“Our Friend Wang”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the visualization of the image of a Chinese in the periodical press of the Urals in the 1950s. Using the methodology of critical discourse analysis, the authors identify several target groups that form the image, describe their characteristic features and highlight the general and the special characteristics. The source base was made up of materials from the Ural periodical press. During “Great friendship” the Chinese who took part in labor training at enterprises and universities in the USSR became an object of attention of the Ural periodical press from the moment of their appearance in the region in 1954 and up to the almost complete return to their homeland. Periodical publications formed and broadcast to readers a positive image of the Chinese, using some lasting methods of description: putting in an industrial environment, displaying a certain hierarchy in the relationship “diligent” student – “wise” mentor, ‘humanizing’ the character, describing a “typical” and “correct” biography showing positive changes in China after its transition to the socialist path of development.

Keywords

• migration
• image of the other
• soviet-chinese relations
• chinese migrants
• ural press