A Discourse Analysis Of Quarantine In Chinese And British Mainstream Newspapers ——Taking China Daily And The Times As Examples

The sudden outbreak of the novel coronavirus has caused serious impact around the world.In order to curb the spread of the virus,countries have taken corresponding measures.Based on Faircloug’s “three-dimensional framework” and with the help of corpus analysis software,this study is going to conduct a critical discourse analysis on quarantine-related reports of China Daily and The Times in 2020 from three aspects of text description,discourse practice and social practice,trying to solve the three research questions: 1.What are the discursive constructions of quarantine by China Daily and The Times? 2.What changes have taken place in discourses around quarantine in China Daily and The Times in 2020? 3.What are the reasons for the discursive constructions of the two newspapers?It was found that the discursive constructions of quarantine in China Daily and The Times were quite different,and the constructions have changed with the development of the epidemic in China and the UK.China Daily constructed quarantine as an obligation that citizens must perform,an important means for restoring social and economic development,and a policy for epidemic prevention and control.Quarantine constructed by The Times was a wrong measure at the beginning,which infringed on citizens’ personal freedom and hindered economic development.With the development of the epidemic,the attitude of the British government gradually turned positive and quarantine was constructed as a necessary policy.But British citizens still held a negative attitude towards quarantine,considering it has hindered their personal freedom and was an unnecessary measure.On the different discursive constructions,this study analyzes the reasons from three aspects: cultural differences,social economy and interest relations.The traditional Chinese cultural awareness of collectivism,stable social economy and reasonable economic recovery policies,coupled with the objective reports of China’s mainstream media and its influence on public attitudes,have stimulated the enthusiasm of the public in fighting against the epidemic.In comparison,the cultural background of Western individualism,the instability of the British domestic economy and the commodity economic characteristics of the British newspaper industry,which is independent from the government,explain to some extent the incompleteness of the British epidemic prevention measures and the conflicts between British government and the public.Taking the discursive construction of quarantine by Chinese and British mainstream media as an example,this study tries to explore the deep reasons behind the discursive construction,and provides some reference for China to tell its own story and convey its own values.