Delegitimating a contested cultural practice “guanxixue” in a Chinese official newspaper

Abstract

Strategies of (de)legitimation have been widely studied. However, the focus of the studies has been on analyzing the (de)legitimation of specific acts or events that occur within particular settings. The delegitimation of a contested cultural practice, which is widely performed in a diversified range of contexts, could be more challenging and revealing. It offers a site to compare strategies of delegitimation adopted in changing contexts and multifaceted representations of the cultural practice. The article primarily examines the delegitimation of “guanxixue,” a Chinese practice that refers to the use, development, and maintenance of social connections through activities like gift exchange, banqueting, and giving face for instrumental purposes. Data were extracted from 82 news reports published in People’s Daily, a Chinese official newspaper. Drawing on the frameworks of legitimation proposed by Rojo and Van Dijk and Van Leeuwen, the article analyzes nuanced strategies of delegitimation at discursive, metadiscursive, and social levels. While news reports on various themes employ distinct metadiscursive strategies of delegitimization, they collectively endorse a partisan representation of guanxi practice that obscures the role ordinary people play and constructs positive identities of Chinese government officials. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of having a layered analytical framework to examine the delegitimation of cultural practices constantly under hot debate.