A Study On The News Discourse On Meng Wanzhou Case In U.S.Mainstream Media:the Perspective Of Proximization Theory

Proximization is an important concept in Critical Discourse Analysis and Critical Cognitive Linguistics.In order to achieve the purpose of coercive persuasion and legitimize one’s behavior,discourse makers perceive participants or situations of an event as “threats” to themselves in three dimensions: spatial proximization,temporal proximization,and axiological proximization.This thesis takes the news reports related to the Meng Wanzhou Case as the research object,and analyzes a self-built news corpus from the perspective of Proximization Theory.In this way,the study summarizes the proximization strategies used in U.S.mainstream media’s China-related reports to distort the facts and legitimize the U.S.side’s bullying behavior and the effects they produce.The study finds that the news reports of the two mainstream U.S.media news sites,CNN and FOX NEWS,both view China and Chinese technology companies led by Huawei as potential threats and challenges at different stages of the Meng Wanzhou Case,but the degree of proximization differs at each stage.First,in the three different stages of the event,the U.S.mainstream news sites used proximization strategies in three dimensions: spatial,temporal and axiological,with spatial proximization used most frequently,followed by temporal proximization,and finally axiological proximization,in their coverage.Second,from a cross-sectional comparison of the three phases,the frequency of using various proximization strategies was highest in the first phase,followed by the second phase,and the lowest in the third phase.This indicates that with the changing situation and factors such as differences in the U.S.political circles’ policies toward China,the U.S.mainstream media is no longer able to malign the image of China.From the perspective of Critical Cognitive Linguistics,the thesis studies the phenomenon of proximization in political hotspots and explores the hidden ideology behind the linguistic resources.This study not only expands the research scope of Proximization Theory and enriches the research objects of convergent theory,but also facilitates the media audience to understand the language selection tendency of the U.S.mainstream media in their news reports about China.All in all,this study provides a new research perspective and inspiration for the current field of critical discourse research.