Abstract: This study sets out to explore the general principles of structural moves in Chinese sales letters by using a combined approach of genre analysis (Swales, 1990) and contrastive rhetoric (Kaplan, 1966). Data consisting of twenty authentic letters are analyzed in two steps: (1) a description of structural moves in a twenty-letter corpus; and (2) a detailed structural analysis of the most successful letter in the corpus identified by native speakers. The analysis will focus on the general structure and development of each individual move in the letter. Both of these levels of analysis try to determine which style Chinese sales letters follow. The findings show that all sales letters in the corpus follow a linear development and that most sales letters follow a direct approach and speak to the point, although some are indirect, providing introductory or transitional sections. This indirectness is basically linear in structural development and is not related to 'circularity' or 'digression'.

Abstract: This article examines elements of language which have primarily affective and expressive effects in discourse. It is argued that such elements have been relatively ignored by linguists who have preferred to describe more cognitive, ideational, and easily systematizable phenomena. Drawing on data from a multimillion-word corpus of spoken English the main argument in this article is that expressive phenomena should not be marginalized in contexts of interpersonal spoken interaction and that possibilities for systematic description are available. The main example taken is that of 'tails' in English and a descriptive account is given in which a new discourse category of 'reciprocating' move is proposed. The account raises, however, crucial questions concerning the nature of spoken grammar, the characterization of rules in discourse sequences, and the place accorded to affect in a description of language

Abstract: (1997). Africa, art criticism and the big commentary. Third Text: Vol. 11, No. 41, pp. 53-66.

Abstract: Using the approach of critical linguistics, this article compares and contrasts personage description in Hong Kong and mainland Chinese entertainment news discourse. Setting the texts of the news reports against the different social contexts in which they were produced, the article establishes three contrastive parameters that characterize personage reporting across the two regions: contrast in narrative values and themes - realism versus idealism ; contrast in the representation of speech by the personage - individualization versus assimilation; and contrast in the rhetoric of the text - on-line interaction versus planned exposition (fragmented versus elaborated structure). Finally, implications for further development as well as the application of critical linguistics or critical discourse analysis are presented

Abstract: (1997). Contemporary art in Asia: Traditions/tensions. Third Text: Vol. 11, No. 41, pp. 103-106.

Abstract: (1997). E B Havell: The art and politics of Indianness. Third Text: Vol. 11, No. 39, pp. 3-19.

Abstract: (1997). The museum and the crisis of critical postmodernism. Third Text: Vol. 11, No. 41, pp. 67-74.

Abstract: Poverty refuses to disappear as a problem, thereby counterinig the wish-filfilment of global moguls. Conversely capitalism as a narrative and practice continuies to thrive, assumintg intcreasinzgly invisible antd chimerical inaiifestatiots, which would seem to reduce the earlier modes of capitalisin to a state of spectrality. Th-ese refusals to die of povertv, capitalism an-d the Orient are the major concerns of this story. Through a descriptiotn of a seemintgly irrelevant cultural spectacle is exposed the conttraidictions of our 50 years of depenidence, more sharply than any other narrative in the seemnitngly unreal world of perforinance.