The Taiwan Research Hub and In Common Breath Book Store presents a Book Launch
Narratives of the Hong Kong Sovereignty Transfer: The Pragmatics of Language and Ideology in the Taiwanese and Chinese English-Language Press
Professor Lutgard Lams, KU LeuvenTaiwan Research, Belgium
Friday 13 November 2026
Lunch 12pm, Talk 12:30-2pm
Room LG101 Hallward Library, University Park
In person Event only
Register at https://forms.cloud.microsoft/e/9L9QTWUuyB
Talk abstract:
Next year, 1 July 2027, Hong Kong will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its sovereignty transfer to China. In view of the popular sentiment in Hong Kong that the boundaries between ‘one country’ and ‘two systems’ have become blurred, this talk connects contemporary realities with the earlier discourses about Hong Kong’s future, articulated nearly 30 years ago at the time of the handover. It shows the benefit of a historical analysis that can serve as an antidote to recency bias, oblivious to the conditions that accompanied Beijing’s promises of a high degree of political and economic autonomy for 50 years and to the prediction of a bad marriage between the ‘two systems’ and the ‘one country’, as articulated in some Western media in the 1990s.
In the book “Narratives of the Hong Kong Sovereignty Transfer: The Pragmatics of Language and Ideology in the Taiwanese and Chinese English-Language Press”, Lutgard Lams exposes the ‘struggle for meaning’ in the Taiwanese and Chinese media narration of the story of Hong Kong, which, in 1997 had become a site of ideological contestation. Through a comparative approach the study identifies distinct ideological positions within the Taiwanese society, not only about Hong Kong but also about Taiwan’s relationship with the PRC. It also provides insights into the different perspectives held in the PRC and Taiwan about Hong Kong’s history, the legacy of the British colonizers, sociopolitical realities at the time of the handover, and about Hong Kong’s future. Above all, the talk returns to the concrete discourses of the 1990s, articulated by various stakeholders in China, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, as disseminated in the respective national media outlets, in an attempt to better understand the present state of affairs in Hong Kong through the prism of the past.
About the speaker:
Lutgard Lams is Professor of Media Discourse Analysis and Intercultural Communication at the Faculty of Arts of KU Leuven, Campus Brussels (Belgium), where she heads the Brussels Center for Journalism Studies (BCJS) and the Chinese Discourse Studies workgroup (BCCDS), dedicated to the study of discourses in and about the Chinese-speaking world. She holds an MA in Germanic Philology from KU Leuven and an MA in English Studies from Carnegie Mellon University, followed by a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Antwerp. Her six-year teaching experience in Taiwan during the 1980s sparked her interest in authoritarian discourses, the role of language in Cross-Strait relations, ideological positioning in the Taiwanese media, Taiwanese presidential campaigns, and framing practices in journalistic communication. Drawing on critical discourse analysis and language pragmatics, her work examines the linguistic mechanisms through which meaning is constructed in spoken and written texts. She has published extensively on media discourses in and about Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China, as well as on strategic narratives in political communication, authoritarian discourses, media framing, and Othering.
Chaired by
Dr Chun-yi Lee, Taiwan Research Hub