《中国日报》“一带一路”新闻报道中的中国形象建构

论文总字数：55606字

摘 要

随着世界全球化的发展，国家形象在当今社会的重要性日益增长，而新闻媒体在国家形象的塑造与传播中又起着相当重要的作用。因此，本文旨在研究中国最具影响力的新闻媒体《中国日报》在其“一带一路”相关报道中是如何构建以及构建了怎样积极正面的中国形象。

在研究过程中，本文选用评价理论中的态度系统作为理论框架，将《中国日报》“一带一路”新闻报道中和“中国”、“一带一路”相关的评价性词汇分为情感、判断、鉴赏资源，并对其进行举例分析，探讨中国日报通过这些资源，分别构建出了怎样的中国形象。

研究发现，在这些态度资源中，绝大部分为积极正面评价，极少数传递了消极意义，说明《中国日报》作为已经进入国际主流社会的媒体，在努力塑造积极正面的中国形象。关于三种态度资源的分布，判断资源占51%，情感和鉴赏资源各占21%和28%。三种资源分别构建了不同的中国形象，而这些形象又有共通之处，因此，本研究的最终结论可归纳为：《中国日报》通过积极评价性词汇的运用有效地构建了合作、开放、友好、负责、公正、进步、有影响力的中国形象。

关键词：中国形象建构；《中国日报》；一带一路；评价理论

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements.......................................................................................................... i

Abstract........................................................................................................................... ii

摘要................................................................................................................................. iii

Table of Contents........................................................................................................... iv

Chapter One Introduction..............................................................................................1

1.1 Research Background.............................................................................................1

1.2 Research Purpose and Significance.........................................................................2

1.3Layout of the Thesis.................................................................................................2

Chapter Two Literature Review....................................................................................3

2.1 Definitions of National Image................................................................................3

2.2 Previous Studies at Home about National Image Construction in News Reports…………………………………………………………………………….…....4

Chapter Three Methodology.........................................................................................6

3.1 Research Questions................................................................................................6

3.2 Theoretical Framework……………………………………………………….….6

3.2.1 Appraisal Theory…………………………………………………………….6

3.2.1.1 Attitude System………………………………………………………...7

3.2.1.2 Engagement System………………………………………………….....8

3.2.1.3 Graduation System……………………………………………………...8

3.2.1.4 Previous Studies at Home and Abroad about Appraisal Theory………..8

3.3 Research Design.....................................................................................................9

3.3.1 Data Collection................................................................................................9

3.3.2 Instruments.....................................................................................................10

3.3.3 Analytical Procedures....................................................................................10

Chapter Four Research Results and Discussion.........................................................11

4.1 Analysis of Attitude Resources.............................................................................11

4.1.1 Analysis of Affect Resources…………………………………………….....11

4.1.2 Analysis of Judgement Resources……………………………………….....14

4.1.3 Analysis of Appreciation Resources……………………………………..…18

Chapter Five Conclusion………………………………………………………….....22

5.1 Major Findings………………………………………………….…………........22

5.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study…………………………….......23

References………………………………………………………..………………..….24

Chapter One Introduction

• 1. Research Background

As the rapid development of globalization, national image has now become a kind of soft power, which has a great influence on countries’ politics, economy and culture. A country’s image greatly reflects its influence, and even determines whether the country has a good status. That is to say, a negative national image can hold back its country’s development and leave foreigners a bad impression, while a positive image will lead foreigners to have a good impression on the country, making them more willing to know its culture and people, and thus promote the country’s comprehensive development. Therefore, it is quite important for a country to construct a good national image.

In recent years, Chinese image has achieved certain improvement because of the continuous deepening of reform and opening up, among which the Belt and Road Initiative has made a great contribution. The Belt and Road Initiative “is often described as a 21st century silk road, made up of a ‘belt’ of overland corridors and a maritime ‘road’ of shipping lanes.” (Kuo amp; Kommenda 2018) It is put forward by President Xi Jinping in 2013, and is aimed at connecting Asia, Africa and Europe and promoting the cooperation with neighboring countries. Over the six years since it was launched, the Belt and Road has become an extremely important strategy for China to enhance regional cooperation and to speed up economic transformation.

In terms of the construction of national image, news media play quite a significant role. In China, the most influential and representative news media is China Daily, an English-language daily newspaper founded in 1981. Having published many authoritative, objective and comprehensive reports, China Daily has long been an important way for the Chinese to learn about the world and for the world to understand China. Therefore, this paper mainly studies how China Daily effectively constructs positive Chinese image in its reports of the Belt and Road initiative.

• 1. Research Purpose and Significance

The purpose of the study is to learn how China Daily’s reports of the Belt and Road initiative effectively construct positive Chinese image and what positive images they construct by analyzing the reports’ language features with the help of Appraisal theory. What makes the study significant is that it explores how China Daily counters the “China threat” theory and the phrase “Chinese Marshall Plan” by constructing positive Chinese images. Meanwhile, this study may be helpful for other Chinese news media to strengthen their international broadcasting capabilities and to construct positive Chinese images in a more efficient way. Besides, the research results can also be used for the comparative study of language characteristics of news reports between China and other countries.

• 1. Layout of the Thesis

The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one makes a brief introduction to the thesis, including the background, purpose, significance and the layout of the thesis. Chapter two introduces the definitions of national image and reviews studies at home about Chinese image construction in news reports. Chapter three is about the methodology of the study, which includes research questions, theoretical framework and detailed research design. Chapter four analyses the three kinds of attitude resources distributed in China Daily’s news reports of Belt and Road, and it also summarizes the Chinese images constructed with the help of these resources. Chapter five is the conclusion part of this thesis, displaying the major findings and limitations of the study. Besides, chapter five gives suggestions for directions of further study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Definitions of National Image

The study of national image started in the West from the 1950s, while China started it later in the 1990s. (Jin amp; Xu 2010) Until now, none of the definition of national image has reached a broad consensus, and scholars all around the world have different ideas about it. There are now mainly two kinds of definitions of national image, one of which focuses on the international image, and the other includes both internal and external images.

Professor Xu (1996) once said that the image of a nation is the image appearing in the reports published by other countries’ news media. Three years later, Liu (1999: 25) puts forward that a country’s image refers to other countries’ (including the individuals, organizations and governments) comprehensive evaluation and overall impression on the country. Yang (2000: 25) expresses her idea in her book that national image is the international public’s relatively stable overall evaluation of a country. And both Han (2006) and Xie (2009) understand national image as a certain international image.

All the scholars above believe that national image is largely connected with the public abroad，but some other scholars consider national image as a combination of the country’s international image and its internal image, of which the most representative one is raised by the famous American scholar Boulding (1959: 120-121) that national image “must be thought of as the total cognitive, affective, and evaluative structure of the behavior unit, or its internal view of itself and its universe”. Professor Guan (1999: 23) takes national image as the overall evaluation and cognizance of a country itself, the country’s behavior, activities and achievements given by the public at home and abroad. And Tang (2004: 22) gives the similar definition that the image of a country is the overall judgement and social evaluation held by its people and foreigners.

Although these two ways of defining national image differ from each other, they both agree that the image is to some extent a kind of cognition, perception or evaluation. Given that a nation’s image includes its internal and external image, people’s attitudes towards their countries and cognition of their nations are easy to cultivate through various ways, such as political guidance, education and emotion cultivation, while in the perspective of constructing a nation’s international image, news media is indispensible, and reading the news reports of a country is an essential way for foreigners to know the country and on this basis, to generate impressions of the country. Definitely it is not easy for a country to decide how foreign news media report it; therefore, constructing positive national images in its own news media is of vital importance. And in China, it is China Daily that has to take this responsibility.

2.2 Previous Studies at Home about National Image Construction in News Reports

These years, as the improvement of Chinese image, the role of news media has become increasingly important in China’s external publicity and the construction of national image. Therefore, many scholars have turned their attention to the analysis of Chinese image construction in news reports from different angles. Yao (2013) compares the layout, content, emotion and news resources of reports of the 17th National Congress and the 18th National Congress on the one hand; on the other hand, she compares the textual forms and textual organizational patterns of those reports, and finally summarizes the main strategies China Daily uses while building Chinese image. Zhao (2018) analyzes the reporting period and quantity of the overseas edition of People’s Daily, and the genre, length, layout and themes of its reports on the basis of frame theory. He eventually concludes that People’s Daily makes full use of media events to construct the Chinese image, attaching much importance to the official information and different voices. Cui and Wang (2018) study the art and skills China Daily uses in different kinds of reports during the external publicity.

Researches above analyze the image construction in news reports from the aspect of layout, textual forms or the content of the reports, few of which pay attention to the words. Some scholars do use Appraisal theory to analyze Chinese image. Like Ma Yan (2015), she depicts Chinese economic image constructed by American mainstream media with the employment of the attitude system. But so far, none of these researches is based on the analysis of China Daily’s news reports of One Belt One Road strategy. Therefore, this paper mainly analyzes evaluative words in China Daily’s reports of the Belt and Road initiative on the basis of Appraisal theory, and by this way concludes how China Daily effectively constructs positive Chinese images and what kind of images it builds.

Chapter Three Methodology

3.1 Research Questions

This paper studies the effectiveness of the construction of positive Chinese image in China Daily’s new reports of Belt and Road initiative by analyzing the attitude resources in those reports. Therefore, the following research questions are addressed:

1. What are the distributions of Affect resources in China Daily’s news reports of “Belt and Road” and how these Affect resources help to construct Chinese image?
2. What are the distributions of Judgement resources in China Daily’s news reports of “Belt and Road” and how these Judgement resources help to construct Chinese image?
3. What are the distributions of Appreciation resources in China Daily’s news reports of “Belt and Road” and how these Appreciation resources help to construct Chinese image?

3.2 Theoretical Framework

3.2.1 Appraisal Theory

Appraisal theory is a significant development of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). (Wang 2001: 14) SFL founded by M.A.K.Halliday studies the three meta-functions of language from the perspective of sociology: the ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function, (Feng amp; Wang 2010: 46), of which the interpersonal function is the main emphasis. The interpersonal meaning of language refers to “how the people who are doing the communicating position themselves in relation to the discourse” (McKinley 2018: 29), and it can be used to establish and maintain the social relationships. (Feng amp; Wang 2010) However, while studying the interpersonal meaning, systemic functional linguists use mood and modality system, which is on a lexico-grammatical level and thus neglect the feelings of the interlocutors and the judgments they made. (Shen 2012: 110) J.R.Martin and his colleagues realized this and established the Appraisal theory system, developing and extending the Systemic Functional Linguistics “account of the interpersonal.” (Martin amp; White 2005: 1) The appraisal framework is an “approach to exploring, describing and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and relationships.” (White 2001: 1) And the theory is concerned with “the language of evaluation, attitude and emotion, and with a set of resources which explicitly position a text’s proposals and propositions interpersonally.” (White 2001: 1) The Appraisal theory system has three subsystems: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation.

In this thesis, only the attitude system is employed; therefore, the following part detailedly talks about attitude system and briefly introduces engagement and graduation system.

3.2.1.1 Attitude System

The Attitude system of Appraisal theory deals with speakers’ assessments of participants and processes based on the emotional responses or some kind of institutionalized value system (White 2001: 5), and it covers three semantic regions which are traditionally called emotion, ethics and aesthetics. (Martin amp; White 2005: 42) Therefore, the Attitude system has its own three sub-systems: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation. According to Professor P.R.R.White (2001), Affect is concerned with the description of phenomena by reference to emotion (e.g. I love chocolate, This irritates me, etc.); Judgement is about evaluating human behavior with regard to social norms, which can be further divided into two categories—social sanction (‘legal or illegal, moral or immoral’, etc.) and social esteem (‘normal or abnormal, dependable or undependable, competent or incompetent’, etc.) ; and Appreciation deals with the evaluation of objects and products based on aesthetic principles and other value systems. Like the system of Judgement, appreciations can also be put under three further categories: reaction, composition and valuation. (Rotheryamp; Stenglin 2000) Under reaction, the evaluation is about objects’ impact or quality. (‘arresting, dramatic, splendid, ugly, dull,’ etc.) Rothery and Stenglin state that composition “describes the texture of a work in terms of its complexity and detail.” (Qtd in White: 13) And the category of social valuation includes values of social significance or salience, which evaluate whether the phenomenon is noteworthy or damaging.

3.2.1.2 Engagement System

The Engagement system explores how speakers use various strategies to adjust the arguability of their utterances, and it includes values which have been referred to as attribution, modality, hearsay, concession, polarity, hedges, boosters and so on. The utterances in Engagement system can be categorized into two types: mono-gloss and hetero-gloss, of which the former allows only one sound and is so-called “bare” declarative, and the latter makes reference to other voices, leaving it opinionated and attitudinal. (White 2001: 19) For example, the utterance “F. Scott Fitzgerald is the author of The Great Gatsby.” is monoglossic, and the sentence “She says that F. Scott Fitzgerald is the author of The Great Gatsby.” is considered as heteroglossic.

3.2.1.3 Graduation System

The graduation system of Appraisal theory is about the semantics of grading or scaling, and it has two dimensions: Force and Focus. Force refers to “variable scaling of intensity”, which has been labeled as intensifiers, emphasisers, down-tones etc. For example, it includes adverbs of intensification like slightly, a bit, really and completely. Focus is concerned with “sharpening or softening of category boundaries”, and it covers values which are always called “hedging” or “vague language” like kind of, sort of and efficiently. (White 2001: 8)

3.2.1.4 Previous Studies at Home and Abroad about Appraisal Theory

Appraisal theory is developed on the basis of researches for the Write It Right project of the NSW Disadvantaged Schools Program, and it is within the framework of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics. (White 2001: 3) The research was led by Professor Martin with the participation of Caroline Coffin, Joan Rothery, Maree Stenglin, Peter White and other outstanding scholars. (Wang 2001: 14) They explored the literacy requirements of various kinds of discourses, and developed the conclusions into a complete system, which is later called appraisal system.

Appraisal theory is now used worldwide as a linguistic tool for discourse analysis. In China, Chen Lu and Chen Chi (2010) studies how authors of evaluative discourses use attitude resources to show their own value orientation and to resonate with their readers. Xu (2014) employs Appraisal theory to analyze how various kinds of evaluative resources in the BBC document The Chinese Are Coming are distributed to construct Chinese national image. Li (2018) examines the distribution of attitude resources in Trump’s tweets and analyzes how Trump uses these resources to pass his value judgements. Similarly, Wang (2019) explores the distribution of attitude resources in news reports of “Beijing Summit” and analyzes the utterance meaning expressed by those resources. Foreign scholar L. Grundlingh (2018) uses Appraisal theory in a different way; he explores whether it is possible to use Appraisal theory to distinguish between the authentic and fabricated suicide notes, and finds that at least three appraisal categories can be used as legitimacy markers of authentic suicide notes.

In this paper, Appraisal theory is employed as the theoretical framework to help analyze how attitude resources are distributed in China Daily’s news reports of Belt and Road initiative and how these resources help construct different Chinese images.

3.3 Research Design

3.3.1 Data Collection

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