In Narratives in East Asia and Beyond: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on Using Narratives as a Research Method, contributors from diverse fields jointly argue for the interdisciplinary appeal of using narratives as a research method. Scholars from the fields of philosophy of narrative, ethnographic research, linguistics, political sciences, international relations, and area studies reflect on how to approach, understand, and utilize narratives to comprehend social structures and interactions. The volume attempts to reflect on a range of questions, including: How can narrative studies broaden and deepen the scope of research in other fields? What connections exist between narratives and identities (individual and collective)? How does analyzing narratives help us better understand the dynamics of the policy change and the perceptions of self and other? The essays range from reflections on the role of narrativity in cognitive processes, interview settings, and in constructing historical memories to the analysis of narrator and audience perspectives on the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative, evaluations of roles and legitimation strategies, as well as interpretations of documentary films. The authors show the flexibility and fruitfulness of incorporating narratives into research agendas in a wide range of disciplines and highlight the theoretical and empirical research benefits that narrative studies open up.

The rapid development of China's economy has resulted in various kinds of conflict of interest (COI). This study focuses on how COI is resolved in Chinese civil court hearings via discourse information processing. Based on Discourse Information Theory, and the notions of Context Model Schema and Discourse Space, an analytical framework is constructed for the description, analysis and interpretation of the language used in Chinese court hearings. Data analysis has revealed the following major findings: a) litigants in Chinese civil court hearings mainly resort to three information categories when making interest appeals: subjective, objective and explanatory information; b) the process of interest negotiation in court hearings is greatly influenced by such sociological, psychological and discursive factors as identities, intentions, information sharing status, discourse expectations, etc.; and c) different discourse management strategies are adopted to promote conciliation between litigants, among which information management, cognitive management and linguistic management are the most frequently used.