A Cultural Discourse Study On Reports Of Canton Fair’s Foreign Publicity

The China Import and Export Fair,also known as Canton Fair,is held in Guangzhou every spring and autumn.Canton Fair is the window,epitome and symbol of China’s opening to the world,and an important platform for international trade cooperation.In 2020,the COVID-19 swept the world,and the economy was hit severely.In order to actively cope with the impact of the pandemic,stabilize the basic plate of foreign trade and foreign investment,stabilize the supply chain of the global industrial chain,the State Council decided to hold the127 th Canton Fair online.In response to the cultural reflection on academia and the trend of multicultural development,Chinese scholar Shi Xu proposed “Cultural Discourse Studies”(CDS in abbreviation)as a paradigm of discourse research with local roots and global perspective.CDS has its own unique insights in terms of theory,methodology,and problem framing.As the barometer and weather vane of China’s foreign trade,Canton Fair has been attracting many scholars to carry out research in various aspects.Among them,the studies from the perspective of language mainly focused on translation and foreign language professional practice teaching,but the studies on the discourse analysis of English media reports of Canton Fair are very rare,and the studies from the perspective of CDS are even rarer.This study adopts the theory of CDS and builds a corpus based on China Daily’s coverage of the 127th-131 st online Canton Fair,and conducts research in the aspects of discourse subjects,discourse content/forms,and cultural relations.The research questions are as follows:(1)What are the discourse subjects in China Daily’s coverage of online Canton Fair from2020 to 2022.And what characteristics do they have?(2)What have been covered and how are they covered in China Daily’ s reports on online Canton Fair from 2020 to 2022?(3)What kinds of Canton Fair culture are reflected in the news?It is found that there are five major categories of discourse subjects in the reports,among which those who speak on behalf of the government(Canton Fair organizations and members,government departments and members)have the largest proportion,and the discourse subjects present the characteristic of authority.In terms of discourse content,the five major categories of discourse subjects provide readers with information from different aspects,presenting comprehensive and positive information about Canton Fair.In terms of discourse forms,the reports use direct discourse,indirect discourse and slipping indirect discourse to relay the information conveyed by the subjects of discourse,among which the proportion of indirect discourse is the largest.In terms of cultural relations,Canton Fair held exhibitions online during the pandemic,and strengthened cooperation with countries along the Belt and Road and countries of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in the international arena for mutual benefit and win-win cooperation.In the domestic arena,the fair helped enterprises in poor areas to go out,which shows the traditional Chinese culture of“harmony”.In addition,the official and authoritative nature of the subjects of the discourse,and the detailed listing of figure titles in the reports also reflect the Chinese psychology of authority worship.This thesis enriches the study of Canton Fair from the perspective of linguistics,and studies Canton Fair from the perspective of CDS proposed by Chinese scholars.This thesis explores the international communication practice of Canton Fair in view of linguistics and summarizes the characteristics of news discourse on Canton Fair,which is enlightening to news communication of Canton Fair in the future.