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Negotiating harmony via strategic emotion

Pragmatic identity construction in Chinese televised mediation

ORCiD logo with link | Central China Normal University
ORCiD logo with link | Central China Normal University
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Abstract
This study investigates how mediators in Chinese televised mediation strategically employ emotion to negotiate state-mandated harmony and construct specific pragmatic identities. We integrate sentiment analysis (SnowNLP) with discourse analysis to model emotional discourse and identity construction in six full episodes from The Third Mediation Room. Findings reveal that mediators perform “hybrid pragmatic identities”, shifting across three roles, emotion-driven coordinator (building trust), emotion-regulated facilitator (de-escalating tension), and emotion-integrated balancer (prioritizing communal interest). This role-shifting constitutes staged neutrality, whereby mediators orchestrate their emotional discourse from empathetic negativity (conflict emergence) to enforced positivity (escalation) and finally to performative neutrality (interest coordination), thereby legitimizing state-aligned authority. While intended to resolve disputes, this mandated harmony functions as a cultural-political imperative that restructures communicative boundaries and may sideline genuine emotional reconciliation. The findings contribute to understanding how strategic sentiment operates as a core mechanism in Chinese conflict resolution, with implications for the governance of public discourse.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Literature review
    • 2.1Theoretical evolution of pragmatic identity research
    • 2.2The emotional turn: Bridging emotion, pragmatic identity, and methodological innovation
  • 3.Data and methodology
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Sentiment analysis with SnowNLP
      • 3.2.1Tool selection: Rationale for Chinese discourse adaptability
      • 3.2.2Model training and evaluation
      • 3.2.3Operationalizing emotional dimensions for identity analysis
      • 3.2.4Integration with discourse analysis: A mixed-methods approach
  • 4.Analysis and findings
    • 4.1Distribution of emotional dimension in mediation
    • 4.2Phased identity construction through strategic emotional coordination
      • 4.2.1The emotion-driven coordinator: Building trust through strategic engagement
      • 4.2.2The emotion-regulated facilitator: De-escalating tension through procedural guidance
      • 4.2.3The emotion-integrated balancer: Prioritizing communal interest through systemic alignment
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Data availability statement
  • Author queries
  • References
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