Discourse Construction Of National Identity Based On Appraisal Theory

In recent years,China has a rapid development in economy and attracts attention from the world.Projects like Belt and Road and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank(AIIB hence forward)demonstrate China’s power.At the same time,the "Going Global" strategy,telling Chinese stories as well as the construction of China’s international discourse system connect linguistics and international relations closely.To set up AIIB is an important step for China in the economic area,and the discourse analysis of public speeches of its president is a core part in the identity construct of AIIB and China.Compared with AIIB,World Bank was set up after the World War II with a long history.It represents the U.S.and its president is an American as a tradition.Therefore,it is an essential way to discuss identity construction of these two nations through the comparison of the two institutions’ presidents’ public speeches.This research takes the public speeches of AIIB and World Bank as examples,which come from their official websites.There are five public speeches of World Bank and four of AIIB,and all the nine public speeches are selected from 2014 to 2016,since the first public speech appeared in AIIB is in 2014.This research analyzes the attitudinal resources of the two banks in light of the appraisal theory and it tries to find out the answers for the following three questions:1.What are the different attitudinal resources between the two institutions?2.What are the identities these two institutions construct during the attitude expression process?3.What are the underlying reasons for the differences?The present study focuses on the distribution of attitudinal resources from the perspective of attitude system and follows Fairclough’s three-dimensional modal of discourse analysis,which includes the following three steps.First,description.The author describes the sub-system of affect,judgement and appreciation as well as the different attitudes including positive and negative,inscribed and invoked ones from the public speeches of AIIB and World Bank.Second,interpretation.Through analyzing the appraiser and appraised in attitude system and the distribution of inscribed and invoked attitude,the author interprets how the discourse construct identity from two aspects.1.In the aspect of attitudinal resources,AIIB employs more positive attitude to its own identity and the support of China,while World Bank balances its distribution of attitudinal resources in affirming the achievements and defects of other institutions and countries.2.In the aspect of identity construction,both AIIB and World Bank construct the identity of investor,leader,cooperator and supporter,while they emphasize on different aspects in this kind of construction.Third,explanation.The author explains the causation leading to the differences of identity construction.Apart from the practical reason that AIIB is in its setting up stage,the reasons for different discourse systems and identity differences relate to the different political-economy systems and cultural backgrounds.Mutual benefit and harmonious development are the essential goals in traditional Chinese culture,it has a great impact on Chinese diplomatic policies.Meanwhile,U.S.prefers the rational and critical thinking mode and analyzes the phenomena with comprehensive view,which influence their attitude expressions.It is hoped that this research can provide a theoretical modal to other related studies,mainly on discourse analysis and identity construction.