A Cultural Discourse Study On News Reports Of “China-US Trade Friction”in Chinese And American Mainstream Newspapers

In March 2018,US President Trump signed Section 301 investigation presidential memorandum,announcing his intention to impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese products,which opened the prelude to China-US trade friction.After nearly two years of negotiations and 13 rounds of high-level economic and trade consultations,China and the United States signed the phase-one economic and trade deal in January 2020.Due to the huge scale and far-reaching impact of this economic and trade dispute,scholars at home and abroad have studied the China-US trade friction from perspectives such as politics,economy,and law,while the researches at language level are relatively lacking.Moreover,the current studies at language level are conducted from the perspectives of journalism,metaphor,and critical discourse analysis.Therefore,this thesis conducts a dynamic and holistic study of the news reports of Chinese and American mainstream newspapers on China-US trade friction by adopting the theoretical framework of Cultural Discourse Studies(CDS).This study collects news reports on China-US trade friction from Chinese and American mainstream newspapers China Daily and The New York Times from March 2018 to January 2020 according to the key time nodes of China-US trade friction.This thesis considers the China-US trade friction as a discourse event,using corpus technology(keyword,concordance,collocates,cluster)and the framework of CDS to conduct a comparative analysis of Chinese and American news reports in terms of subjects,intents/forms and purposes/effects.Then it reveals the cultural and historical reasons why the two media construct China-US trade friction discourses differently.Through a comparative analysis of the Chinese and American news reports on China-US trade friction,it is found that the main discourse subjects of Chinese and American news coverage include Chinese and the US governments,research institutes and non-governmental organizations.However,in The New York Times,Trump appears significantly more frequently than other subjects,reflecting the high relativity between Trump and China-US trade friction.In terms of intents/forms,both Chinese and American newspapers focus on topics such as tariffs,economic impact,Huawei,and trade talks.The difference is that China Daily also emphasizes cooperation and bilateral relations,while The New York Times is more concerned about the outcomes of negotiations and the trade deal.However,the language and tone used by Chinese and American newspapers in presenting these topics vary widely.China Daily portrays the trade friction as a negative event that is not good for anyone by describing the economic damages caused by the trade war to China,the United States and even the world.China Daily also describes China’s desire for cooperation and bilateral relations to shape a peace-loving and responsible image of China which advocates common development with other countries.However,The New York Times tends to discredit China,describing China as the faulty side of the trade friction and the biggest enemy of the United States,shaping a negative image for China.The above shows the differences of China Daily and The New York Times news reports in the aspect of purposes/effects.The differences between Chinese and American news reports on China-US trade friction are influenced by the different cultures of the two sides.The thoughts of “harmony is precious”,“harmony but different”,and “people-oriented thought” from Confucianism have profoundly affected China’s modern foreign policy,that is,peaceful coexistence and common development.However,the “individualism” and “gifted mission concept” in American culture make the US eager to be a world leader and maintain American hegemony.In addition,the historical relations between the two countries have also caused the different coverage of China-US trade friction.On the one hand,the invaded encounters in Chinese modern history have made China value peace more.On the other hand,the rapid rise of China in the new century has made the United States regard China as the biggest threat to its own development.This study further validates the feasibility of using CDS to interpret news reports.Moreover,it provides a new interpretation angle for China-US trade friction and reveals that the essence of China-US trade friction lies in the differences between the cultures and values of the two countries,enriching current researches on China-US trade friction.