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A Corpus-Assisted Critical Discourse Analysis of Wenzhou’s International Image in Spanish Mainstream Media

Abstract

As scholarly focus shifts from national image to urban representation, Chinese cities have attracted growing attention in global media coverage. However, critical discourse analysis of the representation of Chinese cities in Spanish-language media remains scarce, particularly when approached through a corpus-assisted methodology. Therefore, this study conducts a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis of the representation of Wenzhou's international image. Four hundred two news articles were collected from the NOW corpus, and keyword and concordance analyses were conducted to identify the topics of the news articles and the discursive strategies adopted. The findings reveal five main topics within the news articles, namely geography, economy, technology, culture and society, along with a dual logic used to construct the city's image. This study provides insights into how  city images are represented in Spanish-language mainstream media.

Keywords

Spanish mainstream media, city image, corpus-assisted approach, critical discourse analysis

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