Cognitive-Linguistic Tools for Modeling the Country’s Media Image: A China’s Discourse on Russia

Abstract

The article describes the cognitive means by which the perception and processing of textured material in media discourse is carried out. The authors present the typology of this toolkit and its opportunities in modeling the country’s media image addressed to the sociocode of a national culture. The relevance of the study is due to the significant role of modern media in shaping the image of a specific territory in mass consciousness, which directly determines the character of economic, political and social relations in society. The purpose of the article is to identify and characterize possible cognitive-linguistic mechanisms for modeling a productive media image of a country based on mental representations of society, originating in culture and guaranteeing the effective use of the corresponding constructs of mental operations, value preferences and behavior patterns of information flows consumer. Based on linguo-culturological analysis, conditions and frames of modeling, the image of Russia is considered in the content of the Chinese mass media. The empirical base of the study was made up of more than 200 texts of the Chinese media of various formats. The media discourse represents both common nuclear concepts and archetypes of the national view of the world in Russia and China (collectivism, patriotism, home, family, power, nature), and the ambiguous stereotypes of Chinese citizens about Russians and Russia that have been developed over the time. Stereotypes are embedded in the traditional expressive narrative which, due to a combination of expressive means, aesthetic and impressive power of verbal potential, has a purposeful impact on the audience, maintains the necessary national identity in Chinese society in the «We — They» paradigm. With respect to Russia’s strategic interests, it is important to actualize the common constructs of Chinese and Russian mentality in the mass media which will not only awaken the original cultural memory of a person but also allow to bring the people of China and Russia closer together.