Representations of air tragedy in Chinese press: a corpus-driven critical discourse study

This article examines discourses surrounding air tragedies, aiming to investigate differences in ideological stances adopted by Chinese journalists toward three social actor groups associated with the crashed China Eastern Boeing 737. By integrating theories and methodologies from corpus linguistics and critical discourse studies, and employing corpus linguistics software, the study reveals that Chinese media constructs a positive representation of the “Our” group (the Chinese government and China Eastern Airlines) while framing the “Others” group (Boeing) negatively. It is argued that these representations function to systematically amplify public perception of responsibility and reliability toward the Chinese government and China Eastern Airlines, but risk and distrust toward Boeing. Ultimately, the study demonstrates the operational dynamics of the Discourse-Cognition-Society triangle, illustrating how the social structure delimits discursive strategies, and how discursive practice, in turn, actively intervenes to shape collective cognition and reproduce ideological positions.