Journal of Language and Politics· 2026Q1
Subsuming Daguo under “Great Power”
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- 2026year
Short summary
US military reports strategically reframe China's concept of 'daguo' (big country) into the Western 'great power' framework, imposing power-political connotations that Beijing seeks to avoid.
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Key points
- US China Military Power Reports (2000-2025) strategically quote Chinese official discourse.
- The Chinese concept 'daguo' (big country) is analyzed through its English renderings in these reports.
- Key shifts in quotation volume and translation occurred around 2012 and 2020.
- Reports subsume 'daguo' into the Western 'great power' framework, contrary to China's non-hegemonic intent.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
Abstract Interlingual quotation has rarely been recognized as a distinct discursive practice in international politics. This study examines how the United States strategically quotes Chinese official discourse in its annual China Military Power Reports (2000–2025). Extending Discourse-Conceptual Analysis (DCA) with Discourse Theory and translation studies, it adopts a two-step design: a corpus-based mapping of thematic shifts across 25 reports, followed by a semantic-field analysis of the Chinese concept daguo (“big country”) and its shifting English renderings. The analysis identifies several pivotal junctures, notably 2012 and 2020, where quotation volume, ideological lexicon, and (re)translational choices reconfigure alongside China’s more proactive external posture and the fluctuating tenor of Sino-U.S. relations. While Beijing anchors daguo to a non-hegemonic self-image, the CMPRs recurrently subsume it under the Western “great power” framework, reinscribing the very power-political connotations Chinese discourse works to foreclose. It establishes interlingual quotation as a critical site for cross-national conceptual domestication.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Journal of Language and Politics, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Linguistics and Language
Linguistics and LanguageSocial Sciences