How to build a “Dream” in political speech? A critical discourse analysis of the discursive construction of the Chinese Dream speech

Abstract

This paper examines how Chinese politician tactically builds a dream narrative in political speech, namely, the Chinese Dream. By combining the discourse-historical approach, corpus-assisted methods and framing analysis, the study forms a complementary framework to examine the discursive construction of the Chinese Dream in President Xi Jinping’s representative speeches between 2012 and 2022. It identifies four key thematic representations, i.e. NATIONAL REJUVENATION, CPC’S LEGITIMACY, CHINESE PEOPLE’S INTERESTS and WORLD’S INTERESTS and also finds that the strategies of nomination, predication, argumentation and perspectivization are skillfully used and reveals the Chinese-centric narrative frame. Beyond that, it further discusses Chineseness in the dream narrative. The paper argues that the Chinese Dream is an artificially discursive construct in a grand narrative used to build an ultimate national consensus and to serve the ideological legitimacy of the ruling class.

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