A Study On Reports Of Sino-U.S.trade War From The Perspective Of Power

Since World War II,the United States has been at the center of world power.Facing the reality of China's increasing influence in the international community,in order to make sure its hegemonic position in the world will not be shaken,the United States take lots of measures to suppress China in economic,political and technological fields.On March 22,2018,the United States announced plans to impose tariffs on US $ 60 billion worth of goods imported from China,provoking a trade war against China.In essence,the Sino-US trade war is a competition for power.Discourse is reflective of power competition.Based on Foucault's discourse power theory,the purpose of this article is to study which discourse strategies New York Times produced during the Sino-US trade war to maintain and consolidate its dominant power of the United States in the world;How,in turn,has an impact on real power.In terms of research methods,this paper adopts Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional analysis of critical discourse analysis,combines quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze US media's news reports on Sino-US trade frictions in a self-built corpora.Critical discourse analysis,as a discourse analysis method,aims to reveal the relationship between language,ideology,and power.This article analyzes the linguistic content and characteristics reported by the New York Times in the text dimension,and finds that the New York Times has accused China and the various unfair treatments the United States received in trade exchanges through overlexicalization,text foregrounding,and war metaphors.The New York Times portrays China as an authoritarian country that takes advantage of the United States.In terms of discourse practice,this article conducts an intertextual analysis of the discourse production process of the New York Times and finds that vague indirect quotations are used to fight for "legitimacy" for the act of imposing tariffs on China.In the dimension of social practice,this article explains how economic and ideological power affects the discourse strategies of the New York Times.Finally,the study concluded that the United States still has an economic power advantage in asymmetric Sino-US economic and trade relations.Discourse is one of the manifestations of power.The New York Times,the mainstream American media,has also shown discourse advantages when reporting Sino-US trade frictions.Therefore,in the current international public opinion space dominated by the West,China's peaceful integration into the Western discourse system also requires an early agreement between China and the United States,as well as the positive interaction between the two parties in various fields such as trade.