The Metaphor Construction of China’s National Image by the Mainstream Media in English-speaking Countries: A Case Study on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)

Abstract

According to the theories of Critical Discourse Analysis and Social Constructivism, a country’s image is constructed. As a crucial channel to construct and spread national images, media frequently adopt metaphor as a discourse strategy to construct national images. Based on a corpus of 147 reports on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) by the mainstream media in Englishspeaking countries, such as the U.K., the U.S., Canada, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Malaysia, this study is guided by the framework of Critical Metaphor Analysis to extract metaphors in the corpus. On this basis, this study discusses the metaphorical construction of China’s national image by the mainstream media in English-speaking countries, and their attitudes towards China behind their use of metaphors.