China’s National Image Shown In Chinese And American Mainstream Media Coverage Of Vaccine Assistance

Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance to foreign countries has received extensive attention from domestic and foreign media,but there are not many studies on how domestic and foreign media construct the images of Chinese vaccine assistance to foreign countries.Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional discourse framework and systemic functional grammar,this study creates two small corpora of Chinese and American mainstream media,uses the corpus tools UAM Annotation tool and Ant Conc to compare and analyze selected English-language reports on Chinese vaccine assistance in Chinese and American mainstream media to investigate the construction of images of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance.This dissertation aims to address the following three questions:(1)How do Chinese and American news reports construct images of Chinese COVID-19 Vaccine assistance through similarities and differences in lexical classification,modality,transitivity and intertextuality?(2)What kind of image of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance is constructed by the related mainstream media in China and the US respectively?(3)What are the underlying ideologies reflected in related Chinese and American news reports?The study finds that,firstly,the similarities in language usages between the Chinese and American mainstream media reports are: the high-frequency words and keywords in the reports focus more on the purpose and meaning of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance;the transitivity processes are mainly material processes,followed by verbal and relational processes;and the modal words are mainly medium-value modal words that show objectivity.The differences are as follows: Chinese mainstream media tend to use positive words and constructive process sentences to describe the acts of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance,and use high and low value modal verbs to emphasize Chinese commitment and responsibility in helping other countries to fight the epidemic,while American mainstream media tend to use negative words and destructive process sentences to describe the acts of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance,and use high and low value modal verbs to negate Chinese vaccine assistance image.Similarities in terms of intertextuality are that both Chinese and American mainstream media enhance the objectivity of their reporting by using indirect and direct discourses from specific sources.The differences are that Chinese mainstream media usually use direct and indirect discourses with specific sources,while US mainstream media usually use semi-specific news sources and indirect discourse.Secondly,the Chinese mainstream media portrays a positive and responsible image of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine assistance,while the US mainstream media portrays a negative image of the limited efficacy of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine and the ulterior motives of Chinese vaccine assistance.Lastly,the reports also reflect contrasting ideologies,with China being a collectivist and working with the world to combat the impact of the epidemic and promote the common development of the world,while the US is an individualist and sees China as a competitor and sees the vaccine assistance as an opportunity to undermine China and strengthen its position.In addition,in order to better deliver China’s voice,this study also makes suggestions on how to strengthen China’s international assistance discourse.This study enriches the scope of research on critical discourse analysis and can help to enhance the influence of Chinese international assistance.It also helps to raise news readers’ awareness of critical reading,helping them to better understand the underlying ideology in the reports when reading relevant news,and to view the reports more objectively and rationally.