Constructing the myth of protest masculinity in Chinese English language news media: A critical discourse analysis of the representation of 'leftover men'

Although the Chinese media's construction of unmarried citizens as 'leftover' has incited much controversy, little research attention has been given to the ways 'leftover men' are represented in discourse. To fill this gap, this study performs a critical discourse analysis of 65 English language news reports in Chinese media to investigate the predominant gendered discourses underlying representations of leftover men and the discursive strategies used to construct their identities. The findings show that the media perpetuate a myth of 'protest masculinity' by suggesting that poor, single men may become a threat to social harmony due to the shortage of marriageable women in China. Leftover men are represented as poor men, troublemakers and victims via discursive processes that include referential, predicational and aggregation strategies as well as metaphor. This study sheds light on the issues and concerns of a marginalised group whose predicament has not been given much attention in the literature.

尽管中国媒体用“剩”来描述未婚公民的说法引起了很大争议，但对于“剩男”在话语中的表现方式却鲜有研究关注。为了填补这一空白，本研究对中国媒体中的65篇英语新闻报道进行了批判性话语分析，以调查与剩男相关的性别话语以及用于建构其身份的话语策略。调查结果表明，媒体建构了“抗议性男子气概”的迷思，由于中国缺乏可婚女性，他们认为贫穷的单身男人可能成为社会和谐的隐患。通过隐喻等话语策略，剩男被媒体描述成贫穷的人，制造麻烦的人和受害者。这项研究揭示了一个边缘化群体的问题，他们的困境在文献中并未得到足够的重视。