Cover not available

Article published In: Language, Politics and Media: The Hong Kong Protests
Edited by Guofeng Wang and Ming Liu
[Journal of Language and Politics 21:1] 2022
► pp. 17–36

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Britain as a protector, a mediator or an onlooker?

Examining the 2019–20 Hong Kong protests in British newspapers

ORCiD logo with link | Shanghai Normal University
Published online: 29 September 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21018.wan
Abstract
Since Hong Kong’s handover to China, British newspapers still play an active role in constructing Britain’s connections with its former colony. This study elaborates a schema for protests to help better understand protests in general. Based on this schema, the study examined representations of the 2019–20 protests in British newspapers using the approach of corpus-assisted critical discourse studies. The analysis shows that they mainly used the predicational strategy, and emphasized the Chinese government’s control of Hong Kong – including the inabilities of the Hong Kong government and police violence – in contrast with the protestors’ demands for universal suffrage. They suggested that Britain act as a mediator to shoulder a moral responsibility over Hong Kong. Their attitudes are interpreted with regard to Britain’s foreign policies and the dominant ideology cultivated in its historical, socio-political contexts and suggest that the UK journalistic practice regarding Hong Kong issues is political-driven to a great extent.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.2019–20 Hong Kong protests
  • 3.Theoretical base
    • 3.1A schema for protests
    • 3.2News discourse and ideology: An approach of corpus-assisted critical discourse studies
  • 4.Data and methods
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Keywords and the collocates of five social actors
    • 5.2The Hong Kong government
    • 5.3The Chinese central government
    • 5.4The protestors
    • 5.5The police
    • 5.6Britain
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (33)
References
Anthony, Laurence. 2020. AntConc (Version 3.5.9) [Computer Software]. Tokyo, Japan: Waseda University. [URL]
Baker, Paul. 2006. Using Corpora in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, Costas Gabrielatos, Majid Khosravinik, Michał Krzyzanowski, Tony McEnery, and Ruth Wodak. 2008. “A Useful Methodological Synergy? Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics to Examine Discourses of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press.” Discourse and Society 19 (3): 273–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell, Donald T. 1965. “Ethnocentric and Other Altruistic Motives.” In Nebraska Symposium on Motivation, ed. by David Levine, 283–301. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chan, Wayne W. L. 2015. “The Media Representations of Police Image: Research Notes on the Hong Kong Occupy Movement.” Sage Open. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chan, Rami Hin-Yeung. 2016. “Why Crises Matter: Crisis-provoking Politics and State–society Interactions in Post-1997 Hong Kong.” China: An International Journal 14 (4): 22–45.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohen, Bernard C. 1963. The Press and Foreign Policy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Entman, Robert M. 1993. “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm.” Journal of Communication 43 (4): 51–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2005. “Critical Discourse Analysis in Transdisciplinary Research.” In A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis: Theory, Methodology and Interdisciplinary, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Paul Chilton, 53–70. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flowerdew, John. 2012. Critical Discourse Analysis in Historiography: The Case of Hong Kong’s Evolving Political Identity. London: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flowerdew, John, and Rodney H. Jones. 2016. “Occupy Hong Kong Historicizing Protest.” Journal of Language and Politics 15 (5): 519–526. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fung, Chi Keung Charles, and Chi Shun Fong. 2019. “Going out under the Shadow of Rred China: The Geopolitical Origin of Hong Kong’s International Status.” Asian Education and Development Studies 8 (2): 173–185. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ho, Janet. 2019. “‘Sensible Protesters Began Leaving the Protests’: A Comparative Study of Opposing Voices in the Hong Kong Political Movement.” Language and Communication 641: 12–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan. 2002. Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Chin-Chuan, Joseph M. Chan, and Zhongdang Pan. 2002. Global Media Spectacle: News War Over Hong Kong. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Ming, and Cong Jiang. 2019. “Constant Fear, But Lingering Nostalgia: British Press Representations of Post-colonial Hong Kong 20 Years on.” Discourse and Communication 13 (6): 630–646. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Love, Robbie, and Paul Baker. 2015. “The Hate that Dare not Speak Its Name?” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 3 (1): 57–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mark, Chi-Kwan. 2014. “Development without Decolonisation? Hong Kong’s Future and Relations with Britain and China, 1967–1972.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 24 (2): 315–335. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “To ‘Educate’ Deng Xiaoping in Capitalism: Thatcher’s Visit to China and the Future of Hong Kong in 1982.” Cold War History 17 (2): 161–180. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Partington, Alan. 2004. “Corpora and Discourse, a Most Congruous Beast.” In Corpora and Discourse, ed. by Alan Partington, John Morley, and Louann Haarman, 11–20. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “Corpus-assisted Comparative Case Studies of Representations of the Arab World.” In Corpora and Discourse Studies: Integrating Discourse and Corpora, ed. by Paul Baker and Tony McEnery, 220–243. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Purbrick, Martin. 2019. “A Report of the 2019 Hong Kong Protests.” Asian Affairs 50 (4): 465–487. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Qin, Amy. 2019. “Hong Kong Protesters Clash with Police inside Shopping Mall.” The New York Times, July 14, 2019. [URL]
Reisigl, Martin, and Ruth Wodak. 2009. “The Discourse-historical Approach (DHA).” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak and Michal Meyer, 87–121. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Mike, and Christopher Tribble. 2006. Textual Patterns: Keywords and Corpus Analysis in Language Education. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steele, Claude M., Steven J. Spencer, and Joshua Aronson. 2002. “Contending with Group Image: The Psychology of Stereotype and Social Identity Threat.” Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 341: 379–440. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Soroka, Stuart N. 2003. “Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 8(1), 27–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henry, and John C. Turner. 1979. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. by Worchel, Stephen and William G. Austin, 33–47. Chicago: Nelson-Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thussu, Daya K. 2002. “Legitimizing ‘Humanitarian Intervention’? CNN, NATO and the Kosovo Crisis.” European Journal of Communication 15(3), 345–361. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2009. “News, Discourse, and Ideology.” In The Handbook of Journalism Studies, ed. by Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin and Thomas Hanitzsch, 191–204. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Veneti, Anastasia, Achilleas Karadimitriou, and Stamatis Poulakidakos. 2016. “Media Ecology and the Politics of Dissent: Representations of the Hong Kong Protests in The Guardian and China Daily.” Social Media and Society, 2(3), 1–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Guofeng. 2017. “Discursive Construction of Territorial Disputes: Foreign Newspaper Reporting on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands Dispute.” Social Semiotics 27(5), 567–585. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “A Corpus-assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting on China’s Air Pollution in the Official Chinese English-language Press.” Discourse & Communication 12(6): 645–662. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Liu, Ming
2025. Recontextualizing the basic law in South China morning post: a diachronic corpus-assisted discourse study. International Journal of Legal Discourse DOI logo
Mo, Hao
2025. Constructing and framing violent protests in news translation: a narrative analysis of the 2019 Hong Kong protests. Perspectives 33:4 ► pp. 816 ff. DOI logo
Deng, Jiange & Zhongxuan Lin
2024. The construction of Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” in China Daily . Journal of Language and Politics 23:6 ► pp. 874 ff. DOI logo
Wang, Guofeng, Ming Liu & Yihang Xin
2024. Categorisations of developed and developing countries in UN news on climate change. Social Semiotics 34:1 ► pp. 82 ff. DOI logo
Chen, Fu & Guofeng Wang
2023. A topic modeling-assisted diachronic study of “One Country, Two Systems” represented in Anglo-American newspapers. Journal of Language and Politics 22:6 ► pp. 869 ff. DOI logo
Kennedy, Charlotte-Rose
2022. Worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment: Strengthening qualitative corpus methods in the critical discourse analysis of protest press coverage. Discourse & Society 33:5 ► pp. 611 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue