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To produce a teaching quality assessment (TQA) report in the TQA practice launched by the Chinese Ministry of Education the assessing group is naturally in an authoritative position, but the assessed university does not remain absolutely passive and dominated. To investigate this struggle of power over each other in producing the TQA report, the present research examines the discourse aspect of the TQA practice by observing the discursive strategies each party deployed. It is found that both parties resort to institutional power in their discourse practice, and that the assessed university incorporates promotional genres into its self-assessment discourse while the assessing group recontextualises the promotional statement in its authoritative TQA report. It is concluded, based on this case study, that the assessing group’s authoritative TQA report is largely influenced by the self-assessment of the assessed university.

This paper addresses the use of invectives in modern Ghanaian politics. Evidence is drawn from public speeches of political activists of the two leading parties of the country, namely: the National Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The paper analyses at the context as well, i.e. the participants involved, the reaction of the public, and tries to answer the question what makes a public speech or utterance an invective. It also considers some pragmatic effects of such invectives in the over all development of the country and the need for reconciliation.