This paper investigates anti-pandemic slogans as institutional discourse in Chinese official and semi-official media during the COVID-19 crisis. These slogans, circulating across traditional and digital platforms, served not only as tools for health communication but also as vehicles of ideological alignment and social mobilization. Adopting approaches from critical discourse analysis, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics, this study analyses how these slogans construct meaning, reinforce political legitimacy, and shape public behaviour. The study identifies three key strategies: lexical innovation (new lexical blends), the idiomatic recontextualization (flexible use of chengyu), and the use of imperative syntactic structures. This study contributes to the understanding of how language operates as a mode of governance and ideological disseminatiod: based on a corpus of 300+ slogans, collected from Chinese social media platforms, the analysis reveals how linguistic creativity responded to mobilize during an evolving emergency and reinforced state narratives. Ultimately, this article highlights the relevance of discourse-based approaches in analysing contemporary Chinese media and illustrates how language shapes perceptions, behaviour, and collective memory in times of crisis.
Abstract This contribution outlines the rationale and scope of the journal issue on Discourse and the Contemporary Chinese Media. It argues that discourse analysis provides a valuable framework for examining how language, ideology, and power interact within China’s evolving media landscape. The article highlights the relevance of discourse-analytical and pragmatic approaches for investigating media narratives across diverse platforms, genres, and audiences in contemporary China. It also addresses the methodological debate surrounding the application of discourse theories developed in Western contexts to Chinese media, arguing that such approaches remain effective when grounded in rigorous methodology and informed contextual knowledge. By introducing the contributions collected in this issue, the article demonstrates how discourse studies can illuminate processes of meaning-making, representation, and ideological construction in contemporary Chinese media.
This paper explores how classical mythology is reconfigured through Chinese animated media to construct ideological discourse in times of prolonged national crisis. It focuses on Princess Iron Fan (1941) and Havoc in Heaven (1961–1964), two foundational works that adapt episodes from the Ming dynasty novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji), a text itself rooted in centuries of reinterpretation of the Tang monk Xuanzang’s pilgrimage. Drawing on a multimodal discourse approach, the study examines how visual, narrative, and symbolic elements are orchestrated to produce politically charged messages during periods of structural instability, or “permacrisis”. These films are analyzed not merely as cultural artefacts, but as discursive devices that manipulate myth to foster national identity and political legitimacy. While grounded in mid-20th-century case studies, the paper also considers how these ideological patterns persist in contemporary Chinese media, particularly through the digital reappropriation of myth and heritage narratives. In doing so, it highlights the continuity between historical animation and present-day discursive strategies employed by the state to manage crisis, construct meaning, and mobilize collective sentiment across changing technological and political landscapes.
Lianhuanhua 连环画 is a traditional Chinese form of comic art, consisting of one image accompanied by one caption per page. Emerging from early 20th-century illustrated narratives, it rose to prominence during the Maoist era as a major propaganda tool (Mittler 2012; Chen 1996). In this essay, I reflect on the present-day official discourse surrounding lianhuanhua (LHH). Specifically, I examine how media—particularly art and art-related journals—as well as the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database that disseminates and reframes these materials, construct and reinforce narratives emphasizing the close relationship between art institutions and lianhuanhua. My analysis focuses in particular on the phenomenon of Jiashang lianhuanhua 架上连环画 (“lianhuanhua on the easel”)—a form ideally designed for both print circulation and museum exhibition. Drawing on van Dijk’s take on the “discursive reproduction of power” in newsmaking (2015), I approach this subject from the perspective of media and communication studies. While attending to the textual construction of official discourse on LHH, I also explore the broader media context in which this discourse is embedded.
This study investigates the semantic transformation of the term “East Asia” within Chinese new media, tracing its evolution from a neutral geographical signifier to a highly emotionalised and contested concept. Using a diachronic corpus of 141 highly-read articles from WeChat Official Account platform published between 2016 and 2024, this research combines corpus linguistics, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to analyse this shift. The findings reveal a critical turning point in early 2018, after which “East Asia” was increasingly used as an adjective or possessive modifier to frame social critiques. The analysis identifies five core metaphorical clusters driving this emotionalisation: “Monster-Room” (geopolitical competition), “Hell-Mode” (educational pressure), “Patriarchy” (gender critique), “Involution” (youth struggles), and “Powder-Keg” (security risks). Furthermore, the study highlights the prevalence of identity terms such as “East Asian mother/daughter/youth” that anchor abstract anxieties in personal, intergenerational narratives. The research concludes that the semantic shift of “East Asia” is a phenomenon driven by the interplay of pre-existing structural anxieties in Chinese society and the affordances of digital platforms, whose algorithms amplify emotionally resonant and identity-focused content. This process provides a crucial lens for understanding the dynamics of digital nationalism, platform governance, and social sentiment in contemporary China.
Chinese medical television series (yiliaoju 医疗剧) operate as hybrid cultural artifacts that blend entertainment with informal health education and convey social and moral values. These productions shape public perceptions of healthcare, trust in medical institutions, and doctor–patient relationships, while simultaneously serving as vehicles for the dissemination of specialized medical language. This study offers a preliminary investigation of the strategies employed by Chinese yiliaoju to popularize medical knowledge and terminology, focusing on the 2024 series Live Surgery Room (Shoushu zhibo jian 手术直播间). Using a qualitative approach, the analysis draws on a corpus comprising 130 minutes of drama to explore how verbal and visual resources support comprehension of clinical concepts and practices. Within the framework of written popularization discourse, eight strategies are identified and organized into four overarching categories: concept identification, linguistic re-elaboration, relational mapping, and contextualization. When assessed against these criteria, the preliminary results demonstrate that the series operates through the integrated use of verbal explanations, subtitles, visual didacticism, and immersive simulations to make complex medical phenomena accessible to non-specialist audiences, underscoring the potential of yiliaoju to mediate and disseminate specialized medical knowledge.
This paper explores media representations of thematic foci across the headlines of the People’s Daily. Based on the application of van Dijk’s (1980) macro-rule of ‘generalisation’ and van Leeuwen’s (2008) socio-semantic inventory of social-actor representation, namely the categories of ‘inclusion’ and ‘exclusion’, the findings largely revealed the agency of the Chinese social actors associated with the authorities in keeping the COVID-19 pandemic under control through science. The focus was also on foreign countries’ perceptions of how China managed the public health crisis. These countries could be divided into friendly nations that praised China’s perseverance in maintaining control over the COVID-19 situation, and hostile states like the US and its Western allies that sought to discredit China’s efforts. China was portrayed as an economic saviour for other countries due to the immense business opportunities that its large number of outbound tourists may contribute to their post-pandemic economic recovery. However, there were no news reports that documented how the Chinese authorities intended to address the challenges faced by their country’s economy, intensifying the concern that a “Peak China” may ultimately materialise.
The status quo in Cross-Strait relations is a delicate thread carefully constructed through language, resulting in strategic semantic ambiguity. This research examines translation’s role in reframing “strategic narratives” on the Taiwan issue for different target audiences, using the English, Italian, and Arabic versions of The Governance of China (I) as a case study. The English version uses inclusive language and softens claims for a broad readership. Catering to specific cultural sensibilities, the Italian translation amplifies emotional rhetoric, while the Arabic edition adapts kinship and moral metaphors for greater resonance. Across all versions, rhetorical devices such as family metaphors, historical references, and economic portrayals build a perception of inevitability regarding the PRC’s position on Taiwan. This situates translation as a site of ideological negotiation, reframing narratives to persuade readers of China’s legitimate claim.
Since the 1980s, English language proficiency has been considered as a crucial tool for China’s modernization and economic development and has been actively promoted within the country’s educational system. However, the status enjoyed by the English language has become a debated topic within Chinese society in recent years, with even representatives openly suggesting a reduction of the importance attached to it. This topic has therefore been discussed also in Chinese official media, and, ever since 2013, significant space has been given to voices who are critical towards English and its supposed dreaded negative effects on Chinese society. This contribution analyzes the representation of the public debate about English language teaching in Chinese official media. The aim is to reveal a substantial shift in public sentiment towards it. Relying on the qualitative analysis based on critical discourse analysis of a corpus of articles published between 2013 and 2023, this contribution particularly examines how social meanings and attitudes towards the English language are produced and promoted in them. In doing so, it attempts to contribute to the academic discussion on the relationship between education policies, public consensus, and media in China.
This study traces discursive patterns in the representation of the Chinese Self and the European Other in China’s English-language media accounts about the EU-China Summits in 2022 and 2023. In the analysis of how the EU-China relationship and its protagonists are framed and positioned, the study’s focus lies on unraveling the linguistic underpinnings of the framing process. This way, framing theory is combined with insights from positioning theory, critical discourse analysis and language pragmatics. The analysis demonstrates how a linguistic text exploration can uncover ideological processes of Othering and appraisal of the Self. Unlike the demonization of the US Other, a dual tone about the EU-China relations reveals China’s ambiguous attitude toward the EU and shows how the relational dynamics between the three actors are played out very differently. Expressions of hopes for an enhanced collaboration with the EU feature alongside moralist directives on how the EU should move forward. Negative articulations about the EU’s lost normative power on the global scene strategically position China above the EU in the ranking order of global powers.
Abstract Argumentation in the Language-System and Argumentation in Discourse: Theoretical Intersections between Linguistic and Discursive Phenomena The great theoretical distance that separates argumentation dans la langue (J.-C. Anscombre, O. Ducrot, M. Carel) from argumentation dans le discours (R. Amossy) lies in the fact that the former argumentation school studies semantic orientations. In other words, it defends a semantic description of natural languages from which context is excluded. Each utterance orients, carries conclusions, and this orientation is part of its meaning. Argumentation dans le discours embraces, conversely, a communicative approach that implies a response, a theoretical position attentive to discursive genres, the persuasive and interdiscursive dimensions of the speech. Our contribution aims to highlight the most obvious points of divergence between these two theoretical and methodological schools through the prism of French discourse analysis. To this end, we will understand the pragmatic foundation of argumentation. Both approaches are then related through the analysis of the same examples in an effort to make them dialogue in a way that is intended to be fruitful for the teaching of argumentative theories.
French Discourse Analysis: Interdisciplinary Dialogues and Applications in the Italian Academic Context
Abstract This article investigates the epistemological convergence between French historiography and French Discourse Analysis (FDA), emphasizing their shared focus on language as a vehicle for historical meaning and ideological formation. Tracing the evolution from the Annales School to post-structuralist thinkers such as Foucault and LaCapra, the study highlights how history has increasingly embraced discourse as both a methodological tool and an object of analysis. Through a case study of Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right party Vox, the article illustrates how FDA concepts – such as lexical worlds, interdiscursivity, and discursive ethos – can be applied to political rhetoric in the digital age. Using lexicometric methods (IraMuTeQ, SketchEngine) and qualitative interpretation, the study analyzes a corpus of Abascal’s tweets (2019-2022), focusing particularly on the term golpista as a strategic signifier of ideological antagonism. The findings show how far-right discourse reactivates historically loaded terms to construct binary oppositions and mobilize collective memory. Ultimately, the article argues that FDA offers historians a powerful framework to interrogate the linguistic production of identity, power, and historical continuity in contemporary political narratives.
Abstract Onomastics through the Lens of Discourse Analysis In this study, we will attempt to show that the Proper Name category, linguistically marginalized in linguistic studies in general and discourse analysis studies in particular, can constitute a fruitful interpretative key of the utterance in context. Indeed, contrary to its alleged ‘semantic opacity’, its presence triggers enunciative effects, provokes a compulsive search for meaning uncovered by various interpretants (in the sense of Rastier 1996), or can even lead to playful deconstructions of meaning. Whether in literary texts or in ‘ordinary’ texts (for example, brand names), this linguistic unit constitutes a prism through which unsuspected meanings are refracted.
Abstract Contamination between Pragmatic and Enunciative Phenomena in French Political Discourse: An Analysis of RN Flyers (2018-2024) The present research deals with the analysis of strategies of reporting speech used by the French political party Rassemblement National (RN) and its leaders in 28 flyers published between 2018 and 2024. Its methodology is based on the pragma-enunciative tendency of the Analyse du Discours de l’école Française (ADF), namely on the works by J. Authier-Revuz about heterogeneity in discourse, by P. Charaudeau on French political discourse, namely populist discourse, and on D. Maingueneau about discourse genres and the flyer’s mise en scène. Reporting other people proposals will be analysed by considering two strategies: “modalisation du dire en assertion seconde” and “allusion” (Authier-Revuz 2012, 2020). It will be shown that, thanks to their iconotextual part, flyers allow to give more visibility to the elements which are put into evidence and that this objective is also reached by reported speech strategies which are used. The aim of this study will be to look at these strategies and at RN and Marine Le Pen’s purposes which lie behind them in order to confirm whether they prove that this party and its leaders show, apart from apparent changes, a right-far ideology which is enriched with a violent language.
Abstract A Critical Account of the (Inter)disciplinary Specificities of “French Discourse Analysis” in Italy This contribution takes a critical look at the contours of so-called French Discourse Analysis (FDA), its nature as a disciplinary field, and its (inter)disciplinary relations in the Italian academic context. Drawing on past debates that trace the lines of this field of knowledge and practice, as well as on the possibilities suggested by the articles in the issue, the authors discuss possible directions for disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research in Italy in the field of FDA.
Abstract Towards a ‘Translational Discourse Analysis’: Preliminary Considerations on Theory and Methods The aim of this article is to develop an initial theoretical and methodological reflection on disciplinary trajectories at the crossroads of two research areas: discourse analysis and translation studies. This proposal is divided into two parts. The first one is devoted to the theoretical and methodological convergences that are made possible thanks to the intersection between French discourse analysis and the Interpretative theory of translation. The second part aims to show some first examples of the application of such a hybrid approach, highlighting in particular the interest of a ‘translational discourse analysis’ applied to meta-discourses on translation. Our reflection will lead to the definition of research perspectives in translational discourse analysis with the aim of contributing, more broadly, to the mutual scientific enrichment between the two areasinvolved.
Abstract French Discourse Analysis Confronted to Interdisciplinarity: Translation Choices and Issues in Du discours comme champ au corpus comme terrain by Julien Longhi This paper aims to discuss some translation strategies and choices made to render for Italian readers Julien Longhi’s book, Du discours comme champ au corpus comme terrain, linking them to the intrinsic interdisciplinary nature of the book, which adopts a number of approaches, branches, methodologies and disciplines into the second-generation analyse du discours française. Therefore, after a presentation of the interdisciplinary contents and the theoretical-methodological advances of Longhi’s book (§ 2), we will first address some translation challenges related to linguistic and terminological elements (§ 3.1), largely due precisely to the aforementioned interdisciplinarity, and then some other considerations related to cultural specificities (§§ 3.2, 3.3).
Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Anthony Fauci, the Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, received much public praise but he was also vilified by right-wing conspiracy theorists as a traitor. This accusation has been ‘trending’ on the internet and in print publications and political statements for over two years. This article offers an explanation for its longevity by investigating the hypothesis that Fauci’s public persona fills a slot in the war metaphor scenario of the pandemic. On the basis of a US-UK media corpus, I chart the emergence and escalation of conspiracist accusations against Fauci in 2020-2022 and analyse their semantic-conceptual structure, using methods of cognitive scenario theory. The article concludes that the traitor-accusation was not just a polemical addition to the conspiracist war scenarios of the pandemic but was used to ‘prove’ their ‘truth’, and that Fauci’s vilification case is therefore of general significance for the analysis of conspiracy theories and war metaphors.
