The Representation And Reception Of "Taikonaut(s)" In Western Media

"Taikonaut" has been included by Western dictionaries and encyclopedias as a Chinese astronaut,blend of Chinese "Taikong" and Astronaut,and perceived by Western media as a sign of China’s aerospace industry,an impression closely related to China’s"hard power" and "soft power",a symbolic term positively co-related with China’s image.The discursive construction of China’s international image is necessarily built on basis of China’s "hard power",which cannot speak itself,therefore building a national discourse system that matching China’s comprehensive strength is urgently needed.This study takes the representation and reception of "taikonaut(s)" in Western media as an example to discuss the construction of China’s international image,in order to provide a reference for the construction of national discourse power in the international field in the future.In today’s globalized world,the media shows unprecedented power of expression and construction of reality,and media content has become an absolutely powerful narrative and discourse.Western media are still in a dominant position and play an important role in shaping and disseminating China’s image in English speaking society.The combination of discourse analysis and communication research requires the intervention of multiple methods and perspectives.So far few studies have focused on the exclusive aerospace terms of China from either perspective of critical discourse analysis or appraisal theory,and the diachronic discourse study on the historical change of China’s image is relatively new.To make up for the gaps,under the framework of critical discourse analysis and appraisal theory,this paper adopts corpus-assisted approach to conduct a diachronic study to address three research questions:1)What is the difference in the reporting around "taikonaut(s)" among Western media?2)What is the diachronic change of reporting around "taikonaut(s)" in Western media?3)How is the discursive construction of China’s international image based on the representation and reception of "taikonaut(s)" in Western media?Major findings are as follows:1)The total occurrence and the overall appraisal resources by category and type of"taikonaut(s)" are more in the professional Western media and less in the mass Western media than Chinese astronaut(s).These may indicate that the professional media and their special recipients have a common preference for a more likely technical term"taikonaut(s)",while the mass media and their mass recipients have a common fondness for a more general term Chinese astronaut(s).The positive resources of each category are overwhelmingly more than the negative ones,and the invoked resources of each explicitness are much more than the inscribed ones.The overall Appreciation and Judgement resources dominate the Attitude domain,and the overall Valuation and Capacity resources dominate the Appreciation and Judgement categories respectively.The overall Expand resources is more than that of Contract in Engagement domain,and the Entertain resources dominates the Expand category.These may indicate that Western media have adopted more consensus of positive opinions,largely on value judgement of things while many on behavior judgement,and have chosen less attitudinal lexis but more ideational meanings to invoke evaluation,which encourage evaluative reading position to interpret them.The top concern has been given to the cognitive and ideational worth,and the sharing values of capacity.Western media have made use of their status as the global leading media to guide opinion,influence the international public’s cognition and attitude towards China’s image,and form international relations and interaction behaviors conductive to their interests.Their own attitudinal positions are often announced by inviting others to endorse and share with them,making allowances for alternative positions and voices to show the adopted major position and voice is but one of a number of possible positions making dialogic space for those possibilities.2)The reporting around "taikonaut(s)" in terms of total occurrence or overall appraisal resources shows significant changes in two periods:a mild fluctuating and generally rising trend from year 2010 to 2020 is in comparison with a dramatically booming in year 2021;an increase in a narrow amplitude where "taikonaut(s)" competing mildly with Chinese astronaut(s)during year 2010 and 2020 is in contrast with an increase in a much higher amplitude where "taikonaut(s)" dramatically surpassing Chinese astronaut(s)in 2021.In either period,the change of reporting around "taikonaut(s)" has been closely related to the level of concern along with the development of Chinese aerospace technologies and short term upsurging degree of interest in Western society,occurred from the activities of Chinese aerospace industry.During 2010 and 2021,besides the diachronic change of appraisal resources,either the positive or the invoked resources in proportion to their categories or subcategories do not show significant changes,which may indicate that along with the generally increased quantity of evaluation towards China’s aerospace industry,the quality of evaluation towards China’s international image in terms of both the positive and the invoked proportions seems few change.The averagely 88%high proportion of positive Attitude resources including averagely 91%positive Judgement resources,averagely 86%positive Appreciation resources,across the 11 years around"taikonaut(s)" have guided opinions and influenced international public’s cognition and attitudes towards positive China’s international images.3)China’s international image has been constructed through different interpretations by different reading positions with different disciplinary knowledge as either positive,negative or ambiguous:Positive pictures such as good space program,rapid progress,prestige and technical competence,and up-and-coming giant;Negative portraits like unappealing space program,developing colony,and establishing military outpost;Ambiguous depictions including space dream,space ambition,and counter space capabilities.We cannot neglect that Western media still have a sense of superiority or ethnocentrism and tend to shape China’s images into biased stereotypes.Furthermore we have to pay attention to the misunderstandings in Western reports because people with different ideologies and axiologies will naturally invest different value judgements on their opinions.To some extent,this research can explain the historical evolution of China’s international influence and the construction of China’s international discourse,and has academic significance for the improvement of China’s "soft power" and the spread of Chinese culture in the future.Taking the first emergence of Chinese astronaut(s)and "taikonaut(s)" into consideration,we may hypothesize three time spans of the representation and reception of Chinese aerospace industry in Western media:1)The 1st span is during year 1959 and 1999,when Chinese astronaut(s)had been adopted more or less by Western media;2)The 2nd span is during year 1999 and 2020,when "taikonaut(s)" had been gradually increasing and continuously competing with Chinese astronaut(s)in Western reports;3)The 3rd span is from year 2021,when "taikonaut(s)" has been occupying the Western reporting as the main representation of Chinese aerospace industry instead of equal reception as Chinese astronaut(s).The research findings suggest a number of starting points for further research:1)A larger corpus including Western media reports earlier than 1959 can be utilized for a more complete diachronic analysis to confirm the three-time-span hypothesis by this study;2)In addition to "taikonaut(s)" as a symbolic term for China aerospace industry,other iconic vocabularies from China’s advantageous fields worth investigating.