| Author: | Zhang, Yang |
| Title: | Discursive construction of the Chinese military image : a comparative study of national defense websites between China and us |
| Advisors: | Wu, Doreen (CBS) |
| Degree: | DALS |
| Year: | 2022 |
| Subject: | Critical discourse analysis Mass media and language China -- Armed Forces -- Public opinion Hong Kong Polytechnic University -- Dissertations |
| Department: | Faculty of Humanities |
| Pages: | viii, 274 pages : color illustrations |
| Language: | English |
| Abstract: | The study compares the discursive construction of the Chinese military image by the media of China (self-portrayed image) versus by the media of the United States (other-portrayed image) using the approach of critical discourse analysis. News reports on the Chinese military from the website of the Chinese Ministry of National Defense (MNDW henceforth) and the website of the US Department of Defense (DDOW henceforth) between January 2018 to October 2021 are sampled to represent the self-portrayed image versus the other-portrayed image construction of the Chinese military. Integrating Wodak’s discourse-historical approach (DHA) with methods of corpus linguistics analysis, this study develops a tripartite framework to examine how the image of the Chinese military is constructed from the news reports via three dimensions: 1) thematic construction, 2) discourse strategy, 3) language implementation. In terms of thematic constructions, the study has found that while both MNDW and DDOW share the same semantic domain in reporting the Chinese military, the MNDW corpus mainly presents positive image of the Chinese military as a mighty army, a civilized army, and a peaceful army. By contrast, the DDOW corpus portrays the Chinese military as “competing”, “aggressive” and “threatening”. Comparison of the two countries’ discourse strategies in their reports of the Chinese military further reveals that a positive self-portrayed image is constructed by MNDW while a negative other-portrayed image is constructed by DDOW. For example, MNDW corpus uses noun phrases with positive meaning to refer to Chinese army and explicit predicates to describe a series of behaviors by Chinese army positively whereas DDOW tries to employ some nomination and predication strategies to project the Chinese military negatively. In argumentation strategy, both MNDW corpus and DDOW corpus use the topos of responsibility and topos of history to express their positions and attitudes, but MNDW corpus uses more kinds of topos than the DDOW corpus. To be specific, MNDW corpus uses such argumentation strategies as highlighting topos of responsibility, topos of advantage, topos of history, topos of culture, and topos of number. In contrast, DDOW corpus uses such topos as topos of threat, topos of responsibility, topos of law and topos of history. In the application of perspectivation strategy, military-related reports in both corpora use different types of quotations and news sources too. In terms of quotation, the military-related reports in MNDW corpus tend to use the direct speech from authorities to create positive images of the Chinese military, whereas the reports from DDWO tend to mix direct speech and indirect speech to project a negative image of the Chinese military. In terms of news sources, in MNDW corpus, most of the unknown news sources are positive in nature, whereas in DDOW corpus indirect speech and unspecific sources are used for projecting negativity. Further examination of the language implementation also reveals differences between MNDW and DDOW in the choice of keywords, intensification of words and different types of reporting verbs in the military-related reports about the Chinese across the two corpora. From the perspective of keywords, the prominent keywords in MNDW corpus involve peace and cooperation, whereas DDOW corpus uses words that have obvious military or (in)security tendencies. As regards the use of intensification of words, military-related reports in both MNDW and DDOW corpora repeatedly resort to rhetorical devices to intensify the viewpoints in their reports. However, in order to highlight negative images of the Chinese military, DDOW corpus has applied more types of intensification such as passive voice, adverbs and prepositional phrases. In terms of reporting verbs, DDOW corpus demonstrates more density and variety in using the neutral, mental and speech acts reporting verbs to construct a negative image of the Chinese military. In contrast, the density and variety of reporting verbs in MNDW is relatively sparse. The present thesis bears both academic and practical significance. Academically, by developing a tripartite framework integrating discourse-historical approach (DHA) and corpus linguistics (CL), it has contributed significantly to the methodological development in comparative discourse studies of self-portrayed versus other-portrayed image of the military. Practically, the study has revealed both macro and micro-levels of discourse structures in the process of constructing the Chinese military image by China versus the United States, which should provide insights not only for a better understanding of the differential image construction by the two countries but also to China particularly when it seeks earnestly ways to properly project its image globally. |
| Rights: | All rights reserved |
| Access: | restricted access |
Files in This Item:
| File | Description | Size | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7069.pdf | For All Users (off-campus access for PolyU Staff & Students only) | 1.86 MB | Adobe PDF | View/Open |
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