关键词: 中美贸易战; 隐喻; 中国形象; 对比分析

Abstract:

Due to the continuous improvement of China’s international influence, China’s national image has gradually become one of the focuses of current research. As media discourse plays an important role in shaping a national image, the proportion of media discourse in the research on China’s national image is increasing. Based on the relevant reports on the Sino-US trade war in the mainstream media in China and the US, this paper analyzes the metaphorical construction of China’s image in the media discourse in China and the US by applying Charteris-Black’s method of critical metaphor analysis, which includes the three stages of metaphor identification, metaphor interpretation, and metaphor explanation. The study revealed that the media in China and the media in the US differ in the choice of the metaphors used to construct China’s image. While the American media use more war metaphors than the Chinese media, the Chinese media use more game metaphors than the American media, which is sound proof of the tendency for the American media to choose to antagonize trade disputes while the Chinese media opt to resolve trade disputes by means of healthy competition. Furthermore, the media in the two countries tend to construct different images of China by using different conceptual metaphors: American media construct negative images of China, such as the “enemy of US” that “harms the interests of US”, while the Chinese media manage to establish a positive image as a “win-win partner” that pursues peaceful development.

Keywords: Sino-US trade war; metaphor; China’s image; contrastive analysis