Title: A Diachronic Framing Approach to News Discourses of Clean Energy in China

Abstract: Recent studies have explored energy discourses through the lens of cognitive framing. However, analyses of news discourses, particularly from a diachronic perspective, remain limited. Utilizing conceptual metaphor theory and framing theory, we propose a primary news framing model and a diachronic model, building our own corpora to investigate news discourses on clean energy in China over the past decade. This investigation uncovers both metaphorical and non-metaphorical surface frames, as well as underlying deep frames. Consequently, we develop a comprehensive news framing and a diachronic model for news discourses. Our findings reveal that deep cognitive elements, such as Xi Jinping’s ecological civilization thought, influence news discourses and surface cognition, and that social development drives both news discourses and cognitive processes.

Keywords: clean energy, news discourse, framing, diachrony

Authors: Yi Peng, Associate Professor, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China; Min Zhou, The 13th Middle School of Yueyang, Yueyang, Hunan, China.

DOI: 10.19967/j.cnki.flc.2024.02.010