A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Transitive Representations Of “CONTAIN China” In The U.S. Broadsheets

In the present society, the United States guides the public opinion of the world. The coverage of China in the U.S. broadsheets, providing a window for the Americans or even the whole globe to know more about China, has a significant impact on China’s image. However, many researchers focus on the explicit evaluative meanings in the news reports, eliding the hidden attitudes. Recently, scholars have recognized the research potential of combining Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA) with Corpus linguistics(CL). This thesis explores the value of CL in CDA by improving the representativeness of the corpus, combining quantitative analysis with qualitative analysis and enriching the research method of evaluative meaning by binding semantic prosody with Transitivity and Appraisal theory.The study examines the representations of “CONTAIN China” and the construction of China’s image in The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times during September 18, 2008 and December 31, 2010. Based on the news articles of the U.S. broadsheets, the objectives of the study are designed as follows: first, to prove the value of CL, specifically Extended Lexical Units(ELUs), in CDA; second, to interpret the discursive strategies of “CONTAIN China”, that is, who(try to) contain China; who hold the Cold War mentality and why they(try to) contain China; third, to uncover China’s image in the U.S. broadsheets in a discursively constructed way.The findings show that in the analysis of semantic preference, China is suspicious toward the United States. However, taking contexts into account and analyzing the prosody of “CONTAIN China”, the thesis finds that America is uneasy and worried toward China’s rise. Besides, China’s image is not static but alters with America’s interests. In 2009, the United States assures China to win its support in the global issues. Thus, the semantic prosody of “not… CONTAIN China” is in a cooperative atmosphere, and China is represented as America’s partner. While in 2010, when Sino-U.S. relationships undergo twists and turns, the semantic prosody is in dispute and China is portrayed as America’s rival.