Between Romanticism and Realism: Interdiscursive Construction of the Posthumous Identities on China’s Social Media

This study conducts a corpus-assisted discourse analysis of the interdiscursive construction of posthumous identity in public mourning discourse surrounding the death of Qiong Yao on China’s social media platform, Weibo. It integrates text mining with critical discourse studies to identify four prominent discourses in a specialized corpus of 5,741 public mourning Weibo posts: mourning discourse, achievement discourse, romance discourse, and private discourse. Further analysis reveals a striking contradiction between the celebration of her emotional sincerity, personal freedom, and courageous love, and the negative evaluation of her private life. The study argues that the public mourning of Qiong Yao can represent a microcosm of China’s evolving cultural awareness and provides a discursive space where romantic ideals and pragmatic realities are continuously negotiated.