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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 25, No. 0, pp.746-766
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2025
Received 10 Feb 2025 Revised 29 Mar 2025 Accepted 21 Apr 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.25..202505.746

The Legitimacy of War: Legitimation Discursive Strategies in American and Chinese Political News Discourse

Yingxuan Li
Ph.D Candidate, Department of English Language and Literature Yonsei University Seoul, Korea liyingxuan910@163.com


© 2025 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study conducts a comparative analysis of the legitimation discursive strategies used by American and Chinese news media, focusing on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war. Based on Van Leeuwen’s (2008) legitimation theory, the article compares the stances of different nations’ news media toward the controversial issue with the help of various Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) theories. Key findings reveal that American and Chinese news media adopt similar macrolevel legitimation discursive strategies but exhibit subtle differences in the use of specific subcategories within these strategies. This different pattern reveals that CNN demonstrates a stronger inclination toward event-driven reporting, while China Daily tends to rely more on value-driven approaches. The results of the study highlight how cultural and political contexts shape media narratives, offering insights into the role of legitimation discursive strategies in framing international conflicts and influencing public perception.

Keywords:

Israel-Hamas war, legitimation discursive strategy, political news discourse, critical discourse analysis

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