In China, single women over 27 are deemed to be “leftover.” While the majority of studies suggest that the Chinese-language media have perpetuated the patriarchal discourse surrounding the leftover myth, few studies have investigated the English-language news media in China which claims to be more liberal with a critical approach. To fill this niche, this study investigates the dominant gendered discourses surrounding the leftover myth and how the myth is (de)legitimised in 30 English-language news articles produced in China by employing van Leeuwen’s sociosemantic approach from a feminist critical discourse perspective. The findings show that both patriarchal and resistant discourses co-exist. While both sets of legitimation and delegitimation strategies are found in the patriarchal and resistant discourses, the delegitimation strategies occur more frequently to challenge the leftover myth than the legitimation strategies to perpetuate it. This study sheds light on the hybridised discourses surrounding the leftover myth in relation to the wider discursive and sociocultural contexts in postsocialist China.
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Yating Yu (2020) studied this question.