Cover not available

Article In: Journal of Language and Politics: Online-First Articles

When domestic violence becomes ‘family conflict’

Judicial discourse, gendered injustice, and patriarchal governance in China

ORCiD logo with link | National University of Singapore
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This study examines how domestic violence (DV) is discursively constructed in Chinese divorce judgments. Drawing on Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis (FCDA), it analyses a corpus of divorces judgments involving domestic violence to show how legal reasoning recontextualizes violence through linguistic practices of naming, explanation, and evidentiary evaluation. The analysis identifies three recurring discursive shifts. First, acts of violence are frequently reframed as “family conflict,” embedding them within a relational frame that obscures the asymmetry of power between perpetrators and victims. Second, perpetrator responsibility is mitigated through psychologizing and contextual explanations, such as emotional stress, economic pressure, and intoxication. Third, elevated evidentiary thresholds and moralized assessments reshape credibility, placing heightened burdens on survivors’ testimony. These practices relocate domestic violence from the domain of public harm to that of private family conflict management. The findings show how routine judicial language can reproduce gendered power relations through apparently neutral forms of legal reasoning.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Discursive constructions of violence in legal judgments
  • Institutional and cultural contexts in China
  • Methodology
    • Analytical framework
    • Data
    • Coding procedure and category development
  • Results
  • De-violentization and conflict reframing
  • Responsibility diffusion and perpetrator mitigation
  • Victim scrutiny and credibility gatekeeping
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • AI Statement
  • Acknowledgments
  • Author queries
  • References
References (45)
References
Atkins, Susan, and Baroness Brenda Hale. 1984. Women and the Law. London: University of London Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barlow, Charlotte, Kelly Johnson, Sandra Walklate, and Les Humphreys. 2020. “Putting Coercive Control into Practice: Problems and Possibilities.” British Journal of Criminology 60(1): 160–79.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bishop, Judith, Laura Tolton, and Tonya Stebbins. 2025. “A Magical Solution to a Wicked Problem? Problem Representations and the Techno-solutionist Framing of Post-separation Apps.” AI & Society 1(1): 1–15.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bogoch, Bryna. 2007. “The Victim as ‘Other’: Analysis of the Language of Acquittal Decisions in Sexual Offences in the Israeli Supreme Court.” In The Language of Sexual Crime, ed. by Cotterill, J., 159–179. London: Palgrave Macmillan UK. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre, and John B. Thompson. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power. Cambridge, Mass: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
China Justice Observer. 2020. Civil Code of China: Book V Marriage and Family (Articles 1076–1080). [URL]
Christie, Nils, and Marian Duggan. 2019. Revisiting the ‘Ideal Victim’: Developments in Critical Victimology. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coates, Linda, and Allan Wade. 2004. “Telling it like it isn’t: Obscuring Perpetrator Responsibility for Violent Crime.” Discourse & Society 15 (5): 499–526. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Langauge and Violence: Analysis of Four Discursive Operations.” Journal of Family Violence 22(7): 511–522. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coates, Linda, Janet Beavin Bavelas, and James Gibson. 1994. “Anomalous Language in Sexual Assault Trial Judgments.” Discourse & Society 5(2): 189–206. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coates, Linda. 1997. “Causal Attributions in Sexual Assault Trial Judgments.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 16(3): 278–296. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’Attoma, Sara. 2020. “‘To Promote Family Harmony and Social Stability’: Is the Anti-Domestic Violence Law of the People’s Republic of China an Effective Legal Response?” J. Comp. L. 15 (1): 112.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan. 2001. Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. 1st ed. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. “Text Trajectories, Legal Discourse and Gendered Inequalities.” Applied Linguistics Review 3(1): 47–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ekström, Mats. 2002. “Epistemologies of TV Journalism: A Theoretical Framework.” Journalism (London, England) 3(3): 259–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Han, Sulin. 2017. “China’s New Domestic Violence Law: Keeping Victims out of Harm’s Way.” Politics 11 (1): 25–35.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
He, X., and K. Hang Ng. 2013. “In the Name of Harmony: The Erasure of Domestic Violence in China’s Judicial Mediation.” International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family 27 (1): 97–115. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
He, Xin. 2009. “Routinization of Divorce Law Practice in China: Institutional Constraints’ Influence on Judicial Behaviour.” International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family 23 (1): 83–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hou, Fengsu, Catherine Cerulli, Marsha N. Wittink, Eric D. Caine, and Peiyuan Qiu. 2021. “‘Whose Fault is it?’ How Rural Chinese Women Explain Intimate Partner Violence: A Qualitative Study.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 12(1): 711819. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jiang, Jue. 2019. “The Family as a Stronghold of State Stability: Two Contradictions in China’s Anti-Domestic Violence Efforts.” International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family 33(2): 228–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jiang, Yue. 2019. “Evaluation And Analysis Of The Application Effect Of China’s Anti-Domestic Violence Law-Taking The Civil Judgments Of The People’s Courts From 2016 To 2018 As A Sample.” Journal of China Women’s University 31 (3): 13–22.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kuo, Shih-Ya, Hongwei Zhang, and Ruohui Zhao. 2021. “Research On Family Violence In Greater China: Opportunities, Challenges, And Development.” Journal of Family Violence 36 (6): 637–41. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lazar, Michelle M. 2007. “Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis: Articulating a Feminist Discourse Praxis.” Critical Discourse Studies 4 (2): 141–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lea, Susan J. 2007. “A Discursive Investigation Into Victim Responsibility In Rape.” Feminism & Psychology 17 (4): 495–514. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Wong Y. 1995. “Women’s Education in Traditional and Modern China.” Women’s History Review 4 (3): 345–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lin, J. 2024. ‘Worthy Survivors’ Of Domestic Violence In The Eyes Of The Beijing Courts. Journal Of Law And Society, 51(4):539–561. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Michelson, Ethan. 2022. Decoupling: Gender Injustice in China’s Divorce Courts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Myhill, Andy, and Katrin Hohl. 2019. “The ‘Golden Thread’: Coercive Control and Risk Assessment for Domestic Violence.” Journal of Interpersonal Violence 34 (21–22): 4477–4497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ng, Kwai Hang. 2022. “Evidentialism And The Denial Of Domestic Violence By Chinese Courts.” The China Journal 87 (1):1–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scheppele, Kim L. 1989. “Foreword: Telling Stories.” Michigan Law Review 87 (8): 2073. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shen, Hui, and Yongxiang Xie. 2025. “Trends of Domestic Violence against Women in China: an Age-Period-Cohort Analysis.” Frontiers in Public Health 13 (1): 1608189. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smart, Carol, and Bren Neale. 1997. “Good Enough Morality? Divorce and Postmodernity.” Critical Social Policy 17 (53): 3–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smart, Carol. 1989. Feminism and the Power of Law. 1st ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Solé-Farràs, Jesús. 2013. New Confucianism In Twenty-First Century China: The Construction Of A Discourse. London:Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stark, Evan. 2007. Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. London:Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stöckl, Heidi, Karen Devries, Alexandra Rotstein, Naeemah Abrahams, Jacquelyn Campbell, Charlotte Watts, and Claudia G. Moreno. 2013. “The Global Prevalence of Intimate Partner Homicide: a Systematic Review.” The Lancet (British Edition) 382 (9895): 859–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Su, Zhaohui, Dean McDonnell, Ali Cheshmehzangi, Junaid Ahmad, Hengcai Chen, Sabina Šegalo, and Yuyang Cai. 2022. “What ‘Family Affair?’ Domestic Violence Awareness in China.” Frontiers in Public Health 10 (1): 795841. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Supreme People’s Court. 2018. Divorce Disputes In The Special Judicial Big Data Report. Available at: [URL]
Sweet, Paige L. 2019. “The Paradox Of Legibility: Domestic Violence And Institutional Survivorhood.” Social Problems 66 (3): 411–427. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo. 2008. Discourse and Practice: New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, J. 2013. “To Divorce or Not to Divorce: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Court-Ordered Divorce Mediation in China.” International Journal of Law, Policy, and the Family 27 (1): 74–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, M. 1989. “ The Externalizing Of The Problem And The Re-Authoring Of Lives And Relationships”. Dulwich Centre Newsletter 1(1):5–28.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yuan, Weiman, Paul I. Kadetz, Xiaohui Shen, and Therese Hesketh. 2024. “Women’s Experience of Domestic Violence: A Qualitative Study in Hangzhou, China.” Journal of Family Violence 1 (1):1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Xin, Shi Chen, and Mengyuan Wang. 2024. “Gender Bias In Child Custody Judgments: Evidence From Chinese Family Court.” Plos one 19 (7): e0305479. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue