| Critical Cognitive Linguistics(CCL)is a new interdisciplinary research field of Cognitive Linguistics(CL)and Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA),and Proximization Theory(PT)is one of the influential theories in the field of CCL.It conducts discourse analysis from a new perspective of spatial,temporao and axiological dimensions,and focuses on the symbolic construal of relations between entities within discourse space.COVID-19 has been classified as a “Public health Emergency of International concern”by the WHO.Over the past two years,it has been widely reported by domestic and foreign media.Therefore,with PT as the theoretical guidance and Spatial-Temporal-Axiological,STA model as the analytical framework,the paper conducted quantitative and quantitative analysis of 36 news reports related to COVID-19 from two foreign mainstream media from January 2020 to June 2021 on the basis of stratified random sampling.With the help of the retrieval tool Ant Conc,the frequencies of spatial,temporal and axiological proximization were calculated,and the proximization characteristics of the two media were revealed respectively.Finally,by drawing a three-dimensional figures of discourse space,the paper made a visual comparative analysis of both media,summarized their similarilties and differences,and discussed how they adopt PT strategies to achieve the purpose of legitimizing their discourse.The analysis presentes the following results: Firstly,a large number of spatial proximization strategies are employed in both media,but there are differences in frequency of use.Both sides tend to use ODCs,indicating that they all emphasizes the power of “peripheral entities”.The frequency of verb phrases of action is much higher than that of verb phrases of motion,suggesting that the dangers of peripheral entities are well understood and there is a consensus on raising awareness of self-protection.However,verb phrases of action in corpus A are almost twice as often as those of corpus B,which shows that the former puts more emphasis on the influence of ODCs upon IDCs.In addition,both sides tend to adopt noun phrases identified as the influence of ODCs upon IDCs to emphasize the serious consequences of the pandemic.Secondly,in terms of the use of temporal proximization strategy,both sides use a large number of modal verbs.On the one hand,through the time shift of “past-present”,the situation in which the past threat and harm may recur was constructed.On the other hand,the time shift of “future-present” is adopted to predict the possible consequences caused by ODCs in the future,that is,the possibility of rapid spread and expansion of COVID-19,so as to prepare prevention strategies in advance.Thirdly,the use of noun phrases construed as IDC values in corpus A shows that they ran counter to the efforts and expectations of the international community to fight against the pandemic.In general,the characteristics and types of proximization strategy adopted by both sides are slightly different,but the overall difference is not significant.They both use the spatial proximization strategy to show that ODCs pose threats to the IDCs from multiple sides.Temporal proximization strategy is used to present the “past or future threat” to “ongoing threat”,creating a tense and urgent atmosphere.The adoption of axiological proximization strategy shows the opposing “Self-Other” value systems,which causes readers to attach great importance to the pandemic.This study involves public health discourse analysis,which,on the one hand,broadens and supplements the research scope and field of public health discourse analysis.On the other hand,the detailed and complete analysis of the study helps deepen readers’ understanding of PT and STA analytical model,and verifies the applicability of the PT to the analysis of public health discourse.What’s more,this study can also help readers form critical thinking and improve their ability to analyze and evaluate media discourse. |
PDF Full Text Request