Wives of gay men ( Tongqi ) phenomenon in China: the use of legitimation strategies in Chinese English-language newspapers

This study investigates the representation of the tongqi (wives of gay men) phenomenon in Chinese English-language newspapers, focusing on the use of legitimation strategies. Drawing on a corpus of 47 articles published between 2001 and 2024, the research integrates Van Leeuwen’s sociosemantic framework of legitimation—authorisation, moral evaluation, rationalisation, and mythopoesis—with Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of critical discourse analysis. Findings indicate that authorisation is the most frequently employed strategy, primarily through expert quotations and statistical evidence, followed by moral evaluation, rationalisation, and mythopoesis. These discourses frames tongqi as victims of socio-cultural pressures, highlighting their emotional and financial hardships while marginalizing the agency of their gay spouses. These discourses selectively navigate state censorship and traditional Confucian norms, portraying the phenomenon to both raise awareness and reinforce moral and social expectations. This study contributes to understanding how Chinese English-language media discursively construct social issues for international audiences, revealing the relationships between language, ideology, and socio-cultural context. The findings offer insights into broader patterns of gender, sexuality, and media representation in Confucian-influenced societies.