Author(s)

ZiHan Zhao, Fei Deng^*

Affiliation(s)

School of Foreign Studies, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, Guangdong, China.

Corresponding Author

Fei Deng

ABSTRACT

City image is the spirit and appearance of the city as a whole, the all-round and global image of the city, including the overall style and appearance of the city, and the overall values, mental outlook and educational level of the city residents. It is of great significance to shape a good city image for the progress of the city and the promotion of foreign exchanges and cooperation. With the acceleration of globalization, the shaping and dissemination of city image on the global stage has become more and more important. Especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, a global public health crisis, how cities around the world responded to the pandemic and how their images were presented in the international media has become a focus of attention for all sectors of society.

As a significant first-tier city in China, Guangzhou gained extensive attention from domestic and international media during the Covid-19 pandemic due to its positive performance and the effect it brought in the prevention and control of the Covid-19 pandemic. Global Times, a Chinese comprehensive newspaper with national circulation and the only one that conveys general news to foreign countries in line with China’s basic national conditions. It conveyed information to the world about Guangzhou’s fight against the Covid -19 pandemic and shaped Guangzhou’s city image through its international communication platform during the pandemic.

In this paper, we adopt the corpus method to analyze the discourse characteristics of Global Times’ news reports and Guangzhou’s city image during the Covid-19 pandemic from the perspectives of keywords and high-frequency words, and explore the factors affecting the shaping of Guangzhou’s city image based on critical discourse analysis. The study finds that Global Times’ news coverage of Guangzhou focused on three major themes: current events around Guangzhou, the Covid-19 pandemic and transportation; and emphasized the views and attitudes of authorities such as the government and experts; and used positive words to portray Guangzhou as a cosmopolitan city that is pragmatic, hardworking, people-centered, people-serving, and open and friendly. This paper argues that these images are related to the idea of China’s development, the purpose of Global Times and Guangzhou’s urban culture.

KEYWORDS

Covid-19 pandemic; Global Times; Guangzhou; City image

CITE THIS PAPER

ZiHan Zhao, Fei Deng. A corpus-based analysis of Guangzhou's city image in the global times during the COVID-19 pandemic. Trends in Social Sciences and Humanities Research. 2025, 3(7): 6-23. DOI: https://doi.org/10.61784/tsshr3188.

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