Discursive Construction Of National Image Of China In American Broadsheets

As information spread is globalized in the modern world, national image mainlyexists in the mass media, especially in the discourses of the world main streammedia. China’s national image has always been passive because the western medialeading by America did many negative or even demonized reports about Chinamaking use of their advantages in global media. So, after many international changesand the Beijing Olympic Games, what kind of national image of China will be inAmerican broad sheets? How is the image constructed? And what are theenlightenments to Chinese diplomatic policies? These questions require immediateanswers.Choosing “China” as the search word, in the Lexis Nexis, an academic corpus,this study collected all the news discourses related to China in the three dominantbroad sheets of America: New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Timesafter the closure of Beijing Olympic Games from September18th2008to December31st2010, building a special corpus of8.08million words. Just in such a bigbackground, this study chooses to observe a special relational process clausestructure, i.e. S+V+O (China)+C in this special corpus which is more likely toshow China’s properties as well as the factors that makes China have such propertiesin these news texts so as to find the answers to the above questions.It is found that China’s economy is the focus in American news discourses.China has been constructed as a world economic power and a strongly influentialcountry. There is no obvious gap between the number of positive appraisal resourcesand the negative ones towards China. In some sense, China’s national image isimproved compared with the findings of the previous researches. However,American broad sheets choose too many negative appraisal category of “propriety”,especially for “the currency manipulator” and “a country with improper diplomacy”image. Because the appraisal category of “propriety” is related to the meanings oflaw and moral, in some sense, the American broad sheets still hold a negative attitude towards China’s national image. What’s more, China’s booming economyand international influence are all constructed as results of objective factors. Theefforts of Chinese government are completely neglected. And Americangovernment’s efforts to make China a global good partner are emphasized again andagain. These reveal the subjectivity and one-sidedness of American broad sheets, thelanguage election of which is decided by national interest, ideology and value. Thisthesis is helpful for a critical reading in teaching and a deeper understanding of theideology in texts. At the same time, it can also help China to learn its image and theattitude of America towards China so as to make better coping and promote thehealthy development of relations between China and the United States.