Coffee and 18 years of endeavour: stances towards white-collar migrants in China

What is it about?

This study examines a public debate concerning the perceived inequalities experienced by the white collar migrant workers in China. This debate was initiated from a magazine article ‘我奋斗了 18 年才和你坐在一起喝咖啡’ (I'm finally able to drink coffee together with you after 18 years of endeavour) originally published by China Youth. Drawing on a number of theories concerning the sociolinguistic construction of identity, social circulation of media discourse, and stance-taking, more importantly, Eastern paradigms of discourse studies, this study examines the debate with the focus on stance-taking towards the white collar migrant workers around the media circulation of the two phrases (i.e. he kafei and 18 nian de fengdou) in Chinese media discourse.

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