Lost in translation? A corpus-assisted critical discourse study of left-behind children in China Daily and three Western news outlets, 2004–2023

Introduction China's rural-to-urban labour migration has left many children in rural communities, yet few studies compare how Chinese state-affiliated and Western English-language outlets represent these left-behind children (LBC) to international readers. This study examines how outlets construct LBC as social actors and distribute agency, voice, and responsibility. Methods Drawing on Fairclough's three-dimensional model, this corpus-assisted critical discourse study compares 576 China Daily articles (385,920 words) with 298 articles from The Guardian , The New York Times , and Reuters (253,300 words) published 2004–2023, using keyword and collocation analysis; concordance analysis of social actors, quoted voices, and responsibility attribution; coding of four article-level frames ( κ = .86); validated sentiment scores; and regression models. Results The Government Action frame appeared in 72% of China Daily and 18% of Western sample articles, and the Victimhood frame in 35% and 81%, respectively. China Daily mostly presented children as passive beneficiaries of institutional action, quoted officials most often, and rarely named the hukou system (12% vs. 58% of articles). Western outlets more often depicted children's emotional states and quoted families and experts. Lexical sentiment was positive in China Daily (M = .12) and negative in Western outlets (M = −.28; d = 1.08), which had about eight times the odds of Victimhood framing (OR = 8.08). Discussion Differences were outlet-specific and institutionally patterned: China Daily foregrounds state response and service provision, whereas Western outlets foreground family separation and psychological harm. Neither construction captures the heterogeneity of LBC's circumstances. The study analyses published texts, not their reception.