A Critical Cognitive Discourse Analysis Of China-Related Reports On The COVID-19 Situation In The New York Times

In December of 2019,the novel coronavirus pneumonia(known as COVID-19)broke out in Wuhan.The public health emergency has received wide coverage at home and abroad.The New York Times,as one of the American mainstream media,occupies a dominant place in the field of international public opinion and has a great influence on the construction and dissemination of crisis events.However,in its reports on China’s COVID-19 situation,there are cases of distorting the facts and denigrating China.Against this backdrop,the current study selects reports on China’s COVID-19 situation in The New York Times from January 23rd to March 31st,2020,and builds a small corpus.Under the framework of Critical Cognitive Linguistics,this study aims to reveal how the American mainstream media stigmatizes China and realizes the purpose of legitimizing its own discourse through discursive strategies.The main findings of this study are as follows.First,the coverage of the COVID-19 epidemic in The New York Times uses the metaphorical "war" frame and the non-metaphorical "llegitimacy" frame to form the specific cognitive mechanism.The "war"metaphor constructs the image of "defeated combatant" of China,while the non-metaphorical "illegitimacy" frame directly points out that the Chinese government ignores human rights in the anti-epidemic campaign.The frames macroscopically activate the audience’s directional understanding of the coercive purpose.Second,in terms of macro discursive strategies,the discourse producer positions the novel coronavirus and the Chinese government as the negative entities on the periphery of Discourse Space.The people are positioned as the positive entities in the center of Discourse Space.And the spatial,temporal,and axiological proximization strategies show the dynamic cognitive process of crisis and threat encroaching on the deictic center of Discourse Space.Third,in terms of micro discursive strategies,nomination and perspectivation strategies are adopted to construct "US”and "THEM".On the whole,The New York Times shows negative attitudes to China and the Chinese government.In particular,it has shaped the negative "Other" image of the Chinese government.This study shows the discursive strategies adopted by the U.S.media to stigmatizes China and delegitimize China’s anti-epidemic actions,which also reveal the ideological expressions,implicit power relations and prejudices behind the discourse.This study’s innovation lies in the following aspects:First,from the perspective of Critical Cognitive Linguistics,this study constructs a multi-level and multi-angle framework of analyzing discursive legitimation strategy and highlights the role of cognitive mechanism in discourse system.Second,this study reveals how the American mainstream media distorts the facts of COVID-19,manipulates the audience’s emotions and attitudes,and delegitimizes China’s anti-epidemic actions.It may help the audience to identify the commonly used discursive strategies in China-related reports of Western media,distinguish facts from lies,and further form an objective understanding of China’s anti-epidemic actions.