Updates and Elaborations

Notes on Foreign Language and Translations

The author relies on secondary texts to interpret the European witch-hunts. No original efforts at translation have been made, except for the epigraph used to open Chapter 2, for which two separate native speakers with the appropriate academic backgrounds were consulted.

 

The author has a basic-level proficiency in the Chinese language. The purpose of including the original Chinese text (in simplified style) is for readers who understand the Chinese language to see the original words. In translation, one could adopt a more literal method of translation or a looser form—a form that accords more with the natural form of language familiar to the readers. The literal method is heavily used in the second case study of Revolution and Witchcraft in order to capture the figurative aspect of the Chinese language, some of which may be related to the ideational mode of codification. This approach however entails a risk of unintentionally “exoticizing” the subjects. Certain expressions that sound highly abnormal to an English reader may actually be quite normal to a native Chinese speaker—or the same sentence has been translated into English in other terms. (A looser form of translation can also introduce a similar problem of exoticization.)

Bibliography Alphetibized - Revolution and Witchcraft 03.pdf

Alphabetized Book Bibliography

An alphabetized bibliography was eliminated from the final manuscript due to length considersations.

Addendum to Ch 10 - Detailed, Rigorous Thinking in a Complex Chain of Elastic Codes.pdf

Addendum to Chapter 10 - Detailed, Rigorous Thinking in a Complex Chain of Elastic Codes

Note: The texts below originally sit between two subsections Chapter 10 in Revolution and Witchcraft—following “Using Deep Theories: Example of a Volleyball Match Incident” (p. 232) and before “Assessing the Great Leap Forward at a Time of Terrible Aftermath” (p.233). This portion was eliminated from the final manuscript due to length and flow.  This portion presents a case that reveals the stepwise deductive logical operation inside the revolutionary idea system.   

Addemum to Ch 15 - Pivotal Moment - International Response to the War on Iraq.pdf

Addendum to Chapter 15 - A Pivotal Moment: International Response to the War on Iraq

Note: The texts below originally followed the end of Chapter 15 in Revolution and Witchcraft—after the section “Integrative Arguments Delivered to the American Public” (p. 331). This portion was eliminated from the final manuscript due to length and flow.  This portion presents how the idea system is tested in the international institution during a pivotal moment—how the codes of related to “peace,” “humanitarian,” and “international community” were deployed to encode information during that pivotal moment.

Evidencing International Threat - 2013.pdf

Evidencing International Threat (Journal of Language and Politics, 2013)

Note: This article covers the Iraq Survey Group weapons search in greater details.  In particular, it breaks down the Duelfer Report summary texts; the figures may be useful for readers.  

Full Citation:   Chang, Gordon C., Kerstin Lueck, and Hugh B. Mehan. 2013. “Evidencing International Threat: Examining Iraq Survey Group’s Post-Invasion Verification of Iraq’s WMD Threat.” Journal of Language and Politics 12(1): 29-58. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.1.02cha

eScholarship UC item 4xt6g5v1.pdf

The Politics of Representation and the Social Order: In the War on Terror (UC San Diego, 2008)

Note: The third case of the book is brief, partly because some findings were previously published in my trio articles ("Discourse in Religious Mode" (2006) in Pragmatics, "Why We Must Attack Iraq" (2008) in Discourse & Society, and "Evidencing International Threat (2013) in Journal of Language and Politics. This dissertation represents my early effort wrestling with the War on Terror case.  Although the theoretical framework was not yet developed, it represents a much more comprehensive coverage of the third case--and a much easier read for general readers.  

Gordon C. Chang, “The Politics of Representation and the Social Order: In the War on Terror,” (PhD diss., University of California San Diego, 2008), 139–157, available for download at eScholarship: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4xt6g5v1.