The Discursive Construction Of China's Image In Mainstream Newspapers Of South Africa

South Africa is China's biggest trading partner in Africa and it is Africa's second-largest economy.Under the background of in-depth economic cooperation between China and South Africa,the number of South African news reports on China has been increasing.It is high time to analyze the image of China constructed by South Africa's media,so as to promote the in-depth and sustainable development of the cooperation between China and South Africa.In this paper,relevant reports on China in two South African mainstream newspapers,The Star and Mail&Guardian,are selected as the research objects,and China's image presented in those reports is to be studied.The research questions can be listed as follows:(1)What kind of China's image is constructed in these two newspapers?(2)How is China's image constructed in these two newspapers?A corpus is built with relevant reports about China in the two newspapers during the period from January 1~stt to December 31~stt of 2018.They are retrieved from NewsBank,including a total number of 1503 news reports.The study is carried out in a framework combining Fairclough's three-dimensional discourse analysis model with Halliday's systemic functional grammar,and Xinbin's theory of intertextuality.At description stage,firstly,the researcher uses Antconc 3.3 to get significant collocates of“China”and“Chinese”in the corpus to find out the major concerns about China and analyzes the context of constructing China's images.Secondly,to make further analysis of the specific China's images constructed in the newspapers,the researcher selects 104 reports on“BRICS summit”,and makes transitivity analysis of them.At interpretation stage,an intertextuality analysis of the selected reports is made to explore how such image is constructed.At explanation stage,it explains the reasons behind the language choice in the two dimensions of description and interpretation from the perspective of historical,political and economic context.After analyzing and discussing the data,the following conclusions are drawn:The Star constructs a responsible image of China as a close and cooperative partner,a credible economic aid provider and an active contributor for solving global problems.However,Mail&Guardian presents a negative image of an economic power,exploitative invader and predator.There are three kinds of language resources in constructions:(1)the selection of news focuses:it finds that the major concerns of the two newspapers are cooperation among members of BRICS countries and trade,financial investment,and economy.(2)the adoption of transitivity:the analysis shows that The Star constructs the image of China as a responsible power with a positive attitude,while Mail&Guardian,regarding China as a potential threat.(3)the selection of news sources and reporting modes:The Star mostly chooses South African and Chinese president as reliable sources to express a positive attitude,while Mail&Guardian mostly quotes South African experts and Western media to express negative and skeptical attitudes.In terms of reporting modes,both newspapers prefer to use indirect speech to present their views and positions.At explanation stage,in view of the importance of China and South Africa's cooperation within the framework of BRICS,China's economic influence,the remaining disadvantages in the era of apartheid in South Africa and the influence of the concept of cooperation and development between the two countries,the South African newspapers also show different positions in reporting.