A Study Of Media Discourse Evolution On International Image Of “Made In China” In The New York Times

Since the middle of 2010 s, a series of crisis events about “Made in China” happened in the enterprises such as toys, tires, toothpastes. Then “Made in China” has become a label of“dangerous products”. Foreign media wantonly exaggerate the quality problems of “Made in China”, causing the crisis of confidence of Chinese manufacturing, therefore the international image of “Made in China” is seriously affected.The present thesis will analyze these selected discourses through employing linguistic tools such as lexical choice and reporting speech of Halliday’s systemic functional grammar,van Dijk’s macrostructure analysis, with the aid of the statistic tool AntConc 3.4, applies Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze reports about 300,000 words on “Made in China”. This thesis aims to explore descriptions and changes of attitudes towards “Made in China” during the period from a diachronic perspective, how the image of “Made in China” changes, and how China’s image changes accordingly. The author attempts to employ the research methods of discourse analysis to explore how American famous media constructs China’s international image through presenting the topic of “Made in China”, and how the image is.This thesis selects news reports about “Made in China” from 1991 to 2010 in The New York Times to make a diachronic study. The author examines the evolution process of “Made in China” media image during these twenty years by analyzing reports headlines and news frame, discourse stance and attitude and rhetorical characteristics. The thesis finds out that the change tendency of the media image of “Made in China” is directly related with the quality of Chinese exports; The image of “Made in China” presented by American media interacts with China’s national image. Meanwhile, this thesis proposes some constructive suggestions on communication of the international image of “Made in China” from a cultural discourse perspective.The author analyzes the selected reports about “Made in China” from The New York Times through applying both macro level and micro level analysis. The research finds that the reports themes vary in three periods: “pirated products”-- “cheap goods”-- “dangerous products”. Furthermore, the reporters employ different words to describe “Made in China” in different periods, the words would be more subjective with frequent crisis events happened.Meanwhile, the number of negative reporting verbs are gradually increasing, which can reveal the hidden ideologies in news reports. To deal with negative influence and unfavorable crisis of international confidence brought about by the reports on “Made in China” and to make the world correctly understand “Made in China”, China should export both its culture and products, spread traditional Chinese culture to the world and thus improve the reputation of“Made in China”.