Shi-xu’s review is a combination of misrepresentation of Language and globalization, and a theoretically confused critique of what he claims to be theoretical confusion in the book.

With respect to the former, he writes, for instance: “Globalization is presented as if it were an even, free and neutral flow of different ideas, and action and distribution of different forms of power (3, 34–35) and it is not indicated that, for example, Western capitalism plays a dominant role in the international processes of politics, economy, media, education, (social) science, and so on.” In fact, the main focus of Language and globalization is on one discourse of globalization, “globalism,” which is clearly identified as not only “dominant” but also “Western capitalist,” and in selecting this focus I thought I had made it obvious that there is nothing “even, free,” or “neutral” about globalization. My conclusion is that Shi-xu has either not read the book carefully enough or has misunderstood it.

With respect to the latter, Shi-xu writes: “No possible culturally different intellectual traditions on” issues of language and globalization “are referred to or hinted at … the same theoretical framework of CDA and political economy is applied to different contexts ranging from the U.S. government’s discourse to the Romanian government’s discourse, and it is not questioned or discussed how it may be applicable to different communities and cultures.” What are these “culturally different intellectual traditions”? He mentions only one: “A Chinese yin-yang dialectic approach, however, would approach discourse and social structure, or indeed language and globalization, as a unity of two (or more) interconnected, interpenetrating, and interchanging parts where change (yi) is the only reality.”

Before getting on to theoretical confusion, let me take up the claim which seems to me to be implicit here, and which I have heard Shi-xu make elsewhere in something more like the bald way in which I shall formulate it to argue the point: Using theoretical frameworks that originate in, loosely, “the West” to research issues which involve, equally loosely, the “East” or the “South” is illegitimate. I have addressed this issue elsewhere, in the journal which Shi-xu edits (Fairclough Reference Fairclough2006). Before formulating what I disagree with him about, let me make clear what I think we would agree on: (a) Theories developed in the West have been frequently used in the service of its economic and political domination of other areas of the world, so it is right always to have a cautionary suspicion on that score; (b) it is difficult, given current institutional forms and biases, for scholars in the East and South to achieve international audibility and visibility for their theories and frameworks, which have a major contribution to make to research on not only their own areas of the world but also others, and this needs to change. But (a) not all theories and frameworks originating in the West are compromised in this way; and (b) some theories and frameworks originating in the West have a general value (like some originating in the East and the South) for research on issues such as globalization. Shi-xu does not show how the versions of CDA and political economy I use may not be applicable to “different communities and cultures,” and I think the onus is on him to do so if that’s what he thinks. If there is a problem, it cannot simply be because they originated in the West.

Let us come to “a Chinese yin-yang dialectic approach.” This would “approach discourse and social structure, or indeed language and globalization, as a unity of two (or more) interconnected, interpenetrating and interchanging parts.” So does my dialectical approach. So what is the difference? “Where change (yi) is the only reality”: If change is the only reality, how come “social structure” is a “part”? Giving primacy to change is one thing; denying that, as Harvey puts it (1996:81), “flows often crystallize into ‘things’ … ‘systems’ which assume a relative permanence” is something else. Now, am I entering into a cultural dispute with Shi-xu, or a theoretical dispute I might equally have with, say, another Brit? The latter, surely. Chinese thinkers have undoubtedly made major contributions to dialectical thought and theory, and no doubt drawn upon the specificity of China and their own particular experience of it to do so. Mao Tse-Tung is an obvious and major example, and no doubt there are others I am not familiar with. But while there surely are distinctively Chinese approaches to dialectical theory and analysis, dialectical theory and analysis is not per se Chinese (as I am sure Shi-xu would agree), and Chinese dialectical theory is surely a theory of broadly and loosely the “same things” as other, non-Chinese dialectical theory.

And Shi-xu’s criticism of what he takes to be my theoretical confusion is also a matter of theoretical dispute. The fact that he is Chinese and I am British is of no relevance whatsoever. What this criticism centers upon is the issue of whether there are non-discursive as well as discursive elements of the social. I say there are. And although Shi-xu’s formulation (see above) of “a Chinese yin-yang dialectic approach” also makes the assumption that there are (e.g., “discourse” and “social structure” are two “parts” in relation), he goes on to assert that there are not: “Because globalization or indeed ‘the real world’ has always to be represented and interpreted, there is no need to distinguish the former from language at the level of representation and action.” (Does this imply there is a need to distinguish them at some level? If so, what level? He does not tell us.)

His premise in this argument, “Globalization or indeed ‘the real world’ always has to be represented,” is far from being unproblematic. It “always has to be” represented: What does this mean? Is there not an implicit conditional, such as “If people are to be able to act on or in relation to it”? Of course we cannot go on as human beings without representing and interpreting the world within which we have to go on. We are constantly representing and interpreting it, constantly debating or disputing certain representations and interpretations in contrast to others, constantly puzzling over how to represent and interpret it. We also quite often, however, misrepresent and misinterpret it, and this may become clear to us when we act on the basis of our representations and interpretations, and experience consequences that “shouldn’t have happened,” given the representations and interpretations we are acting on. We learn through experience, and this learning includes learning that we have been wrong about the world, we have misrepresented and misinterpreted it, there are aspects of it we have not grasped. And this is the case even though the world within which we have to go on is a socially constructed world, a world which has come to be what it is partly because of the ways in which we or our predecessors have acted on the basis of representations and interpretations of it. It makes it no less a reality that exists independently of whether people represent it, or how they represent (or misrepresent) it, that it is a socially (and discursively) constructed reality. We have constructed socially economic systems, universities, hospitals and so forth, but we are no less capable of failing to fully grasp these realities than of failing to fully grasp the origins of the universe. Unless we recognize the separateness of discursive elements of the (social) world and non-discursive elements of the (social) world, as well as recognizing that their separateness does not amount to what I have called “discreteness” (that the relations between them are dialectical), how are we to grasp this?