Research On Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson’s Agenda Setting And Discursive Rhetoric

Lippmann said,"prejudice makes people tend to define something before understanding them."The enhancement of China’s comprehensive strength and the international influence have attracted more and more western media to pay attention to China,and listen to the voice of China.However,their interpretation of Chinese voice has been confined to their own stereotypes."Orientalism","China Threat Theory","Responsible Big Country",and so on,are bound to the western media coverage.Western media’s bias is not conducive to China’s peaceful rise,and they affect the Chinese international image,and further hinder China from "making friends" on the world stage,talking about cooperation,and playing its due role.Now,any country in the world cannot grow and develop in isolation,so,in order to let the world know China,to show the world the image of China,China should attach importance to international discourse communication.To create identity or to reach a consensus,or at least to win each others’recognition,is the purpose of China’s diplomacy.The spokesman of the Chinese Ministry of foreign affairs is the window of China’s foreign communication,and their transmission and interpretation of China’s domestic and foreign policies are related to the effective output of the national significance.However,how to tell Chinese stories and show Chinese wisdom is an important research topic.This paper is focused on persuasive strategies of the Foreign Ministry spokesman.Persuasion is a kind of utilitarian communication,and it is aimed at identity and consensus,which are also the goal of Chinese diplomacy.The main means of persuasion for Ministry Spokesman is discourse.At a regular press conference,the spokesman respond to a reporter’s question,which is a process of persuasion.The effect of persuasion is largely constrained by the speaker’s agenda setting and rhetoric competence.In the second chapter,this paper discusses the concept of persuasion and persuasion theory,after that,in chapter three,this paper studies the agenda setting effect of Fore:ign Ministry spokesman in 2011-2015.We will compare the relevance between the two sets of context,that is the spokesperson’s response and western media’s quotation including "New York Times","the Wall Street journal" and "USA Today".It is found that China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson can set the agenda for the foreign media,but cannot affect their reporting attitude.In other words,what the spokesperson are concerned is also concerned by the western media,however,the spokesperson’s attitude and position are often ignored or misinterpreted by the western media.As mentioned earlier,prejudice is the main reason for the distortion of Western media reports.In this context,the Chinese spokesperson must combine the strength of the government,the media,and the public together to create a strong issue,to create a favorable international public opinion.At present,the main problem of the agenda setting is the lack of cooperation and coordination of multiple subjects.After analyzing the shortcomings of the agenda setting,the fourth chapter focuses on the speaker’s rhetoric.Fuzzy rhetoric,euphemism and rhetorical question are commonly used by our spokesperson.They use them to maintain each other’s face and express the spokesperson’s emotion.However,these rhetorical skills focuses on the individual words and sentences,without grasping the function of language’s logical argument and emotional mobilization on the whole,which leads to a deficient persuasive discourse.In the fifth chapter,according to the analysis of the previous chapters,the paper puts forward some suggestions for the improvement of agenda setting and rhetoric.Persuasion demands the spokesperson to take the initiative to set the agenda,and to combine the voice of the public,the media and the government to jointly build the agenda,thus taking the initiative in timeliness,overwhelming people in the momentum.Rhetoric is also a kind of persuasion.It uses the probability of things?resorting to the rational argument,emotional mobilization and personality prestige.The two aspects of emotion and reason are means for persuasion.Aristotle’s persuasive methods have made great progress in the new era.Eemeren’s study of pragmatic argument provides the path and testing methods for effective debate,and this thesis analyses Hong Lei’s discourse to make further study on the pragmatic argumentation strategies.In addition,narration and metaphor is an effective way to stimulate the common feelings of human beings.To tell good Chinese stories,we should focus on the details of the story,and trigger emotional resonance,which are reflected in the spokesman’s words,but there are still deficiencies.The speaker’s own moral character and role playing is another source of persuasion.The spokesman should make full use of their own words to narrow the distance with the listener,and use the general understanding of the language to show the personal sincerity,and at last to achieve effective communication.