Comparative Studies Of The Construction Of National Identity In China's And U.S. Defense White Papers And Relevant Social Cultural Values

Language is not neural but as an ideological representation. This feature of language has drawn close attention from the western sociologists since the 1960s. The dialectical relationship between language, ideology and power, especially ideology embedded in media discourse has been a central topic of critical linguistics.Based upon the analytical tools and Fairclough's three-dimensional model, the present study is intended to make a critical comparative analysis of China's and U.S. national white papers, with a view to digging out what national identities both countries seek to construct in their defense white papers by using different language properties and what are the social and cultural reasons can be attributed to the different national identities they are constructing.Both qualitative and quantitative methods are adopted for the present study. China's National Defense in 2006 and 2005 U.S. Annual Defense Report are chosen as two major research materials. Previous white papers on national defense as well as speeches made by top leaders of both countries in public are also selected as supplementary research materials. After a comparative analysis of two texts following the analytical tools in critical discourse analysis and Fairclough's three-dimensional model, research findings are that: 1. China seeks to portray itself as a peace-loving and development-promoting country which cherishes cooperation, while U.S. is constructing a superior, endangered and mission-endowed national identity; 2. there are some social cultural factors that can account for the different identities they are producing.As critical linguists have done extensive researches on media discourse, political speech and parliamentary debates and there is little work on the critical discourse analysis of government white papers, the present study represents an effort to fill that gap.