Affective Discourse and Rhetorical Construction in Technology News: A Case Study of Manned Spaceflight Coverage

This paper takes manned spaceflight technology news as a case study to explore the characteristics, rhetorical construction, and impacts of affective discourse in technology news. It integrates theories from constitutive rhetoric and affective discourse studies, employing a research method that combines corpus-assisted discourse analysis with rhetorical analysis. The findings reveal that discourse with positive emotional meaning predominates, with positive affective construction playing a dominant role. The reports serve the rhetorical function of constructing a news ideology with Chinese characteristics and shaping a positive national identity. This constructed positive national identity is reflected to some extent in international media, where the focus and emotional attitude are more positive than negative, resulting in a significant degree of recognition of the positive national identity.