Van Dijk has proposed an ideology theory named “the ideology square”, which has been widely concerned and used in the feld of domestic media critical discourse analysis. However, the translation of the theory’s label has several versions, reflecting the domestic scholars’ understanding of the theory is superficial. Through systematic studying on the connotation, origin, value and the use of “the ideology square” theory, this paper finds that the essence of “the ideology square” is the group polarization strategy in discourse aroused from the academic background of the study in the relationships of ideology and discourse in Europe, and that triggered by “social representation theory”, its direct theory source is “social identity theory”. This paper also finds that it is mainly used in critical discourse, revealing the unfair social discourse phenomena, and that the use dimensions of the theory are both discourse and social cognition. Because the properties of “the ideology square” are based on strategy and antagonism, this paper argues that the best translation should be “yi shi xing tai fang zhen”.