Representation of Social Actors in <i>Financial times</i> Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy

Peng Na

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy

Peng Na

Published in International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 4)

Received: 27 February 2020 Accepted: 10 March 2020 Published: 15 May 2020

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Abstract

Communicators have a range of referential options to represent individuals and groups, who in Critical Discourse Analysis are often termed “social actors” or “participants”. These choices allow communicators to place people in the social world and highlight certain aspects of their identity while downplaying others. Choosing one social category instead of another means foregrounding certain features and backgrounding others, leading to different views and interpretations of the persons represented. This paper takes a quantitative study of the social actors represented in Jamil Anderlini’s article on China’s panda diplomacy published in the Financial Times, identifying and analyzing referential strategies adopted in representing participants involved in the social practice, mainly focusing on the discussion of such representation means as inclusion/exclusion, assimilation/ individualization, association/dissociation and their indications for the revelation of the writer’s attitudes, beliefs and political stance. The study reveals that the writer’s representation of participants tends to be bi-polarized, holding sharply different attitudes towards the main social actors—China, foreign countries and zoos, researchers and FT, depicting China as a crafty, deceptive, and intimidating manipulator of panda diplomacy while other countries as innocent, ignorant and helpless victims. This difference can be partly explained by Teun van Dijk’s “ideological square” in which China is a typical out-group, emphasized as a communist, authoritarian country in opposition to the democratic West to which the writer belongs.

Published in	International Journal of Literature and Arts (Volume 8, Issue 4)
DOI	10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
Page(s)	196-205
Creative Commons	This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright	Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Representation, Social Actors, Ideology, Panda Diplomacy, Critical Discourse Analysis

References

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[16]	Zhang Hui and Zhang Bo. (2019). The Representation of Social Actors in the Online News Articles Regarding Trump-Kim 2018 Summit in Singapore: A Critical Discourse Analysis. Journal of Yancheng Institute of Technology, 32: 71-76.
[17]	Chaemsaithong, Krisda. (2019a). Names and Identities in Courtroom Narratives. Names, 67: 185-198.
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Peng Na. (2020). Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(4), 196-205. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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Peng Na. Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(4), 196-205. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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Peng Na. Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(4):196-205. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14,
  author = {Peng Na},
  title = {Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {8},
  number = {4},
  pages = {196-205},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200804.14},
  abstract = {Communicators have a range of referential options to represent individuals and groups, who in Critical Discourse Analysis are often termed “social actors” or “participants”. These choices allow communicators to place people in the social world and highlight certain aspects of their identity while downplaying others. Choosing one social category instead of another means foregrounding certain features and backgrounding others, leading to different views and interpretations of the persons represented. This paper takes a quantitative study of the social actors represented in Jamil Anderlini’s article on China’s panda diplomacy published in the Financial Times, identifying and analyzing referential strategies adopted in representing participants involved in the social practice, mainly focusing on the discussion of such representation means as inclusion/exclusion, assimilation/ individualization, association/dissociation and their indications for the revelation of the writer’s attitudes, beliefs and political stance. The study reveals that the writer’s representation of participants tends to be bi-polarized, holding sharply different attitudes towards the main social actors—China, foreign countries and zoos, researchers and FT, depicting China as a crafty, deceptive, and intimidating manipulator of panda diplomacy while other countries as innocent, ignorant and helpless victims. This difference can be partly explained by Teun van Dijk’s “ideological square” in which China is a typical out-group, emphasized as a communist, authoritarian country in opposition to the democratic West to which the writer belongs.},
 year = {2020}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy
AU  - Peng Na
Y1  - 2020/05/15
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
SP  - 196
EP  - 205
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2331-057X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
AB  - Communicators have a range of referential options to represent individuals and groups, who in Critical Discourse Analysis are often termed “social actors” or “participants”. These choices allow communicators to place people in the social world and highlight certain aspects of their identity while downplaying others. Choosing one social category instead of another means foregrounding certain features and backgrounding others, leading to different views and interpretations of the persons represented. This paper takes a quantitative study of the social actors represented in Jamil Anderlini’s article on China’s panda diplomacy published in the Financial Times, identifying and analyzing referential strategies adopted in representing participants involved in the social practice, mainly focusing on the discussion of such representation means as inclusion/exclusion, assimilation/ individualization, association/dissociation and their indications for the revelation of the writer’s attitudes, beliefs and political stance. The study reveals that the writer’s representation of participants tends to be bi-polarized, holding sharply different attitudes towards the main social actors—China, foreign countries and zoos, researchers and FT, depicting China as a crafty, deceptive, and intimidating manipulator of panda diplomacy while other countries as innocent, ignorant and helpless victims. This difference can be partly explained by Teun van Dijk’s “ideological square” in which China is a typical out-group, emphasized as a communist, authoritarian country in opposition to the democratic West to which the writer belongs.
VL  - 8
IS  - 4
ER  -

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Author Information

Peng Na

School of English for International Business, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

APA Style

Peng Na. (2020). Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy. International Journal of Literature and Arts, 8(4), 196-205. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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ACS Style

Peng Na. Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy. Int. J. Lit. Arts 2020, 8(4), 196-205. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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AMA Style

Peng Na. Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy. Int J Lit Arts. 2020;8(4):196-205. doi: 10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14

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@article{10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14,
  author = {Peng Na},
  title = {Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy},
  journal = {International Journal of Literature and Arts},
  volume = {8},
  number = {4},
  pages = {196-205},
  doi = {10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14},
  eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijla.20200804.14},
  abstract = {Communicators have a range of referential options to represent individuals and groups, who in Critical Discourse Analysis are often termed “social actors” or “participants”. These choices allow communicators to place people in the social world and highlight certain aspects of their identity while downplaying others. Choosing one social category instead of another means foregrounding certain features and backgrounding others, leading to different views and interpretations of the persons represented. This paper takes a quantitative study of the social actors represented in Jamil Anderlini’s article on China’s panda diplomacy published in the Financial Times, identifying and analyzing referential strategies adopted in representing participants involved in the social practice, mainly focusing on the discussion of such representation means as inclusion/exclusion, assimilation/ individualization, association/dissociation and their indications for the revelation of the writer’s attitudes, beliefs and political stance. The study reveals that the writer’s representation of participants tends to be bi-polarized, holding sharply different attitudes towards the main social actors—China, foreign countries and zoos, researchers and FT, depicting China as a crafty, deceptive, and intimidating manipulator of panda diplomacy while other countries as innocent, ignorant and helpless victims. This difference can be partly explained by Teun van Dijk’s “ideological square” in which China is a typical out-group, emphasized as a communist, authoritarian country in opposition to the democratic West to which the writer belongs.},
 year = {2020}
}

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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Representation of Social Actors in Financial times Report on China’s Panda Diplomacy
AU  - Peng Na
Y1  - 2020/05/15
PY  - 2020
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
T2  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JF  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
JO  - International Journal of Literature and Arts
SP  - 196
EP  - 205
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2331-057X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijla.20200804.14
AB  - Communicators have a range of referential options to represent individuals and groups, who in Critical Discourse Analysis are often termed “social actors” or “participants”. These choices allow communicators to place people in the social world and highlight certain aspects of their identity while downplaying others. Choosing one social category instead of another means foregrounding certain features and backgrounding others, leading to different views and interpretations of the persons represented. This paper takes a quantitative study of the social actors represented in Jamil Anderlini’s article on China’s panda diplomacy published in the Financial Times, identifying and analyzing referential strategies adopted in representing participants involved in the social practice, mainly focusing on the discussion of such representation means as inclusion/exclusion, assimilation/ individualization, association/dissociation and their indications for the revelation of the writer’s attitudes, beliefs and political stance. The study reveals that the writer’s representation of participants tends to be bi-polarized, holding sharply different attitudes towards the main social actors—China, foreign countries and zoos, researchers and FT, depicting China as a crafty, deceptive, and intimidating manipulator of panda diplomacy while other countries as innocent, ignorant and helpless victims. This difference can be partly explained by Teun van Dijk’s “ideological square” in which China is a typical out-group, emphasized as a communist, authoritarian country in opposition to the democratic West to which the writer belongs.
VL  - 8
IS  - 4
ER  -

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