Representations of the Chinese Communist Party’s political ideologies in President Xi Jinping’s discourse

Abstract

This article analyzes how president Xi Jinping’s political discourse legitimizes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as China’s ruling Party through representations of political ideologies. It probes two dimensions of the representations: thematic representations concerning the topics and topical patterns in Xi’s discourse, and evaluative representations concerning the attitudes and emotions associated with these topics. This study adapts Fairclough’s three-dimensional approaches to Chinese political discourse analysis: description regarding the linguistic features of the discourse, interpretation and explanation of the discourse by considering China’s social, especially political and cultural, particularities. Through the analysis, this article reveals the discursive practice through which the CCP utilizes a range of political ideologies to legitimize its politics. It is hoped that this study can shed light on adapting critical discourse analysis (CDA) to Chinese political discourse analysis in the context of China’s particular culture and politics.