基于语料库的外宣新闻话语效度研究——以People’s Daily Online体裁分析为例

A Corpus-Based Validity Study of China’s International News Discourses:A Generic Analysis of People’s Daily Online as an Example

语料库量化分析发现,People’s Daily Online外宣新闻体裁具有强历时稳定性,具体表现为标题结构模式化,信息来源机构身份强化,事件描述宏观化、数据化,事件评论主观化等特点,倾向于构建强势传者,而受众则相对弱势。这种关系造成两种效应:一是在资源高度集中的信息传播中,双方关系虽不平等,但仍处于平衡状态,传播效度较强。但外宣受众参与不足会造成其对信息的相关性感受减弱,对此,可通过增加阅读引导性元素、事件描述的个体性事例、事件评论的社会性引语等策略提升传播效度。二是在资源开放程度较高的信息传播中,双方关系既不平等,也不平衡,传播效度较弱。对此,需通过弱化传者的机构身份、为受众提供发声和交流途径等策略满足受众对平等关系的诉求。

People’s Daily Online is China’s mainstream international news website;thus,it is a useful object to consider in determining the communicative validity of Chinese discourse on international affairs.The present research is based on a corpus containing 300 international news articles in 2017,centering on″China″as a theme,from People’s Daily Online website.The research entailed a quantitative analysis of the discourse moves at both synchronic and diachronic levels.In doing that,two synchronic reference corpora were built with articles fromWashington Post and The Times.These two reference corpora were used for observing the international acceptors’acceptance inclination.Furthermore,for observing the generic evolution of People’s Daily Online,its news articles in the systematic corpus,published between 2010 and 2017,were diachronically analyzed.It was found that the genre of People’s Daily Online has been steadily stable throughout the 8 years,with features including:″headlines″formulated with event elements;″information source″identified by dominant institute names;″event description″conducted generally and statistically;″event comment″subjectively worded by the media itself.Based on Functional Linguistic Theory,further examination of these features indicates that People’s Daily Online tends to construct an unequal relationship between a″stronger″broadcaster and″weaker″acceptor.This relationship has different effects on broadcasting with centralized information resources as compared to broadcasting with highly open information resources.In the former,relationship is manifested in the equilibrium between broadcaster and acceptor,rather than in equality,while the broadcasting validity is still high.People’s Daily Online as a large-scale official media outlet has the advantage of considerable information resources and broadcasting capital.At the same time,the audiences have limited capability in participation;thus,acquiring information passively is the most effective and economical way for them.This relationship between acceptor and broadcaster is underpinned by the Marxist principles of broadcast communication practiced in China.On the other hand,international audiences,who are mostly accustomed to Western″commercialized″news,tend to lose feelings of relativity and interest in the information broadcasted.This repercussion can be addressed through generic strategies such as:introducing lead-in moves such as,subtitles;presenting individual cases in″event description″and annotations on cultural backgrounds;increasing the number of quotes from common personalities in″event comments″.On the other hand,in broadcasts with highly open information resources,the relationship between broadcaster and acceptor has neither equilibrium nor equality.With the development of social informatization,common audiences have acquired more participation capabilities and accordingly they appeal for a more equal relationship with the media.Therefore,the prevailing media-audience relationship falls short of satisfying the audiences’needs and raises their sense of resistance to information acquisition.In this case,the generic strategies of weakening the institute identity of the media,and offering speaking and communication channels to the audiences can be adopted.Apart from generic stability,the People’s Daily Online also presents generic variations for adapting to the new trends of media integration,as evidenced by slow growth in the usage of the discourse moves,″event comments″and″headlines″.The two-sided generic features generated with the guidance of Chinese Marxism News Conception in complicated communication environment.Chinese media should find a balance between adherence to Chinese news ideology and adaptation to the acceptors’requirements while promoting the development of Chinese international media discourses that are suited to China’s national conditions.The study offers a validity analysis frame work for China’s international news genre in three levels:analyzing the state of equilibrium between the broadcaster and the acceptor;appraising the validity of the broadcaster;and,subsequently,proposing enhancement strategies based on the Marxist Perspectives of Journalism.Furthermore,the corpus-based quantitative study provides an objective and empirical method for analyzing abstract discourse structure,and finally ensures the credibility of the conclusions reached in the research.