Interdiscursivity in Chinese discourse on plagiarism

Abstract While much research has explored attitudes toward plagiarism, there has been limited focus on how different socio-cultural groups articulate their criticisms of plagiarism. This paper examines how Chinese secondary school students and editors of student magazines employ interdiscursive rhetorical strategies to critique plagiarism. The data comprises a rare public-facing corpus of published Chinese texts, including reports written by students who exposed plagiarism in compositions published in student magazines, and responses from magazine editors. The analysis centres on the use of figurative language — such as idioms, proverbs, and metaphors; and double-voicing — the use of another’s language to convey two meanings at once. These two key rhetorical strategies reveal socio-cultural attitudes toward plagiarism in the data. The strategies are examined for their cultural implications and contributions to broader societal attitudes toward plagiarism. The findings highlight the potential of interdiscursive analysis to inform academic integrity education and pedagogy globally.