Dr Aditi Bhatia Associate Professor

Location AG409
Phone +852 2766 4382
mail aditi.bhatia@polyu.edu.hk

Open Platform for University Scholars
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Research Overview I study the discursive construction of social and political phenomenon from a critical discourse analytical perspective. My goal is to better understand how people in society use language in identity-construction and argumentation.

My most recent book, Discursive Illusions in Public Discourse: Theory and Practice, puts forwards a multi-perspective discourse analytical framework, that of Discourse of Illusion, which seeks to theorise and analyse how ideological arguments posed by competing groups are formed and spread in society for the purpose of achieving collective consent. As such, I have done extensive research on political discourse, particularly in terrorism and public square movements (part of this research features in my book).

Currently, I am the principal investigator of a project on Digital Professions that aims to explore identity-construction on YouTube. I am also a member of the Research Centre for Professional Communication in English (RCPCE) and member of the Editorial Advisory Board for World Englishes.

I am particularly interested in research projects that focus on public discourses, especially those deriving from politics, new and traditional media, and engaging them from the perspective of critical discourse analysis.




Academic and Professional Experiences Doctor of Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, 2007
Bachelor of Arts (Honors), University of Wales, Cardiff, Wales, 2003




Teaching Areas Critical Discourse Analysis
Critical Language and Cultural Studies
Popular Culture and English
Discourse and the Professions




Research Interests
Critical Discourse Analysis
Language and Politics
Digital Professions
Applied Linguistics



Research Output

Books
Bhatia, Aditi (forthcoming) Digital Influencers and Online Expertise: The Linguistic Power of Beauty Vloggers. London & New York: Routledge

Bhatia, Aditi (2015) Discursive Illusions in Public Discourse: Theory and Practice. London & New York: Routledge

Jenks, Chris J., Lou, Jackie, and Bhatia, Aditi (eds) (2015) The Discourse of Culture and Identity in National and Transnational Contexts. London & New York: Routledge





Journal Special Issue
Bhatia Aditi (ed) (forthcoming) ‘World Englishes and Critical Discourse Analysis’. World Englishes

Jenks, Chris J., Lou, Jackie, and Bhatia, Aditi (eds) (2013) ‘The Discourse of Culture and Identity in National and Transnational Contexts’. Language and Intercultural Communication 13(2).





Journal Articles
Ross, Andrew and Bhatia, Aditi (2020) ‘“Ruled Britannia”: Metaphorical Construction of the EU as Enemy in UKIP Campaign Posters’. The International Journal of Press/Politics. https://doi.org/10.1177/1942
Bhatia, Aditi (2020) ‘Saffronisation of India: A critical discourse analysis of contemporary political ideology’ World Englishes. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12494

Nartey, Mark and Bhatia, Aditi (2020) ‘“We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquillity”: Mythological heroism in the discourse of Kwame Nkrumah’. World Englishes. https://doi.org/10.1111/weng.12499

Jenks, Chris J and Bhatia Aditi (2020) ‘Infesting our country’ – Discursive illusions in anti-immigration border talk’. Language and Intercultural Communication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2020.1722144

Bhatia, Aditi (2019) ‘Vlogging and the discursive co-construction of ethnicity and beauty’. World Englishes. 39(1), 7-21.

Ross, Andrew S. and Bhatia, Aditi (2019) ‘#secondcivilwarletters from the front: Discursive illusions in a trending Twitter hashtag’. New Media and Society, 21(10), 2222-2241

Bhatia, Aditi and Jenks, Chris J (2018) ‘Fabricating the American Dream in US media portrayals of Syrian refugees: A discourse analytical study’. Discourse & Communication 12(3), 223-239.

Bhatia, Aditi (2018) ‘Interdiscursive Performance in Digital Professions: The Case of YouTube Tutorials’. Journal of Pragmatics 124, 106-120.

Bhatia, Aditi (2017) ‘Chris Featherman, Discourses of Ideology and Identity: Social Media and the Iranian Election Protests’. Book Review. Discourse & Communication 11(3), 330-332.

Bhatia, Aditi (2016) ‘Occupy Central and the rise of discursive illusions: A Discourse Analytical Study’. Text &Talk 36(6), 661-682.

Bhatia, Aditi (2016) ‘Discursive Construction of the ‘Key’ Moment in the Umbrella Movement’. Journal of Language and Politics 15(5), 551-568.

Bhatia, Aditi (2015) ‘Construction of Discursive Illusions in the Umbrella Movement’. Discourse & Society, 26(4), 407–427.

Bhatia, Aditi (2013) ‘International Genre, Local Flavour: Analysis of PetroChina’s Sustainability Report’. Revista Signos 46(83), 307-331.

Jenks, C.J., Bhatia, A., Lou, J.J. (2013). Introduction to the Discourse of Culture and Identity in National and Transnational Contexts. Language & Intercultural Communication 13(2), 121-125.

Bhatia, Aditi (2012) ‘Student Writing and Genre. Reconfiguring Academic Knowledge’. Book Review. Applied Linguistics 33(3), 354-356.

Bhatia, Aditi (2012) ‘Corporate Social Responsibility: The Hybridization of a ‘Confused’ Genre’. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 55(3), 221-238.

Bhatia, Aditi (2011) ‘The Discursive Construction of European Identities’. Invited Review. Iberica 23, 190-193.

Bhatia, Aditi and Bhatia, Vijay K (2011) ‘Discursive Illusions in Legislative Discourse: A Socio- Pragmatic Comparison of Security Laws from Hong Kong and America’. World Englishes, 30(4), 481-495. ?

Bhatia, Aditi (2011) ‘Finding Faith and Solidarity: Building Community in Political Press Conferences’. Iberica 21, 117-139.

Bhatia, Aditi and Bhatia, Vijay K (2011) ‘Discursive Illusions in Legislative Discourse’. The International Journal of the Semiotics of Law 24(1), 1-19.

Bhatia, Aditi (2010) Comment on Demont-Heinrich's Linguistically privileged and cursed? American university students and the global hegemony of English'. World Englishes 29(2).

Bhatia, Aditi (2009) ‘Discourses of Terrorism’. Journal of Pragmatics 41(2), 279-289.

Bhatia, Aditi (2008) ‘Discursive Illusions in the American National Strategy for Combating Terrorism’. Journal of Language and Politics 7(2), 201-227.

Bhatia, Aditi (2008) ‘Language of the New World Order’. World Englishes, 27(2), 268-269.

Bhatia, Aditi (2007) ‘Religious Metaphor in the Discourse of Illusion: George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden’. World Englishes, 26(4), 507-524.

Bhatia, Aditi (2006) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis of Political Press Conferences’. Discourse & Society 17(2), 173-203.





Book Chapters
Bhatia, A (forthcoming) ‘Discursive Construction of the Public Square in Hong Kong’. In Vijay K Bhatia and Jerome Tessuto (eds) Social Media in Legal Practice. Routledge.

Bhatia, Aditi and Ross, Andrew S. (2020) ‘Trumpian tweets and populist politics: A corpus-assisted discourse analytical study’. In Ruth Breeze and Ana Maria Fernandez Vallejo (eds) Populist discourses across modes and media. Peter Lang.

Bhatia, Aditi (2018) ‘Narratives of Struggle and Legitimacy in the Arab Spring’. In Damian Rivers and Andrew Ross (eds), Participatory Digital Cultures and Contemporary Discourses of (De)Legitimization. Routledge.

Bhatia, Aditi (2017) ‘The Discursive Construction of Terrorism and Violence’. In John Flowerdew and John Richardson (eds) Handbook of Critical Discourse Analysis. Routledge.

Bhatia, Vijay K and Bhatia, Aditi (2017) ‘Interdiscursive Manipulation in Media Reporting: The Case of Panama Papers in India’. In Maurizo Gotti et al. (ed) Power, persuasion and manipulation in specialised genres. Peter Lang.

Bhatia, Aditi (2016) ‘Legal necessity or competitive advantage: a critical analysis of workplace diversity initiatives in Hong Kong’. In Jerome Tessuto (ed) Constructing Legal Discourses and Social Practices: Issues and Perspectives. Cambridge Scholars Publishing: UK

Bhatia, Aditi (2015) ‘The Discursive Portrayals of Osama Bin Laden’. In Susan Jeffords and Fahed Al-Sumait (eds) Covering bin Laden: Global Media and the World's Most Wanted Man. University of Illinois Press: USA.

Bhatia, Aditi (2013) ‘World of the Impolitic: A Critical Study of the WMD Dossier’. In Adam Hodges (ed) Oxford Series in Sociolinguistics: The Discourses of War and Peace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bhatia, Aditi (2013) ‘Comment on Demont-Heinrich's Linguistically privileged and cursed? American university students and the global hegemony of English'. Republished in Robert Phillipson, Linguistic Imperialism Continued. Routledge.

Bhatia, Aditi (2011) ‘Critical Discourse Analysis: History and New Developments’. In Carole Chapelle (ed) The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. New York: Wiley-Blackwell.

Bhatia, Vijay K and Bhatia, Aditi (2011) ‘Business Communication’. In James Simpson (ed) Handbook of Applied Linguistics. London: Routledge

Bhatia, Aditi (2006) ‘Language and Ideology in Political Press Conferences’. In Azirah Hashim and Norizah Hassan (eds) English in Southeast Asia: Prospects, Perspectives and Possibilities. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press. ?

Bhatia, Vijay K. and Bhatia, Aditi (2004) ‘Global Genres in Local Contexts’. In Christopher N. Candlin and Maurizio Gotti (eds) Intercultural Aspects of Specialized Communication. Bern: Peter Lang.










Others



Research Projects (funded projects – both internal and external)
Principal Investigator, ‘Hashtag Activism in HK Protests’. Public Policy Research Grant (2020).

Co-Investigator, ‘The Contribution of Minority Languages and Dialects to Hong Kong’s Linguistic Landscape’. Public Policy Research Grant. Principal Investigator Prof John Bacon-Shone (2019-2020).

Principal Investigator, ‘Investigating Identity-Construction in Popular Culture: A YouTube-Based Study’. The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Incentive Grant (2017-2019).

Principal Investigator, ‘A Discourse-Based Study of Corporate Diversity Initiatives in Hong Kong’. City University of Hong Kong Strategic Research Grant (2015-2016).

Co-Investigator, ‘The Discourse of Food Labelling in Hong Kong: Public Policy and Discursive Practice’. HK Research Grants Council General Research Fund. Principal Investigator Prof Rodney H. Jones (2011-2012).

Co-Investigator, ‘A Study of Discursive Barriers to Comprehending and Assessing Climate-Change Argumentation’. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SIG) Institutional Grant. Principal Investigator Dr Graham Smart (2011).

Co-Investigator, ‘Glocalizing Luxury Homes: A Comparative Discourse Analysis of Multilingual and Multimodal Real Estate Promotional Materials in Hong Kong, New Delhi, and Shanghai’. City University of Hong Kong Strategic Research Grant. Principal Investigator Dr Alice Chik (2010-2011).


Principal Investigator, ‘A Discourse Analytical Study of Collective Argumentation in the Climate-Change Debate: Asian and North American Perspectives’. City University of Hong Kong Strategic Research Grant (2010-2011).










Esteem Measures







Professional Associations
Member of International Association of World Englishes (IAWE)




Editorial/Advisory Board Memberships
Member of Editorial Advisory Board for World Englishes





Awards and Honours
Dean’s Award for Research Excellence, Faculty of Humanities, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 2019

Higher Degree Research Excellence Award, Macquarie University, 2007

Dell Hymes Commendation for Sociolinguistics, University of Wales, Cardiff, 2003