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Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science

ISSN Online: 2576-0548 ISSN Print: 2576-0556 CODEN: JHASAY
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ArticleOpen Access http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2026.03.005

The Discursive Construction of Quanzhou’s Image in China Daily: A Discourse-historical Approach

Qiaoyi Liu1,2, Yong Jiang2,3,*

1School of Foreign Languages, Quanzhou Normal University, Quanzhou 362000, Fujian, China.

2School of English for International Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, Guangdong, China.

3Graduate School, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou 510420, Guangdong, China.

*Corresponding author: Yong Jiang

This study was supported by the Quanzhou Social Sciences Planning Project (Grant No. 2025D52), the China Scholarship Council Innovative Talent Cultivation Program on Interlingual and International Communication in the Age of AI (Grant No. CXXM20250066), the World Languages and Cultures Special Program under the Fujian Provincial Education and Research Project for Young and Middle-Aged Teachers (Social Sciences) (Grant No. JSZW25020), the Postgraduate Research Innovation Project of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (Grant No. 25GWCXXM-028), and the 2025 Teaching Reform and Research Project for Undergraduate Education of Quanzhou Normal University (Grant No. 2025JGX015).
Published: March 30, 2026

Abstract

Inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2021, Quanzhou has attracted growing scholarly attention on tourism perception, heritage narratives, and media communication. Yet relatively little attention has been paid to how the city image is discursively constructed in China’s English-language media. Based on the 125 Quanzhou-related news reports published in China Daily, this study examines the discursive construction of Quanzhou’s city image within the framework of the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling is embedded in the framework to identify the main themes in the reports, while discursive strategies such as nomination, predication, perspectivization, and intensification/mitigation strategies are drawn on to analyze how Quanzhou is represented in media discourse. Thematic analysis results show that Quanzhou is constructed through four interrelated themes, and it is projected as a historically and culturally rich city situated within narratives of development and international connectivity. Discursive strategies analysis further reveals that Quanzhou is an officially endorsed, expert-backed, publicly welcomed, and internationally recognized city characterized by historical depth, cultural significance, economic vitality, and international openness. The study contributes to linguistic research on city image and the international communication of Chinese cities.

Keyword

Quanzhou; city image; China Daily; Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA); LDA topic modeling

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Copyright

© 2026 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
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How to cite this paper

The Discursive Construction of Quanzhou’s Image in China Daily: A Discourse-historical Approach

How to cite this paper: Qiaoyi Liu, Yong Jiang. (2026) The Discursive Construction of Quanzhou’s Image in China Daily: A Discourse-historical Approach. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science10(3), 270-280.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2026.03.005