A study of response strategies in question-response interaction in Chinese diplomatic discourse under the perspective of conversation analysis

based on the relevant concepts in the theory of Conversation Analysis, this study takes as its corpus the Chinese materials of the three lectures and seminars on the South China Sea held by Ambassador Liu Xiaoming during his visit to the United Kingdom, in which he responded to the questions of the audience. The study explores Chinese foreign ministry ambassadors' response strategies and specific linguistic realizations on issues related to national territory and security. It is found that Liu Xiaoming, the ambassador of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, adopts affirmative response and conflictual response respectively in answering reporters' questions on the South China Sea issue, in which the basic discourse step in affirmative response consists of agreeing with the point of view ? stating the position ? authoritatively legitimizing the argument ? stating the attitude; and the basic discourse step in the conflictual response strategy can be summarized as the central phrase (mostly negativity, refusal + opposition) ? stating the position / elaborating the information ? authoritatively / narratively / rationally (de-legitimization) ? offer hope/demand/suggestion. This study helps to integrate the theory of discourse analysis with diplomatic discourse, aiming to provide a reference for the interpretation of Chinese diplomatic discourse.

conversation analysis, “question-response”, response strategy, diplomatic discourse, political discourse, Chinese Ambassador Liu Xiaoming