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

Cao, Qing

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: Nov 1, 2021
• 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
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1226054
• Publisher URL: https://benjamins.com/catalog/cld.21032.cao