The historical evolution of Chinese political discourse and socio-ideological change: a discourse-historical analysis

Abstract

Adopting a methodological combination of the discourse-historical approach (DHA) and the Chinese discourse studies perspective, the study focuses on how Chinese political discourse evolves along with the socio-ideological change of contemporary China. It scrutinizes the representative discourses from five Chinese leaders: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping. Based on the discourse analysis, the study identifies three characteristics of the discursive evolution: (1) discursive adaptation – the political discursive evolution is accompanied by China’s social transformation from a highly authoritarian communist society to a market economy-oriented society, (2) discursive popularization – the discursive construction is transformed from a revolutionary idealism to an emotional popular discourse, and (3) discursive continuation – the current high-profile “Chinese Dream” narrative is a discursive continuum that links the past, presents the current national vision, and projects a future imagined powerful China. Significantly, the study contributes to a critical understanding of China’s political discursive evolution and the embedded social and ideological changes.