation equivalent of Nottinghamshire---the county of England in the East Midlands. Rhine is the name for one of the longest and most important rivers in Europe. And so on. Before moving on a close look at how this practice of naming local property products is connectable to constructing international orientation, one basic issue merits a thought at this stage. This is concerned with the interplay of space and identity in the context of transnationality, or, more precisely phrased: how and in what ways is the construction of transnational space a contribution to orienting Chinese people toward internationalization. A few remarks will be sufficient for my purpose. Being able to be asked for signs of belonging, spaces are actively employed to construct, negotiate, and deconstruct social identities. For instance, Bachelard (1994) claims the imaginary placement of house (and office) into transnational spatial wholes is one important aspect of spatial dimensions of identity. “A house that has been experienced is not an inert box. Inhabited space transcends geometrical space. …… When the image is new, the world is new” (Bachelard 1994: 47). The particular way of conceptualizing the local property products in terms of foreign entities certainly calls into question the conventional thinking both about living space and about personal identities and a sense of belonging. Moreover, given the international position of English, the practice of naming in English (sometimes alongside their Chinese translation) in itself is a marker of internationalization. As an example, consider the advertisement for Chanson Bay, a union house, one type of villa in China according to Wu (2004). Illustrated in Figure 6.20, besides the English brand name, “CHANSON BAY SPAIN UNION HOUSE” appears in the domain of headline, “Be there, Be Spain …” on the left of the Europe-style building, and “VIP” ahead of the contact number. Alongside Be there, Be Spain …, the lexical choice of SPAIN prior to UNION HOUSE not only assigns a property of building style to the promoted villa, but also prompts Chinese people to build its spatial connection to the country of Spain in 176 the Continent. In addition, being expressed in English instead of in Chinese, SPAIN signals the foreignness of the promoted villa. As a reality, the Chanson Bay, however, is built locally along Dongqian Lake in the suburb of Ningbo, China. Just below CHANSON BAY SPAIN UNION HOUSE, the location of the Chanson Bay is specified by part of the headline expressed in Chinese---“ 雅 戈 尔 · 香颂湾, 东钱湖影响力” Yage’er·Xiangsongwan, Dongqianhu yingxiangli (lit. Chanson Bay by Yage’er, the influence of Dongqian Lake). In contrast to the use of SPAIN in English, the use of Chinese for clarifying its location might be basically grounded on the association of the Chinese language with the local. Figure 6.20 The ad for Chanson Bay villa Now we have two inputs separated in geographical space: one input has the promoted villa imaginarily situated in Spain, and the other corresponds to the reality. In 177 Figure 6.21, the blend has a counterpart for the promoted villa but the counter-factuality between the inputs corresponds to the location or space property in the blend. It is easy to work from the blend that residents of the promoted villa living in Ningbo, China, are imaged as those living in Spain. Their living in Spain projects back to the first input to establish there that these people become the Spanish. In other words, by presenting an imaginary picture of living in Spain through naming, the advertisement constructs a transnational community for the local people. The Input I The Input II Chanson Bay Chanson Bay Ningbo, China Spain Chanson Bay/Chanson Bay Ningbo, China Spain The blended space Figure 6.21 A simplified network diagram of the Chanson Bay blend The advertisement presented in Figure 6.22 for the villa branded “ 长 岛 御 岸 ” changdao yu’an (lit. Long Island Royal Bank) may serve as another typical example of this way of orientating Chinese people toward internationalisation. The advertiser of this copy mainly achieves this by building up the connection of the promoted local villa to those at Long Island as well as to the life of this kind there. 178 The Chinese name of the local villa is put into English “Long Island Royal Bank”, which is arguably made for emphasizing and distinguishing its Long Island and royal properties. The proper name Long Island, of course, refers to the place located in Southeast New York. Yet, the villa being promoted is situated along Pearl River of Guangzhou in China rather than at Long Island of New York. With the transnational allusion to Long Island, the local villa in the same way as discussed in the previous example finds validation to the extent that it can be considered one version of the villas at Long Island in the blended space of LOCAL VILLA. This argument is supported by the concrete properties of the promoted local villa similar to those at Long Island according to the text body printed overwhelmingly in Chinese. Indexed by “VS” (the short form of versus), the focus of the text body is on a number of similarities or analogies between the local villa and those at Long Island, highlighted through the words---“position”, “distance” (to city centre), “humanities”, “history”, “ecology”, “landscape”, “life”, and “product” in their bilingual forms. While these English words are used for the decorative purpose, English words occurred in the bilingual headline convey significant content information: Figure 6.22 The ad for Long Island Royal Bank villa 179 长岛御岸, 源于长岛的领袖生活 changdao yu’an, yuanyu changdao de lingxiu shenghuo (lit. Long Island Royal Bank comes from the life of leadership at Long Island) NEW YORK LONG ISLAND LEADERS FROM THE LONG ISLAND LIFE The headline suggests that the local villa is comparable with the Long Island life. As a model of textual reference, this paves the way for interpreting the promoted villa as metaphorical transference between itself and the Long Island life. The advertiser seemingly makes a rigorous effort to take as fact the conceptual values encoded in the Long Island life as much part of the cultural values and briefs of Chinese people. Although it never seems practical to set a clear-cut definition for the Long Island life, the imagery conjured up with this sort of life is typically culture-specific by virtue of its connection to Long Island and its cultural and social attributions in America. Since Long Island is symbol of material affluence, luxury life, and social prestige, this kind of life refers to a “life” equivalent to comfortableness, high quality, and status or prestige. This set of conceptual elements highlighted as a distinct component is fundamentally significant in describing the local villa metaphorically. Diagrammed by Figure 6.23, the promoted local villa is comparably described in terms of the Long Island life in the final blend. Through the imaginary associations with the Long Island life, the promoted villa becomes the symbol of this luxury life. In a sense, the luxury life and prestige available only to a relatively small number of residents in the place of Long Island is carried over to the local Chinese people who intend to buy, and live in, the promoted villa built in the local place of Guangzhou, China. The target audiences are assigned to the social group who enjoy comfortable life and social prestige. This new meaning developed out of the blend, it must be noted, is appropriated and reconfigured through the imaginary identification of Chinese people simultaneously as members of the particular social group living at Long Island, and of the promoted local villa in Guangzhou as one version of the villas at Long Island. As such, inside the blend 180 Chinese people develop into members of a transnational community, and the construction of them as international is suggested. The Local-villa blend space The Long-Island-Life space Local villa/ Long Island villa Long Island life Material affluence Guangzhou/New York Comfortableness High quality Prestige Local villa Long Island villa/Long Island life Guangzhou/ New York Material Affluence Comfortableness High quality Social prestige The blended space Figure 6.23 A simplified network diagram of the Long Island Royal Bank blend 6.4 Future Orientation Future orientation as part of modernity (Giddens 1990) is also observed in the data, although this aspect of modern identity is less pervasive than the above discussed dimensions of modern identity. In discussing how the lexical choice of transitive verbs such as “access”, “accelerate”, “make”, “exceed”, “grasp”, and “shift” orients Chinese people toward success, I have already pointed out that they have the function of building the web of connections across spaces in an integration network involving a counterfactual 181 scenario. Being in the form of present imperative or infinitive, these verbs normally have futurate readings, and may also be taken as framing an action or situation that will be occurring in the future. Take, for example, the slogan “Go find your wonders” for the Cannon advertisement; the verbs “go” and “find” are connectable to the mental space of FUTURE by the vital relations of Intentionality and Time. The cross-space mapping makes the temporal interval scaled down and fit into the blend developing within itself a temporary mental representation---your intention to find wonders will be realized only if you buy a Cannon printer. Another way to construct this dimension of modern identity is through the insertion of specific English words like “tomorrow”, “future”, or “next” into the headlines and slogans plainly addressing future orientation. But out of the headlines and slogans, only four are identified: In Touch with Tomorrow (Toshiba) Inspire the Next (Hitachi) SHIFT_the future (Nissan Paladin) TURN ON TOMORROW (Samsung) Besides its semantic meaning, the English words work to activate its symbolic meaning of modernity that its Chinese counterpart cannot achieve. For an example, the advertisement for Amoi N6 mobile phone is reproduced in Figure 6.24. Amoi is the brand name for Chinese electronics manufacturer, Xiaxin. As verbalized by the secondary headline “夏新 N6 GPS 导航手机” Xiaxin N6 GPS daohang shouji (lit. Xiaxin N6 GPS navigation cellular phone), the Amoi N6 features the installation of a GPS navigation system. The term GPS appears also in the primary headline “引领 GPS 导航新时代” yinling GPS daohang xinshidai (lit. leading the new times of GPS navigation). As noted previously, the use of GPS in English is probably motivated by its embedded meaning of high technology for the product. Similarly, the power of GPS 182 lies in its function of directing a correct way to place one wants to go. Hence, a VERBAL space has an Amoi N6 characterized by the property of navigation. Figure 6.24 The ad for Amoi N6 On the other hand, the English slogan “Touching your future” underneath the emblem in the top left-hand corner is juxtaposed with its Chinese translation “夏新 感触未 来” Xiaxin, ganchu weilai (lit. Xianxin, touch the future). In contrast to its Chinese counterpart, the English slogan with the modifier “your” before “future” is persuasively powerful. Based on the English one, the VERBAL space develops a new structure that the Amoi N6 can direct you into your future correctly. Furthermore, being in its present participle, the word Touching additionally expresses ongoing progressives, suggesting a state of contact with the future or “actualised potential” (Halliday 1973: 53). This empowers us to infer reasonably that this action has been happened or happening, implying the easiness of getting in touch with the future. This effect, however, cannot be detected from its Chinese counterpart “触摸” ganmo (lit. touch), the verb signalling an action to be taken place. In other words, in contrast to the Chinese slogan, the English one 183 has the very effect of suggesting the relative effortlessness for “your” future to be touched with the Amoi N6. This aspect of nuanced meaning also explicitly points to the VERBAL space. The visual information displayed on the screen of the sample product is fascinating and necessary for conceptual integration. It looks like a map, all the lines of which can be referred to as roads. The arrow on the map may well be read as a sign directing the way ahead. What is not clear from the white-and-black reproduction is that the arrow is red, whereas everything else on the screen is white or black. Because travelling ahead on the road yields a vision of leading into the future, the arrow can figuratively be seen as the direction to the future. The Verbal space The Visual space Amoi N6 Map GPS Road Direct to the future Touching the future You Easy Amoi N6 GPS/Map GPS/Roads Touching the future/Direct to the future You Easy The blended space Figure 6.25 A simplified network diagram of the Amoi N6 blend 184 When the theme of future orientation presented individually by the visual and verbal information is projected into the blend shown in Figure 6.25, a new structure emerges within it that the Amoi N6 can easily direct “you” correctly into the future. At this stage, we can see that the word future explicitly projects to the blend. Its basic effect is to indicate how to build connections over the two separate spaces: there are the fulfilment of getting in touch with the future and the future into which you are directed. 6.5 Innovation Orientation On some occasions, Chinese people are also oriented toward innovation, another common feature of modernity (Pathak 2006). Reflected on the data, the meaning of a few headlines and slogans centres round “innovation”: Empowered by Innovation (NEC) Invent (HP) Technology with love, innovate your life (Hisense) Leading Innovation (Toshiba) Like the finding above, the presentation of innovation in English rather than its Chinese counterpart is to evoke and emphasize its close connection to modernity. The significance of technological innovations is particularly detectable in the four Tissot advertisements among the data. Advertisements for Tissot throughout the world are usually characterised by its English headline “More than a Watch. Tissot, Innovator by Tradition” in the bottom left-hand corner, and at the top middle, the English slogan “SWISS WATCHES SINCE 1853” and the emblem. In the Tissot advertisements targeting Chinese people, the English headline, the English slogan and the emblem are all replicated, and their spatial location, kept intact6. Illustrated by Figure 6.26, the one for Tissot PC 100 provides us with a good example. Significantly, the parody and pastiche of the copy empowers the advertiser to This point is reached on the basis of all Tissot advertisements uploaded at the official website of Tissot Company. 185 Figure 6.26 The ad for Tissot PC 100 establish a discursive linkage of it to the TISSOT frame. The English slogan actually refers to two particular aspects of Tissot---the year of its foundation and the place of origin. The former indicates Tissot’s long history and the latter labels this product high quality given the common knowledge that Switzerland is the place from which refined watches come. The English headline states openly that Tissot is not simply a watch manufacturer producing watches merely for the sake of watch making, but better to be seen as an innovator in technology in history. Taken together, the TISSOT frame has as its core elements long history, evergreen success, high quality, and tradition of making innovation. Fused with the elements of evergreen success and time-honoured innovation in technology, the TISSOT frame as an input develops the emergent structure of its own---namely, timehonoured innovation in technology is probably the cause of evergreen success. Therefore, 186 within the TISSOT space is yielded a Cause-Effect relation between the tradition of making innovation and evergreen success. The parody and pastiche does not mean there being no change. On the contrary, the designing of the copy is intentionally vague and impressionistic: the frame flows from the intrinsic communicative purpose of the genre to seek a desired other. We notice the addition to the copy of the Chinese line “天梭, 不仅仅是手表” Tiansuo, bujinjin shi shoubiao (lit. Tissot, more than a watch), the closest translation of the English primary headline “More than a watch”, the text body and price information in Chinese, in addition to the choice of Barbie Xu, a Taiwan actress, as the model. This set of seemingly trivial information indeed is an index of local practice through discursive rearticulation, which is useful for the activation and formation of a specific space for Tissot PC 100. More specifically, the text body indicates advanced functions it carries, and the price information suggests its expensiveness. As to the Chinese primary headline, it is not added merely for emphasizing the essence embodied in its English counterpart but, equally important, to establish its textual connection with the other verbal information in Chinese (cf. Gafaranga 1999; Fauconnier & Turner 2002: 64). This seems to hold the same for the model option. As a famous actress representing success and prestige, Barbie Xu is popular with most Chinese people. When all of the information is fused in the TISSOT PC 100 space, the promoted watch becomes the symbol of success, wealth and social prestige rather than merely a refined watch. This advertisement represents a prototypical single-scope network constitutive of the TISSOT space as the framing input and the TISSOT PC 100 space as the focus input. Diagrammed in Figure 6.27, the elements in the TISSOT frame and the TISSOT PC 100 space are selectively projected to the blend, and fused there with each other. The innerspace relation of Cause-Effect within the TISSOT space is also projected to the blend. Diffuse structure of the focus space is projected into this already compressed inner-space 187 relation. Since Tissot’s tradition of making innovation in technology is the main factor contributing to its successful story continued for over 150 years in the TISSOT space, social prestige attached to Tissot PC 100 in the focus input inferably tends to be a life-long possession. In the blend the ownership of success and social prestige attributes to technological innovations. To have evergreen success and enduring enjoyment of social prestige becomes so to speak to make consistent innovations in technology. The emergent meaning is that technological innovations are the essential means for perpetual ownership of social prestige as well as evergreen success. Following this discussion, it is conclusive that this advertisement is an illustration of orienting Chinese people toward simultaneous success and innovation. The Tissot space The Tissot PC 100 space Tissot Tissot PC 100 High quality Advanced functions Time-honored Success Success Long history Social prestige Innovator Wealth Tissot/Tissot PC 100 High quality/Advanced functions Time-honored success/Success Long history Social prestige Innovator The blended space Figure 6.27 A simplified network diagram of the Tissot PC 100 blend 188 As a final point, it seems important to appreciate that although innovation usually tends to characterize the spirit of modernity, the intensification of innovation in the Chinese context cannot be interpreted and explained as externally and commercially constituted. For Winner, “Innovations are similar to legislative acts or political foundings that establish a framework for public order” (1988: 42-43). In the same way as the intersecting of modern technology and the orientation of modern identity toward emotion, success and future, the emphasis put on orienting Chinese people toward innovation is in accordance with China’s long-term adherence to the weight of technological innovations. Summary In this chapter, I have explored the construction of modern identities in Chinese-English bilingual advertising by centring round the intersection of modernity, locality, and the use of English. A discussion, and exemplification, is provided over how modern identities are constructed and represented in the form of five orientations. My first observation is that these orientations set for Chinese people, as noted in the analysis, are universal across the world in terms of forms. The analyses have also exemplified the significance of modern technology and its innovations to the construction of all the orientations but internationalization. This finding should not come as a surprising, but resonates with China’s strenuous efforts to acquire modern technology and desire to realize its project of Four Modernizations (that perhaps also accounts for the largest number of technological advertisements in the data). The pervasiveness of an international orientation in the real estate advertisements fits normally within the normative narrative of displaying the desire of China and its people to join the tendency of globalization. The findings are illustrative of the point that there is “universality” in modernity and modern identity of Chinese people. 189 But it is flawed to follow that the form of modern cultural order in China is completely identical to the standard model. Indeed, the meanings of modern identity there are never internationally homogeneous as these in the West, particularly success and emotion orientations that are culturally distinctive. While modern technology being stressed as an important, or even essential, tool for attaining these dimensions of modern identity, a few examples also celebrate personal merits of self-reliance, hard work, and effort as inescapable factors as modern technology and its innovations. This observation supports the argument that the essentialization of Chineseness as Confucian has equally become a convenient prescription for modern identity of Chinese people in contemporary China, which, as evidenced above, has much to with the attitudes of China toward modern technology. The Chinese government holds the idea that these personal traits should be complement to modern technology and its innovations in its path to modernity. The fact that the orientations toward emotion and success sometimes intersect with that of self-reliance and/or hard work suggests the intimate relationship between the value of personal merits and Chinese people’s modern identity. In other words, in addition to modern technology being stressed as an external factor of importance, Chinese people are oriented toward self-reliance and hard work as the constituent parts of their modern identity. By investigating carefully the constructive processes, all the examples above must have shown cogently the salient interconnection of English to constructing these aspects of modern identity. The construction of modern identities is often the consequence of coworking between the verbal and the visual. Mismatches between visual and verbal information are rarely found and visual image always works concordantly with verbal message. In spite of this, the particular role of English in the constructive processes could still be singled out with ease by relying on the integrative approach. By mixing particular English words into headline and slogan, English does play an important and even decisive 190 role in constructing these aspects of modern identity. In most cases, English is used for activating and presenting its symbolic as well as semantic meanings. Sometimes English is applied to express semantic nuance or cultural meaning that its Chinese equivalent lacks. But the role English may have is often complicated, fluid and cannot be separated easily. 191 [...]... between the viewers and Fiat Motor Company that has already been built up in the INVITATION space is radically augmented A cross-space mapping further takes place between the DIY space and the INVITATION space In the blend diagrammed by Figure 6. 7 the literal content of the appointment inferably refers to the specific activity of DIY car maintenance and repair Projected back to the blended space of INVITATION,... one and acquisition of it Look closely at the copy, in addition to the detailed information of contact details and promotion, its textual information is mainly situated in the domains of headline and slogan Here is the slogan The power of dreams” and the headline 154 constitutive of the primary in English “Get a New View!” and the secondary in Chinese “梦想提前实现” mengxiang tiqian shixian (lit the dream... use of di, king, manor and palace, are alien In accordance with the immediate discussion, two VILLA spaces are available one containing the promoted villa associated with the past, and the other having it connected to the present They are selected as two input spaces connectable by the vital relation of Time Diagrammed in Figure 6. 17, in the blend the villa signals to today’s rich and successful business... Christmas Day Given the identical element of the date, a space mapping first occurs across the CHRISTMAS space and the INVITATION space, adding to the INVITATION space the new meaning that the appointment with Fiat Motor Company in some sense is like family gathering The viewers who are invited to have an appointment with Fiat Motor Company now become one member of the Fiat family, whereby the solidarity... headline presumably works to invite as many participants as possible A CHRISTMAS space is verbally activated by Merry Christmas alongside the visual images of Santa Claus and gift bags in the upper right-hand corner In contrast to its Chinese translation, Merry Christmas highlights as core elements of this space the conventional information in the West of family gathering and celebration during Christmas... DIY car maintenance & repair Appointment Family gathering Love You/You Fiat cars/Fiat Motor Co DIY car maintenance & repair Appointment Family gathering Love The blended space Figure 6. 7 A simplified network diagram of the self-reliant orientation blend The PARTY space now becomes an input to the emotion-orientation blend, another input of which is the INVITATION space This allows us to refer to the. .. diagram of the LG Xcanvas I blend The above analyses might have already provided good illustrations of the important, or even essential, role of English as well as modern technology as means in the 160 presentation of success that is typified in an orientation toward abstract accomplishment, acquisition, and change of something In the LG Xcanvas I advertisement, what is of equal significance is that... the contact number River and mountain, of course, is the literal translation of “江山”, part of the brand name “江山帝景” jiangshan dijing (lit river and mountain royal landscape) that in its own right assigns the royal property to the promoted villa The royal property is enriched through the use of English words king, manor, and palace They all point explicitly to the space of the villa The effect of them... connections 153 across spaces in an integration network involving a counterfactual scenario For example, the choice of access indicates the counterfactual scenario of denial, the use of exceed implies the counterfactual scenario of fall behind, and the use of accelerate suggests the counterfactual scenario of decrease or lessen Alternatively put, the presentation of success orientation in such advertisements... living in a villa of this kind, who can appropriate the high social status enjoyed only by the royal class in the past while making clear their successful story of career and higher socio-economic position To the extent that the meanings and symbolisms of the villa are historically mediated, the selective representation and appropriation of the meanings and messages largely represent attempts 3 China’s . Given the identical element of the date, a space mapping first occurs across the CHRISTMAS space and the INVITATION space, adding to the INVITATION space the new meaning that the appointment. English and an instance of intertextuality, the DIY frame bears more heavily on the cultural specialty of self-reliance in the United States than that in China. In an individualistic context of America. contained in the YE space as the source space become the factors that cause the generation of the emotions in the HIGH space as the target space. In the blended space of Yue-Ye- Yue-High, cause