A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Recent Years' Chinese Government Work Reports

Via disclosing social and ideological factors embedded in specific discourse, critical analysis of political discourse can provide a better understanding of corresponding political culture and dominant ideology in the society. This paper thereby, with recent years'Chinese Government Work Reports as the research object, attempts to make a critical analysis of the political discourse of the Chinese government at the present period, studying the discourse pattern and the hidden social and ideological factors. Within the theoretical framework of Fairclough's three-dimensional model, the present study involves textual analysis, interpretation and explanation of the political discourse. Based on a historical review of the reports since the foundation of new China, textual analysis of the reports are conducted with the joint effort of textual description and grammatical analyses to highlight the harmonious discourse in contrast to revolutionary discourse and constructive discourse in the previous periods. As a discourse practice, the harmonious discourse, interpreted from the reports'drafting process, not only maintains its authority but is consistent with the spirit of times so as to meet the requirement for their extensive distribution and effective consumption of the reports. As a social practice, the harmonious discourse in the reports conveys the government's need to solve social problems and maintain social stability under the new circumstance; it reveals the government's dominant value of people-oriented and expresses the government's sincere concern and utmost care for the people.