A Corpus-based Contrastive Study On The Construction Of Technological Innovation In Chinese And Western Media Discourses

As a key factor for international competition,technological innovation has attracted the world’s attention.Since the 18 th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party,General Secretary Xi Jinping has placed technological innovation in the core position of national development,and talked about its importance in many speeches.There are many eye-catching achievements of technological innovation in the West,the center of modern technological innovation.No previous studies have explored technological innovation from the perspective of discourse analysis.Since media discourses contribute to an in-depth understanding of Chinese and Western cognitive attitudes toward technological innovation and their development focuses,this thesis makes a corpus-based contrastive analysis of the construction of technological innovation in Chinese and Western media discourses from the perspective of discourse analysis.It is a complement to existing studies.Based on the text segments related to technological innovation in the NOW Corpus and the BCC Corpus,this thesis contrasts the construction of technological innovation in Chinese and Western media discourses by combining corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis.The analytical section consists of two aspects: corpus-based textual analysis(micro-perspective)and social,historical,cultural and cognitive analysis(macro-perspective).For the former,based on the lexical model of Extended Units of Meaning,it contrasts the construction of technological innovation between Chinese and Western media discourses;based on keywords,it contrasts its construction among Western media discourses.For the latter,van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach is used to discuss the underlying reasons for the constructions.The findings of the thesis are summarized as follows:First,both the Chinese and the Western media highlight the importance of technological innovation and the determination to promote its development.However,the Chinese media emphasizes the position and role of technological innovation in all fields and pays more attention to the technological innovation in Third World countries,while the Western media is more concerned with their own advancements in technological innovation,and favors “competition”.These might be due to their differences in diplomatic policy,economic model,and development stages.Second,the key words show that both China and Australia are more concerned with technological innovation in the field of agriculture,but on the whole,each Western media discourse focuses on some specific aspects of technological innovation,suggesting their respective development focuses.Thirdly,both China and the US pay more attention to the development of technological innovation in other countries or regions.China is more concerned with the development of technological innovation in Third World countries,and plays a role of cooperation and assistance,while the US is more concerned with Asian countries,and constructs China’s development in technological innovation as a threat to the status of the US.The analysis also shows that the US occupies a dominant position in the development of technological innovation in other Asian countries.