Indirect Evidentiality and Its Manifestation in Chinese Language Political Discourse

Abstract

AbstractThe article concentrates on the analysis of indirect evidentiality and its manifestations in the political discourse of the Chinese language in the context of key policy documents related to implementing China’s national strategy One Belt-One Road, which became one of the main components of the Chinese foreign policy and foreign economic strategy. Using The International Initiative of China One Belt - One Road put forward by the President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping and presented at Nazarbayev University, the program document “Vision and actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road” and office book “Building the Belt and Road: Concept, Practice, and China’s Contribution” the authors turn to indirect evidentiality in political discourse, more specifically to its evidential markers. Comprehensive analysis of this material, including the analysis from the perspective of the evidentiality strategies realization, taking into account linguistic and extralinguistic factors, is one of the priority tasks of political geography and political linguistics at the present stage of Russian-Chinese relations.In the research process, the means of expressing indirect evidentiality of the Chinese political discourse were identified and considered for the first time. The article concludes that indirect evidentiality in Chinese political discourse is characterized by lexical markers: verbs of speech and mental activity, modal verbs, evaluation adverbs, and prepositional constructions. The study showed that the functions of evidentiality markers, in the content of national strategies, are to convey facts and information, express a viewpoint, and hidden belief. The evidentiality category markers indicate the degree of credibility/non-credibility of the information, the reliability/unreliability of the information itself, which is also important in the world of politics.KeywordsCategory of evidentialityEvidentiality markersPolitical discourseSource of informationChinese language