National Image Construction From The Perspective Of Attitude Resources

Under the context of globalization,national “soft power” has been the key of international competition.As an essential component of national “soft power”,the national image is a crucial evaluative indicator of the country’s international competitive strength.A good national image helps the country to engage in international exchanges externally and promote harmonious development internally.Now,it is particularly significant for China to enhance the national image.As an effective channel to transmit information,the Energy White Paper can purposefully construct the national image through the corresponding discursive strategies in energy discourses.At present,studies on the Energy White Paper mainly focus on policy and discourse power of energy,with the value position and attitude of the subjects on energy issues ignored,and mostly adopt the method of critical discourse analysis,ignoring the important role of positive discourse analysis in conveying positive discourse meanings and constructing national images.Based on attitude system in Appraisal Theory and through the positive discourse analysis of the English version of the third Chinese Energy White Paper “Energy in China’s New Era”(hereinafter referred to as Chinese Energy White Paper)in the website of State Council Information Office,PRC with the help of Ant Conc 3.4.4 and UAM Corpus Tool 3.3,the present thesis explores the meaning conveyed and the ideology behind attitude resources,so as to further summarize the discursive strategies adopted by Chinese Energy White Paper in the process of China’s image construction.This thesis aims to deal with the three questions:(1)What are thematic characteristics of Chinese Energy White Paper?(2)What kind of national images does Chinese Energy White Paper show to the world with the help of attitude resources?(3)What discursive strategies does Chinese Energy White Paper utilize in the construction of a favorable Chinese national image?Around the research questions,this study secures the following findings through quantitative and qualitative analysis of Chinese Energy White Paper:(1)The keywords and high-frequency collocations in the text highlight the positive theme of China’s energy discourse that China’s energy development and international cooperation go hand in hand,which reflects China’s attitude and determination to develop high-quality energy in the new era.For one thing,China is resolute in its attitude towards adhering to the road of high-quality energy development;for another,China is a champion of win-win cooperation and works to put the principle into action.China,as a quick-rising developing country,in the face of increasingly serious global challenges such as the depletion of energy resources,energy-induced environmental damage and climate change,always holds high the banner of peace,cooperation,development,and sticks to a development path that is peaceful,open,cooperative and inclusive.China is committed to integrating its own energy development closely with the world energy development,and Chinese people’s interests with all mankind’s.(2)The Chinese government is good at employing various attitude resources to construct positive national images in Chinese Energy White Paper.In terms of attitude-polarity,the proportion of positive words in the text is much higher than negative ones,with positive words appearing in 2,274 compared to 119 negative counterparts.The high frequency of positive words shows that China is taking a positive approach to the energy issue in the new time and that it has a positive attitude towards its own and global energy development.In terms of attitude-type,there are2393 attitude resources in Chinese Energy White Paper,and the distribution of attitude system is not balanced.Among them,the frequency of judgement resources is the top,accounting for 47.01%,followed by appreciation resources,with the proportion of 42.37%.And the affect resources are the lowest,only 10.62%,because affect is generally an intuitive expression of the subjective attitudes of the speaker/writer,lacking objectivity to some extent.As a political document issued by the government,the White Paper represents the will of a country,and its wording are rigorous and authoritative.In Chinese Energy White Paper,the judgment resources are adopted to build the national image of China as “open and cooperative,pragmatic and responsible”.The appreciation resources are employed to build the national image as “green development for the benefits of mankind”.The affect resources are used to build the national image as “inclusive and confident,harmonious and win-win”.(3)Based on the analysis of specific linguistic forms of the various attitude resources,it is found that Chinese Energy White Paper mainly adopts three discursive strategies for constructing a favorable national image,that is,nomination,predication and perspectivization.In short,with the joint efforts of various attitude resources and discursive strategies,Chinese Energy White Paper conveys positive discourse meanings of China’s stance and attitude towards energy development and realizes the active construction of China’s national image.The present study not merely extends the Appraisal Theory to the research on White Papers in a sense,but also opens up a new linguistic perspective for the study of national image construction.Moreover,it may serve as some inspiration for the writing of various white papers.