베이징 올림픽 외교적 보이콧에 맞선 환구시보 사설 비판적 담화분석: 나르시시즘·체면·대국심리 프레이밍

Abstract

This research using critical discourse analysis(CDA) examines in what ways the Global Times editorials have constructed counter-hegemonic ideologies against diplomatic boycott strategies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. First, the analysis of text description indicates that the focal editorial of Dec. 07, 2021 titled “Note to Washington: Running naked is not art” produces an American narcissism frame by foregrounding contrastive trigger words including “streaking” and “bubbles floating on a Chinese hot pot” part of language tactics such as salience and metaphor. These two metaphors evoke source domains that help readers to mitigate the shock caused by the boycotts. While “streaking” refers to the American boycott triggering the image of an insane narcissistic streaker in the Western sports culture, “bubbles floating on a Chinese hot pot” enables Chinese people to consider the boycott strategies as something trivial and thus ignore them. Second, intertextuality built around a keyword, “face” in the four editorials reveals that multiple meanings of “face” are constructed in two contrastive ways: face of the U.S and the West vs. face of China. As many Western media report the Beijing Olympics boycotts decided by the leaders of Five Eyes as a slap in the face to China, Global Times redifines the meanings of face from “reputation” argued by the West to refer to the threatened Chinese face to “favor and superficial attacks, superficiality” which downgrade the meaning of face to provide justification for China because they do not need to lose such face that has a negative meaning. Then, the editorials reconstruct the true meaning of Chinese face as “grace and awe” that upgrade the meaning of face for China. Third, the editorials reconstruct ideologies aimed at recovering Chinese victimized face by propagating maturing “major power mentality” through the Olympics, and consequently consolidating Xi Jinping’s third term of power and continuing to pursue his desire as a world hegemony. In conclusion, propagating “major power mentality” can be interpreted as representation of Chinese vulnerable narcissism in comparison with American grandiose narcissism. Thus the ideology reconstruction based on the abstract notions such as narcissism, face, major power mentality can be said to be a trinity.