An Exploration Of Strategic.Maneuvering Of The Mnd Spokesman In National Defense Crisis Discourses

Within the theoretical framework of van Eemeren's strategic maneuvering,this thesis transcribes 100 pieces of question-answer interactions concerning the South China Sea dispute from Defense Ministry's regular press conference,and it aims to address the following three questions:(1)What are major characteristics of national defense crisis discourses?(2)What are question types of media reporters?(3)What are responsive strategies employed by the MND(Ministry of National Defense)spokesman?The major findings can be summarized as below:Firstly,major characteristics of national defense crisis discourses can be manifested as follows:formulaic feature of turn-taking;institutional nature of discourse contents;consciousness of discourse role;strategic feature of discursive interaction;purposiveness of discourse communication;asymmetry of discursive power.Secondly,question types of media reporters can be classified into three categories,namely,information-eliciting questions,stance and opinion-eliciting questions as well as confirmation-seeking questions.Thirdly,under the guidance of theoretical framework of van Eemeren's strategic maneuvering,the MND spokesman respectively adopts responsive strategies from three perspectives,namely,topical selection,audience demand and discursive presentation,to achieve his communicative purposes.(1)From the perspective of topical selection,the spokesman's responsive strategies consist of four aspects,that is,conversion of topics,negation of topic presupposition,expanding of questioning topic and narrowing questioning topic;(2)From the perspective of audience demand,the spokesman's responsive strategies can be divided into two parts:identification and subtle pressurizing,and identification strategies can be further classified into three types:identification by joint interests,identification by antithesis,identification at an unconscious level;(3)From the perspective of discursive presentation,the MND spokesman's responsive strategies can be fallen into two aspects:proactive response strategies and defensive response strategies.Proactive response strategies include eight parts:the strategy of being outspoken;direct refutation;combination of argument and counter-argument;reverse inference;refuting by counter-questioning;utilizing logic;responding ironically;being firm behind gentleness.Defensive response strategies include four parts:evading questions directly;using formulaic discourses;responding vaguely;transferring the response responsibility.The main innovation of this thesis lies in making a systematic study on national defense crisis discourse from the theoretical framework of strategic maneuvering on the one hand,and making a classification of responsive strategies of the spokesman from the perspective of topical selection,audience demand and discursive presentation strategies on the other.Additionally,this thesis not just provides a theoretical reference for government officials to get familiar with game rules and discourse styles of national defense diplomacy,but also offers much needed insight into further defense discourse studies or crisis discourse research,thus enabling government spokesman to be in an active and favorable position when striving for rights and interests.