A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women

Words engender consciousness, and news reporting, as an important medium for the dissemination of discourse, shapes public cognition imperceptibly. As a marginalized group in patriarchal societies, disabled women have received relatively little attention. Therefore, using a corpus-driven critical di...

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Main Authors: Ran Yangxia, Zhao Mengdan
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-12-01
Series:Cogent Arts & Humanities
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2025.2465027
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author Ran Yangxia
Zhao Mengdan
author_facet Ran Yangxia
Zhao Mengdan
author_sort Ran Yangxia
collection DOAJ
description Words engender consciousness, and news reporting, as an important medium for the dissemination of discourse, shapes public cognition imperceptibly. As a marginalized group in patriarchal societies, disabled women have received relatively little attention. Therefore, using a corpus-driven critical discourse analysis, this study investigates the overall media representation of disabled women in Chinese news reports (2013–2023), along with the underlying cognitive and social factors. It reveals that Chinese news reporting prefers the social model of disability, which tends to narrate from the perspective of society and caregivers. This is also evidenced by the use of different personal pronouns. Second, in the view of semantic preference, it is apparent that expressions associated with disabled women often carry derogatory and negative emotional connotations, such as ‘left-behind’ and ‘poor’. However, the overall semantic prosody presented in the news is primarily positive, advocating for societal attention and assistance towards this group. Finally, through the analysis of thematic words and high-frequency collocations, Chinese reports touch upon topics related to sexuality and marriage in the news descriptions of intellectually disabled women, potentially hinting at the discourse rights of this segment of the population.
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spelling doaj-art-e2b697cac1b148b2b225390f9eafb8372025-08-20T03:21:31ZengTaylor & Francis GroupCogent Arts & Humanities2331-19832025-12-0112110.1080/23311983.2025.2465027A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled womenRan Yangxia0Zhao Mengdan1Graduate Student, School of Foreign Languages, Chengdu University of Technology, Chenghua District, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, ChinaChengdu University of Technology, School of Foreign Languages, Chenghua District, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, ChinaWords engender consciousness, and news reporting, as an important medium for the dissemination of discourse, shapes public cognition imperceptibly. As a marginalized group in patriarchal societies, disabled women have received relatively little attention. Therefore, using a corpus-driven critical discourse analysis, this study investigates the overall media representation of disabled women in Chinese news reports (2013–2023), along with the underlying cognitive and social factors. It reveals that Chinese news reporting prefers the social model of disability, which tends to narrate from the perspective of society and caregivers. This is also evidenced by the use of different personal pronouns. Second, in the view of semantic preference, it is apparent that expressions associated with disabled women often carry derogatory and negative emotional connotations, such as ‘left-behind’ and ‘poor’. However, the overall semantic prosody presented in the news is primarily positive, advocating for societal attention and assistance towards this group. Finally, through the analysis of thematic words and high-frequency collocations, Chinese reports touch upon topics related to sexuality and marriage in the news descriptions of intellectually disabled women, potentially hinting at the discourse rights of this segment of the population.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2025.2465027Corpus linguisticscritical discourse analysisnews discoursecorpus-driven CDAdisabled womenAsian Studies
spellingShingle Ran Yangxia
Zhao Mengdan
A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
Cogent Arts & Humanities
Corpus linguistics
critical discourse analysis
news discourse
corpus-driven CDA
disabled women
Asian Studies
title A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
title_full A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
title_fullStr A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
title_full_unstemmed A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
title_short A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
title_sort corpus driven critical discourse analysis of news reports on disabled women
topic Corpus linguistics
critical discourse analysis
news discourse
corpus-driven CDA
disabled women
Asian Studies
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/23311983.2025.2465027
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