A Study on the Discourse of the Ancient Central Plains State Power to Maintain Influence via “Tianxia” Ideology in the Chinese Novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"
Keywords:
Romance of the Three Kingdoms, discourse, state power, ideology, world under the skyAbstract
This article aims to study and analyze the discourse of state power in the ancient Central Plains or the Huaxia people to maintain their influence over other ethnic groups in the Chinese novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” by using the Critical Discourse Analysis approach to study the language strategies used in the construction of discourse about ethnics, as well as to analyze the ideology reflected through such discourse. The results found that the text in chapters 87-91, in which Zhuge Liang led the army to conquer the south and adopted the strategy of capturing and releasing Meng Huo seven times, reproduces the so-called "Hua-Yi Distinction" discourse, which referred to the differences between the Huaxia (or Han) people and the surrounding non-Han barbarians, and reflected the ideology of Tianxia or the world under the sky which supports a monarchical form of state power centered around Huaxia and emphasizes the Confucian ritual culture, thus placing Huaxia in a dominant position compared to other surrounding ethnic groups. As for the above-mentioned language strategies used for constructing the “Hua-Yi distinction” discourse under the ideology of Tianxia, we found that the novel “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” uses a variety of language strategies, such as word choice, reference, storytelling, analogy, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, etc.
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