A Contrastive Analysis Of Chinese And American Human Rights Discourses From The Perspective Of Cognition

As the carrier of the abstract concept of “human rights”,human rights discourse to a large extent reflects the philosophy of human rights pursued by a country or culture.To analyze the linguistic features and construction mechanism of human rights discourse is essential to explore the related human rights culture behind the discourse.From the perspective of the relationship between language and cognition,cognitive research on human rights discourse will help clarify different cultures’ understanding of the concept of “human rights” and explore the causes of cognitive differences.The research on human rights discourse at home and abroad mainly discusses the construction mode,external publicity function,and cross-cultural communication of human rights discourse from the theoretical level.Few studies focus on the linguistic features of texts,and most of them are based on isolated texts in a particular year and a single language.Therefore,it is necessary to systematically and comprehensively analyze the linguistic features of human rights discourse in different languages from the perspective of linguistics,and explore the cognitive mechanism and cultural differences in the construction of human rights discourse.Starting from the linguistic features of human rights texts,this study examines the cultural differences in the construction of human rights discourse between China and the United States through the contrast of Chinese and American official human rights discourses.The specific research questions are as follows:1.What are the differences in frame cultural models between Chinese and American human rights discourses?2.What are the differences in prominent elements between Chinese and American human rights discourses from the perspective of Cognitive Grammar?3.What are the differences in expected pragmatic effects between Chinese and American human rights discourses?This study collected four human rights texts from the official government platforms of China and the United States respectively.Firstly,the author uses the corpus analysis software Ant Conc 3.5.9 to sort out the linguistic features of Chinese and American human rights discourses.With Frame Theory,Cognitive Model Theory,and Cultural Model Theory,the author analyzes and summarizes the differences between Chinese and American discourses on human rights in frame cultural models.Using Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar,the author explores the differences between Chinese and American discourses on human rights in terms of salient elements and pragmatic effects.The research findings are as follows:(1)Both similarities and differences exist in the construction of human rights discourse between China and the United States,and the differences are the most prominent.Similar high-frequency words and keywords appear in the construction of human rights discourse in China and America.From the perspective of Cognitive Model Theory,this is the result of the activation of similar cognitive models related to human rights when construing human rights events.There are significant differences between Chinese and American human rights frames.The United States holds the [AMERICA FIRST] frame,while China holds the[PEOPLE FIRST] frame.According to Cultural Model and Fillmore’s Frame Theory,this difference is influenced by different cultural models of human rights.(2)There are significant differences in the vocabulary and grammatical expressions used to describe human rights events in China and the United States.Derogatory verbs are often used in American human rights discourse,while commendatory verbs are often used in Chinese human rights discourse.In light of Cognitive Grammar,this highlights the difference between Chinese and American attitudes toward human rights.(3)Significant differences are found in the expected pragmatic effects of human rights discourse between China and the United States.With the so-called “human rights report”,America tries to mislead the Chinese people and undermine China’s stability.It also attempts to confuse public opinion and damage China’s international image of human rights.With the white paper on human rights,China hopes to show its people a responsible national image and enhance their sense of national identity.China also expects to respond to groundless accusations,guide public opinion in the right direction,and let the world know a true and threedimensional China.According to the perspective principle in Cognitive Grammar,this difference is mainly caused by different cognitive perspectives of construing human rights events.From a cognitive linguistic perspective,this study makes a contrastive analysis of Chinese and American discourses on human rights;exploring the linguistic features of the construction of human rights discourse and the cultural differences behind the discourse.To some extent,this study enriches the connotation of human rights discourse research,is conducive to the development of cross-cultural discourse research,and has certain enlightenment for the construction and dissemination of human rights discourse.