本文是一篇语言学论文，在批判性认知语言学的指导下，本研究探讨了唐纳德·特朗普总统任期内公布的三项贸易政策议程中所构建的“中国”地位的转变，揭示了特朗普政府对中国的真正政策取向。根据2017年1月至2019年12月发布的三项议程，本研究得出以下结论。
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
“Political culture is a cognitive, affective and evaluational orientation towards political objects such as the self and others as political actors and towards governmental authority. It sets basic patterns in groups’ assumptions about their own political efficacy, about the legitimacy of authority, and about the legitimacy of certain political inputs and outputs.”[1]. Hence, one state’s political culture, to some extent, exert determine the identity construction of others in its foreign policies. The government conveys its own political principles, values and beliefs by means of constructing the others’ identity, and communicating the self’s values and ideology. Exposed to such a context, people will unconsciously develop self-identity shared by the nation that enables the government to gain public support for corresponding foreign policy.
The Sino-US relationship is one of pivotal and complex relations in world community. These two powers, with different social system, ideology, values, development phase, history and culture, have maintained a peaceful and stable relationship for over four decades since the normalization of the diplomatic ties. Looking back on the diplomatic history of the US, from the ‘discovery’ of the New World, the settlement of the Puritans in America, American War of Independence, American Revolutionary War, and the Cold War, it is evident that when facing internal challenges or external crisis, American politicians tend to take the initiative to draw the line between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’, thus naturally labeling all threats as sabotage by external forces and attributing their own actions to protecting the national interests. Labels like ‘friends’, ‘partners’ and ‘rivals’ and ‘enemy’ are frequently used in US foreign policy. For example, after the Trump administration took office, China has been portrayed as a ‘rival’ who completely contradicts American values and national interests in the Trump administration’s political discourse. American politicians always label other countries with certain identities in order to define bilateral or multilateral relations. Through manipulating these verbal practices, politicians intend to effectively grab national interests, distinguish their allies and enemies, delimit the boundaries of possible foreign policies, and seek legitimacy for certain ‘unfair’ policies and inhumane military forces. The truth is that all those labeling strategies in policy discourse are just one of the tools for politicians to maximize the interests of their own party.
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1.2 Research Purposes and Questions
In this thesis, from the socio-cognitive perspective of Critical Cognitive Linguistics(CCL), the author attempts to analyze three annual Agendas released by the Trump Administration in the past three years (from 2017 to 2019) via combining the context model and Deictic Space Model. The following research questions will be addressed:
(1) How are Context-deictic Space Models constructed in the three Agendas?
(2) How is China positioned in the recipient's Context-deictic Space from 2017 Agenda to 2019 Agenda?
(3) If China’s position has been shifted in the three Agendas, how is the shifting position of China enacted, and what are the social and political causes to the changes?
By constructing deictic space models of the corresponding&nbs
