Mapping Ideology in Language: Han Dong’s Zha gen (Banished!) and Ma Jian’s Rou zhi tu (Beijing Coma)

Ideology can play a significant role in shaping literary representations of contemporary China. This study aims to demonstrate that a close reading of the authors’ use of language can re- veal the influence of ideology on the literary texts, even when it comes to authors whose positions towards P.R.C. are diametrically opposite. The analysis compares Han Dong’s Zha gen (Banished!) and Ma Jian’s Rou zhi tu (Beijing Coma), implementing Fairclough’s model for Critical Discourse Analysis on vocabulary and grammar. The experiential, relational, and expressive values coded in the texts reveal different tendencies in the authors’ attitudes when representing social reality. Nonetheless, they prove the existence of common ideological features underlying the authors’ literary expression.