A Comparative Study Of China’s National Image Construction In Chinese And American Media From The Perspective Of Critical Metaphor Analysis

The national image is a mirror image of the politics,economy,science,technology,military,sports,and culture of a particular country in the international society and the hearts of the people,and is formed by the combined effect of self-construction and otherconstruction.Since the occurrence of China-US trade conflict,it has attracted widespread attention from the international community,and relevant news reports have emerged one after another.As a media discourse,news reports on the “China-US Trade Conflict” are an important channel and discourse for the world media to construct and spread China’s national image.As a powerful discourse strategy,metaphor is widely used in news reports,which is an effective means for authors to convey attitudes,express positions and construct images.From the perspective of critical metaphor analysis,metaphor is a conscious choice of discourse.Through the study of metaphors,it is possible to obtain the discourse choices,attitudes and intentions of the Chinese and American media when reporting China-US trade conflict,understand the use of metaphors and the image of China constructed by them,and deepen the understanding of the implicit ideology in news reports.This research selects 80 “China-US Trade Conflict” news reports from New York Times and China Daily as corpus,on the basis of Critical Metaphor Analysis,and comparatively analyzes the metaphors used by media in China and the United States and China’s national images constructed through these metaphors.The research results show that Chinese and American news reports represent the “China-US trade conflict” and construct China’s national image mainly through war metaphor,journey metaphor and disease metaphor.The national image constructed by the Chinese media is “a guide who leads Sino-US relation towards mutually beneficial development”,“a guardian who safeguards the interests of the nation and its people” and “a promoter who facilitates the settlement of trade disputes”.While in the American media,China is portrayed as “an attacker who infringes on the national interests of America”,“an obstructer who hinders the resolution of China-US trade conflict” and “an egoist who only considers his own interests”.In addition,the Chinese and American media have both commonalities and differences in the selection and use of metaphors to construct China’s national image.The similarities can be attributed to the common experiential basis of human beings,but the differences are mainly caused by different political systems and positions,cultural values,and historical background.This study can enrich the applied research of critical metaphor analysis,and provide new ideas for the study of the discourse construction of national image.In addition,this research can also help raise the journalists’ awareness of using discourse to construct a positive China’s national image,so as to improve China’s influence on the international stage.