ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Psychology of Language
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1635767
This article is part of the Research TopicDiscourse, Conversation and Argumentation: Theoretical Perspectives and Innovative Empirical Studies, Volume IVView all 4 articles
Constructing Diplomatic Discourse: A Corpus-driven Analysis of the Discursive Strategies by the Spokespersons of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during a Public Health Crisis
Provisionally accepted
Tao Li1
Feng Pan2*- 1Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Drawing on a corpus-driven discourse analysis approach, this paper examines the discursive strategies adopted by the spokespersons of China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs during regular press conferences regarding a public health crisis. The analysis reveals that (1) the spokespersons actively used communicative discursive strategies to articulate China's stance and international cooperation initiatives while also employing offensive discursive strategies to counter criticisms from Western countries and media regarding the virus and the pandemic; (2) Interestingly, a juxtapositional discursive strategy was observed, by which China, together with other countries, was represented as the positive majority, whereas the US and the UK's media BBC as the negative minority, reinforcing the rationality of China's policies. It is argued that the spokespersons' use of discursive strategies can be attributed to China's geopolitical dynamics with the West and the influence of traditional Chinese culture on China's diplomatic policies.
Keywords: Press conference, Discursive strategy, Spokesperson, diplomatic discourse, public health crisis
Received: 27 May 2025; Accepted: 08 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li and Pan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Feng Pan, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.