Political discourse in China's English language press

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses some of the ways in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses language in its English media. After a historical overview of political ‘fixed formulations’ (tifa) in China through the ages, we look at specific terms in their contemporary forms as they appear in China's major English language newspaper, the China Daily. Data taken from a specialized corpus focusing on the term ‘harmonious society’ is investigated for information on how the term is used and with which language patterns it most frequently appears. In terms of world Englishes, usage may be classified as an Outer Circle Chinese English lexis as the formulations are translated from Chinese, making them a distinctly ‘Chinese’ type of politicized English. Linguistically, ‘harmonious’ often collocates with effusive modifiers and dynamic‐sounding verbs, which portray growth and stability. The English of China's political media does not have much currency outside of the CCP ‘news’ context and due to its distinctive ideological characteristics, it has been labelled Zhonglish, Xinhua English or New China Newspeak. Preliminary research shows evidence of formulations being increasingly picked up by the media in geographically surrounding areas and even overseas.