A Research On The Discourse Strategy Of Blame Avoidance In The White House Press Conferences On COVID-19

The novel coronavirus pneumonia(COVID-19)that broke out at the end of December 2019 was defined by the World Health Organization as a global public health crisis.Systemic failures and inaction by the U.S.government in responding to the pandemic have exacerbated the crisis.This research mainly focuses on the White House COVID-19 press briefings,taking Fairclough’s Three-dimensional Model as the theoretical basis,Professor Xin Bin’s classification of blame avoidance strategy as the framework,UAM Corpus Tool 3 and Ant Conc 3.5.9 as research tools,a combination of quantitative and qualitative as research method.The analysis is conducted from the three dimensions,which are description,interpretation,and explanation.The research findings are as follows: in terms of the frequency of blame avoidance strategies,in order to avoid blame by shaping public perceptions,the spokespersons tend to adopt more presentation strategies,especially “win the argument” strategy.Government organizations will try to avoid doing things that may invite blame,therefore,policy strategy is also widely used,mainly including “the herding approach”,“find a scapegoat”,and “throw good money after bad” strategies.Agency strategy focuses on the perception of motives and is difficult to effectively convey information,so the frequency of agency strategy is the lowest.Therefore,this thesis will mainly focus on presentation strategy and policy strategy.At the description stage,in presentation strategy,personal pronouns,verbs,and adjectives have the highest proportion.The use of first-person pronouns can establish affinity in political speeches,the verbs imply a strong subjective color of the speaker,and the positive adjectives can infect the public’s emotions,creating hope and confidence in the fight against the epidemic.However,in the policy strategy,the use of nouns such as “China” and “Chinese” scapegoats China for the COVID-19 epidemic.In the transitivity analysis,both strategies apply material processes followed by relational and mental processes.The presentation strategy emphasizes various positive actions to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid responsibility,while the policy strategy emphasizes covering up responsibility by blaming China and implementing a series of economic policies.In terms of modal verbs,both strategies tend to use median modal verbs,but the different uses of modal verbs demonstrate different attitudes and intentions.At the interpretation stage,the proportion of specific sources of information is the highest,with the majority of the discourse coming directly from the spokespersons themselves,with the purpose of increasing the credibility of the speakers’ claims.In terms of discourse modes,the frequency of direct speeches is the highest.In the blame avoidance strategy,the use of direct speeches can effectively shift responsibility and enhance the authenticity of the content.At the explanation stage,the application of presentation strategy to depict government actions depends on the political system it represents in the West.Americans take pride in their political system so that the spokespersons tend to use presentation strategies,especially “win the argument” strategy,to demonstrate their superiority.American culture values individualism,self-reliance,and confident decision-making.At the same time,policy strategies are also influenced by factors such as public opinion and politics.In brief,this research attempts to analyze blame avoidance strategy in White House COVID-19 press conferences through critical discourse analysis.It is hoped that this will help the public to have a more comprehensive understanding of the true reasons behind the various blame avoidance strategies adopted by the United States,and provide a reference for related research on blame avoidance strategy.