Construction of China's Images in Confrontational Discourse:Analysis of Evidence from COVID-19 Corpus
Since the outbreak of COVID-19,news reporting regarding the origin of COVID-19 virus by American and Chinese media has featured a confrontational discourse.Examining how China's image is portrayed in these media can shed light on the mecha-nism behind this confrontational discourse.To achieve this,the present study utilizes a corpus approach,employing the analytical techniques of concordance analysis,collocation analysis,semantic preference,and semantic prosody analysis to explore severe competitions in constructing China's image in the media discourse.The results of our analysis reveal that Chinese and American media depict China in starkly contrasting ways.Chinese media self-constructs China as a destigmatizer,a defender of scientific principles,an international cooperator and a provider of epidemic control supplies.In contrast,American media portrays China as a truth-concealer,an entity to be blamed,criticized,and pressed.Exploration of recurrent language patterns and discursive strategies suggests strong competitions and sharp confrontations in discursive construction by the American and Chinese media.These confrontational discursive constructions act to shape Sino-US relations and are becoming part of the complicated status quo of the bilateral relations of the two countries.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
