A Corpus-based Critical Discourse Analysis Of English News Reports On China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week

China-ASEAN Education Cooperation Week(CAECW)is a significant platform for fostering cultural and people-to-people exchanges between China and ASEAN.Since 2008,CAECW has been held for 15 sessions and has become the only government-to-government event that focuses on education among the various collaborations between the two sides.CAECW has received wide coverage in the press.With the increasing popularity of the CAECW,ASEAN countries’ media carry out the corresponding news report on CAECW.Therefore,it is worthwhile to investigate how CAECW is portrayed in English news reports of ASEAN countries and what their attitudes towards CAECW are.The current research on CAECW from the perspective of ASEAN countries is relatively insufficient.Most of the related research is qualitative in nature,which is more subjective.This thesis collected English news reports on CAECW in ASEAN countries from 2008 to 2022 from the Lexis Nexis Academic news database.After cleaning and coding the text,the Corpus of English News Reports on CAECW in ASEAN countries(CENRC)was built.Based on the integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis,this study will explore how CAECW is perceived by ASEAN countries.This study has to some extent made up for the lack of objectivity in existing research and enriched the research perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA).This thesis mainly employed Fairclough’s three-dimensional theory and combined with Corpus Linguistic methods to conduct a critical discourse analysis on English news reports on CAECW in ASEAN countries,aiming to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the linguistic features of ASEAN countries’ news report on CAECW?(2)What kind of attitude of ASEAN countries towards CAECW are revealed in the news report?(3)What factors exert influence on ASEAN countries’ attitudes towards CAECW from the perspective of political,economic,and cultural context?The findings of the research are as follows: First,at the description stage,by extracting high-frequency words,the study found that journalists prefer choosing positive words in news reports on CAECW.Besides,there are diversified topics in ASEAN news on CAECW,which not only focus on education,but also involves technology,culture,and others.From the perspective of transitivity,ASEAN countries news reports are apt to illustrate material process,verbal process,and mental process.In terms of modal verbs,ASEAN countries news reports tend to adopt median value modal verbs.To some extent,the analysis of description level elaborates that the implementation of CAECW has a positive impact on the educational development of ASEAN countries.Secondly,at the interpretation stage,clear news sources are used more frequently by journalists compared to semi-clear and unclear news sources.Among the specific news source,ASEAN news reports tend to cite the words uttered by officials,experts,and scholars,thus making the news discourse more authoritative and persuasive.In terms of reporting modes,ASEAN countries news reports mainly employ indirect discourse.As for reporting verbs,journalists tend to use neutral reporting verbs.Thirdly,at the explanation stage,China’s close cooperation with ASEAN in politics,economy,culture,and other areas has led to common development,which has in turn promoted ASEAN countries to adopt a positive attitude towards CAECW.Therefore,this thesis helps readers understand the attitude of ASEAN countries towards CAECW and the hidden reasons of the attitude.Additionally,this study enriches the research perspective of critical discourse analysis to some extent.