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The Discourse of Xinmin: Mindset Remodelling and Nation-Building in Early Twentieth Century China

Cao, Qing

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Abstract

Focusing on Liang Qichao’s campaign of moral character reform, this article examines the discourse of xinmin (新民) as a social engineering project of people-making as nationbuilding in the 1900s. Drawing on Koselleck’s conceptual history, it analyses how the idea of qun (群) was deployed as a discursive building block of xinmin to cultivate a sense of membership in a political community of nation. It argues that the xinmin discourse facilitated a fundamental restructuring of the mental-cognitive framing of society in its attempt to shift China from a cultural entity to a political identity.

Citation

Cao, Q. (2022). The Discourse of Xinmin: Mindset Remodelling and Nation-Building in Early Twentieth Century China. Chinese Language and Discourse. An International and Interdisciplinary Journal, 13(1), 123-143. https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.21032.cao

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 1, 2021
Online Publication Date Feb 20, 2022
Publication Date 2022-05
Deposit Date Oct 31, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Chinese Language and Discourse
Print ISSN 1877-7031
Electronic ISSN 1877-8798
Publisher John Benjamins Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 13
Issue 1
Pages 123-143
DOI https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.21032.cao
Publisher URL https://benjamins.com/catalog/cld.21032.cao

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