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The Projection of China’s National Image in President Xi Jinping’s Speeches

In the 21st century, soft power has become an important element to evaluate a nation’s comprehensive strength. Meanwhile, as an indispensable part of soft power, national image receives more and more attention on the political stage. Since Chinese President Xi Jinping’s speeches have unique features and greatly reflect positive national images of China, many scholars start to analyze them from diversified perspectives. Based on Du Bois’ theory of “the Stance Triangle” and the Indexicality Principle, taking President Xi Jinping’s speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation for example, this paper expounds how President Xi achieves the evaluation, position, and alignment between the subject and object by means of overt labeling, implicature and presupposition, covert evaluation statement, and ideology-laden linguistic structure, in order to establish China’s national image. Through the analysis, the author intends to figure out how national leaders use various persuasive methods to achieve their political purpose. And the author hopes this thesis can provide a new perspective for further analysis on national leaders’ speeches.