An Integrated Study of Corpus-Based Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis: A Case Study of Western Media’s Coverage of One Belt and One Road Initiative

Abstract

Taking Halliday’s transitivity system and corpus linguistics as the theoretical framework, this study uses corpus research tools to conduct Critical Discourse Analysis on the news discourse of China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative reported in the Western media. The study finds that most Western media reports on the Initiative adopt an objective and rational manner, believing that the Initiative demonstrates China’s openness and cooperation; however, there are also instances of ideological and ecological bias and distortion in some Western media, which portray it as a means of military expansion or economic incursion by employing linguistic tactics and vocabulary choices. And there are also cases of ideological bias and distortion in some Western media that portray the Initiative as a way of military expansion or economic invasion through language strategies and word choice. At the same time, this study further interprets, analyzes and explains the discursive stance constructed in the news reports of the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as the internal motivation and logic of its formation. To a certain extent, this study provides a new research horizon for combining critical discourse research with modern technological tools.