A Study On The Construction Of National Image By Metadiscourse In Chinese Diplomatic Speeches From A Metapragmatic Perspective

Metadiscourse,as an important linguistic resource in the communication,has been widely used in different types of institutional discourse.Diplomatic discourse in diplomatic activities,including the use of metadiscourse in it,has received attention from researchers due to the specificity of its context.However,most of the existing studies focus on the characteristics of the use of metadiscourse in diplomatic discourse and the moderation of diplomatic strategies.Few existing studies have connected metadiscourse with the construction of national image.National image is a part of national soft power,and a positive national image reflects a country’s international influence and recognition in the whole world.China has always paid great attention to the construction of national image in all kinds of diplomatic occasions.The regular press conference of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is a regular diplomatic event held every working day in China.As a representative of China and the Chinese people,the spokesperson of MFA conveys China’s position and views on international events and diplomatic affairs to the international community by answering journalists’ questions,and also builds up China’s national images.Therefore,this thesis selects the transcribed text of the Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s response at the press conference as a corpus,adopts a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,follows Chen Xinren’s(2020a)metadiscourse research framework,and tries to explore the following two research questions from a metapragmatic perspective:(1)What are the major types of metadiscourse used in diplomatic discourse and how about the frequency of them?(2)What kind of national images are constructed by diplomatic spokespersons using metadiscourse?The findings are as follow:(1)Metadiscourse in diplomatic speech are mainly the following three types: information oriented metadiscourse,speaker oriented metadiscourse,and relation oriented metadiscourse.All the three types of metadiscourse have been widely used in the corpus.Information oriented metadiscourseis is the most frequently used,followed by speaker oriented metadiscourse,while relation oriented metadiscourse are relatively less frequently used.(2)By using the above metadiscourses individually or in combination,spokespersons construct three positive national images of China,namely,the staunch defender of national sovereignty and independence,an active participant in global governance and international affairs and a faithful practitioner of an independent foreign policy of peace.(3)Adopting a metapragmatic perspective,the motives of spokespersons’ use of metadiscourse to construct national images are explored.This study finds that the use of metadiscourse reflects the spokespersons’ metapragmatic awareness of emphasizing the diplomatic policies of China,showing the attitudes and intentions of China,and managing China’s relations with other countries.In the theoretical aspect,this study expands the research on diplomatic discourse and also provides an idea for the pragmatics study of image construction.On the practical side,this study contributes to the understanding of Chinese diplomatic discourse,and has implications for the construction and development of China’s diplomatic discourse system and the enhancement of international discourse.