This chapter studies how nation-state is built through discourse evolution in
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in relevant texts. Adopting both constructive and deconstructive approaches
to discourse, I will focus on the analysis of the occurrence and use of two new
terms, the national common language (guojia tongyong yuyan) and global
promotion of Chinese (hanyu guoji tuiguang), in China since 2000. I will argue,
since these key terms play a core role as indicators of power relations in the
production of a new ideology (Laclau and Mouffe 1985; van Dijk 1997, 17–34),
that these changes in Chinese official and public discourses redefine China as a
new nation-state and prepare a rising China for the battle for its linguistic and
cultural hegemony both domestically and globally (see Stambach 2015).
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