Exploring Moral Education Policy Documents in the Chinese College English Education Context: A Critical Discourse Analysis

HRMARS - Moral education has been a topic of extensive debate within the field of education. This study examines how China’s moral education policy discourse constructs power and ideology and reshapes college English education using a critical discourse analysis (CDA) framework. The study focuses specifically on a recent nationwide educational reform, i.e., integrating moral education into college-level courses (the Chinese term Kecheng Sizheng). Drawing on a sample of two policy documents guiding the integration of moral education into college English teaching, the findings indicate that the policy documents function not merely as administrative guidelines but also as instruments of discursive governance. They embed ideology, discourse, and power within educational policy texts, thereby constructing ideological and moral education as a normative imperative. Through the mechanisms of recontextualization and interdiscursivity, the policies delineate the obligations of college English teachers while simultaneously regulating the interpretive space of college English educational practice. This research contributes to understanding how language planning operates through educational policy discourse, with implications for language policy scholarship in contexts where education serves state ideological projects. We argue that CDA illuminates the mechanisms through which educational policies naturalise value alignment in college English education, offering insights for future language policy research in higher education.