A Comparative Study Of Discursive Strategies In Chinese And American Government Work Reports Concerning The Topic Of Economy Based On Discourse-Historical Approach

Both Report on the Work of the Government of China(RWG)and the State of the Union Address of America(SUA)are important government documents,which are delivered by Chinese Premier and American President respectively with the aim to elaborate political policies of the government.The release of these two documents both has great influence internationally and has also received extensive attention from researchers in different academic fields.In the field of linguistics,the relevant researches are mainly conducted from the perspective of Positive Discourse Analysis,Critical Discourse Analysis,cognitive linguistics and pragmatics.However,the researches from the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis mainly focus on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model and Systemic Functional Grammar.No scholar has made a comparative study of Chinese and American government work reports based on Discourse-Historical Approach.This thesis intends to make a comparative study of the discursive strategies employed in the English version of RWG and SUA concerning the topic of economy based on Discourse-Historical Approach(DHA).The present study takes discourses on the topic of economy in the English version of RWG and SUA from 2014 to 2018 as research materials.It applies the strategies of predication,argumentation,perspectivization and intensification in Discourse-Historical Approach to make a comparative analysis of the discursive strategies employed in the above-mentioned discourses with a combination of quantitative and qualitative approach.This research intends to realize two research objectives: The first one is to find out the similarities and differences in the distribution of four discursive strategies in RWG and SUA concerning the topic of economy.The second one is to explore the similarities and differences in the linguistic realization of discursive strategies in RWG and SUA concerning the topic of economy.The major findings can be concluded as follows:(1)Among four types of discursive strategies employed in RWG and SUA concerning the topic of economy,the frequency of the strategy of predication is much higher than that of the other threediscursive strategies,and the frequency of the strategy of perspectivization is the lowest.In addition,in RWG concerning the topic of economy,the frequency of the strategy of intensification is higher than that of the strategy of argumentation,while in SUA concerning the topic of economy,the strategy of intensification has the same frequency as the strategy of argumentation.(2)By making a further comparative analysis of the employment of discursive strategies between Chinese and American government work reports concerning the topic of economy,it is found that there are some similarities and differences.First of all,in terms of the strategy of predication,both RWG and SUA employ modifiers with positive meanings to demonstrate the government’s positive attitude towards the development of the economy in the future and shape a responsible government image,such as the device of metaphor.However,RWG is likely to employ explicit predicates and adjectives,SUA tends to apply the comparative and superlative adjectives.Secondly,in terms of the strategy of argumentation,both RWG and SUA apply the topos of numbers to prove the description about the economic development of the country.As for the differences,in RWG,the strategy of argumentation is realized by the employment of the topos of finances,reality and responsibility.While in SUA,the strategy of argumentation is realized by the employment of the topos of advantages/usefulness,justice and danger/threat.Thirdly,in terms of the strategy of perspectivization,RWG employs such linguistic devices as comparison,the present perfect tense and the future perfect tense to demonstrate the government’s determination to take measures to develop the economy.However,SUA adopts the linguistic devices like indirect speech,conditional sentence and storytelling to present the economic pattern that the government wants to achieve.Fourthly,in terms of the strategy of intensification,both RWG and SUA employ the device of repetition to intensify the government’s viewpoints on the economy.As for the differences,RWG is likely to employ the devices like parallelism,passive voice,adverbs and prepositional phrases to emphasize the achievement of economic development in China.By contrast,the alternative question is applied in SUA to lay stress on the orientation of America’s economy.By analyzing the employment of discursive strategies in RWG and SUA concerning the topic of economy based on Discourse-Historical Approach,this thesis reveals the implied meanings embedded in Chinese and American government work reports and is helpful for the public to have a deep understanding of these two discourses.At the same time,this research may offer practical implications to EFL teaching and learning.