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Article published In: Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 16:6 (2017) ► pp.830–848

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Representing Chinese nationalism/patriotism through President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” Discourse

 | National University of Singapore
Published online: 12 June 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.16028.wan
Abstract
This paper analyzes the Chinese nationalism or patriotism embodied in Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” discourse. It first reviews the “typological tradition” of categorizing nationalism into different types, for instance, banal, hot and cultural nationalism. Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream” discourse goes beyond the explanation of these distinct types of nationalism. Instead, it embodies a “hybrid” type of nationalism/patriotism that is at once banal, state, cultural, and “de-banalized”. This study adopts a dialectical-relational perspective by viewing the “Chinese Dream” discourse as representations of social practices through which politicians utilize a wide range of discursive resources including thematic, evaluative and cultural representations to evoke the imagination of a common identity in support of their governance. Through the analysis, this study advocates a holistic view of nationalism in real political practices; it also focuses on how nationalism is evoked and propagated through the integration of various discursive resources embodying a hybrid type of nationalism.
Article outline
  • 1.The “Chinese Dream” as a discourse beyond the typology of nationalism
  • 2.A new perspective and theoretical framework for Chinese nationalism: discourse as representations of social practice
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Data analysis
    • 4.1A collective Dream
    • 4.2A Dream with conflicting emotions in temporality
    • 4.3Spatial extension: a regional “Dream” and the world’s “Dream”
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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