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

Subsuming Daguo under “Great Power”

Interlingual quotation and conceptual domestication in U.S. assessments of China’s military power

 | Tongji UniversityShanghai | The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityHong Kong
 | Tongji UniversityShanghai
ORCiD logo with link | The Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityHong Kong
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Interlingual quotation in political discourse: An underexamined nexus
  • 3.Discourse-conceptual analysis and its cross-language extension
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Data
    • 4.2Analytical procedures
  • 5.General trends: Quotation volume and thematic shifts
  • 6.Semantic-field analysis: The case of daguo (“big country”)
    • 6.1Daguo in Chinese diplomatic contexts
    • 6.2The interlingual quotation of daguo in the CMPRs
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • References
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