Construction Of Government Images In Coal To Gas Conversion Discourse By People’s Daily

Coal to Gas Conversion is an energy policy of the central and local governments of China to eventually replace coal with natural gas through promotion of municipal projects.Since the proposal of Coal to Gas,it has obtained passionate attention and continuous media coverage from People’s Daily.In March,2013,the persistent smog weather caused by air pollution resulted in widespread concern of common people and government at all levels,it even became a hot issue discussed in the two sessions.Under such background,Chinese governments quickened their steps to implement and generalize Coal to Gas Conversion project.Based on the socialist attribute of China,as a domestic key and representative livelihood project,governments’ role in advancing the project is particularly important.Governments’ decisions and behaviors directly affect the progress and achievement of Coal to Gas Conversion project.This paper takes the news reports on Coal to Gas Conversion published from March 5th,2013 to March 5th,2018 as the study subject,discussing discursive construction of government images by People’s Daily in Coal to Gas Conversion discourse from the perspective of discourse analysis.Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework,corpus-based approach of discourse analysis and the linguistic analytical tool Ant Conc 3.4.3w are utilized to make specific analysis from three levels: text,discourse practice and social practice.First,at the text level,headlines,high-frequency words and keyword collocations are discussed to dig out the discourse characteristics of news reports on Coal to Gas Conversion.At the discourse practice level,typical discourse strategies and their function in construction of government images are investigated according to discourse characteristics.Finally,combining the consideration of social context,discursive construction of government images under the ideological and social context is explored.According to the research,a people-oriented,vigorous and practical government image also with strong economic strength and increasing maturity is constructed in Coal to Gas Conversion discourse by People’s Daily.In the specific process of discursive construction,positive attitudes are integrated into the discourse to present Coal to Gas Conversion project in a multifaceted way,which typifies the actual profit and outstanding contribution of Coal to Gas Conversion project in solving the problems including air pollution,energy,heating supply and so on to construct a positive government image.In terms of specific discourse strategies,over-lexicalization and intertextuality are the two discourse strategies mainly used in People’s Daily.Through excessive modification of verbs and extensive use of quotations,reporters of People’s Daily skillfully integrate their ideologies into Coal to Gas Conversion discourse,which consolidates the positive government image.Meanwhile,research on discursive construction of images can not be separated from analysis of social context,presentation and construction of government images in Coal to Gas Conversion discourse are the result of many factors.Positive construction of government images plays a critical role in continuously promoting implementation and generalization of Coal to Gas Conversion project.