National Identity Construction In China’s Poverty Alleviation Discourse

Eliminating poverty,improving people’s livelihood,and gradually achieving common prosperity are the essential requirements for socialism and an important mission of the Communist Party of China.Since the 18 th National Congress of CPC,poverty eradication has been deployed from the height of a national strategy,and 2020 marks a “complete victory” in China’s fight against poverty,with the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents living under the current poverty line lifted out of poverty.Poverty alleviation,as a kind of social practice,is inseparable from the dimension of discourse due to the dialectical relationship between discourse and society.On the one hand,poverty alleviation discourse is shaped by anti-poverty practice;and on the other hand,it has impact on society reality,such as constructing China’s national identity.In the contexts that the western media has long held the discourse power,some misinterpretations from the international community for China’s fight against poverty do harm to the national identity of China.Facing negative other-shaping,this paper aims to display authentic and objective national identity of China by self-shaping study.Within the framework of Wodak’s discourse-historical approach,this research adopts corpus method to explore the construction of China’s national identity by poverty alleviation discourse in China Daily Global.And it attempts to answer three questions:(1)What national identities are constructed in China’s poverty alleviation discourse?(2)How does poverty alleviation discourse construct China’s national identities?(3)In which social and historical contexts does poverty alleviation discourse construct China’s national identities?In line with three dimensions of DHA theory,the research is conducted from three aspects,namely,identification of discourse topics,analysis of discursive strategies and discussion of macro-contexts,which are respectively aimed to answer the above three questions.And the major findings include:(1)in the section of identifying discourse topics,the high-frequency words and the concordance of “poverty” mainly identify four discourse topics,namely,united efforts in poverty eradication,people-centered concept of poverty elimination,development-oriented measures for poverty relief and significant contributions to global poverty reduction.And through these discourse topics,it can be found that China is constructed by poverty alleviation discourse as a fighter for national poverty eradication,a protector of human rights,an implementer of sustainable development and a contributor to global poverty reduction;(2)in the section of analyzing discursive strategies,the multi-layered national identities of China are built by means of five types of discursive strategies,including nouns phrases and personal references in the referential strategy,explicit predicates and explicit comparisons in the predication strategy,topos of responsibility and topos of advantages or usefulness in the argumentation strategy,groups of news sources and modes of news sources in the perspectivization strategy,as well as degree adverbs and modal operators in the intensification strategy;(3)in the section of discussing macro-contexts,sociopolitical contexts at home and abroad along with long-standing historical and cultural contexts have great influence on China’s national identity construction by poverty alleviation discourse.The former concerns China’s system of the Party and the government,and UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals;the latter involves Chinese traditional philosophy “Tianxia Datong” and the “spiritual pedigree” of Chinese Communists.Suggestions for future poverty alleviation discourse are proposed from two aspects.For discourse topics,more international issues about anti-poverty should involve in the discourse,like taking the initiative to connect Chinese actions with global poverty governance and timely responding to clarify the doubts of the Western media to reduce stigmatization.For discursive strategies,comparisons of thoughts of rural residents before and after shaking off poverty should be emphasized in predication strategy to manifest their subjective initiative to pursue good life;and in perspectivization strategy,the proportion of narrations or comments from the perspectives of international sources,common folks and other walks of life should increase,while that of Party and government authorities should decline,so as to construct more comprehensive and credible national identity.