1 Introduction

The importance of the Yellow River Basin in China's development was emphasized, and it was pointed out that General Secretary Xi Jinping and the report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China attach strategic importance to ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. At the same time, it is pointed out that the total amount of research on the Yellow River Basin in China is limited, and the research scope needs to be further deepened and expanded. This study adopts corpus method and positive discourse analysis theory, using the news discourse of China Daily as corpus, to examine the external construction and evolution process of the image of the Yellow River Basin from three dimensions: emotion, judgment, and appreciation.

2 Research Status

It is pointed out that the research status of media image construction and dissemination in the Yellow River Basin is relatively limited, with insufficient relevant literature, and mostly from a historical and cultural perspective, with the aim of promoting the city. Research has mostly focused on the Yellow River culture, lacking positive discourse analysis of language materials in news reports. At present, there are few studies on the external discourse of the Yellow River Basin, and there are less than 10 literature and journals that include the themes of "Yellow River" and "discourse". Researchers explore the transmission path of Yellow River culture and the construction of an international communication discourse system from different perspectives, emphasizing that discourse needs to conform to the audience's context, habits, and culture to play a communicative role. This study relies on the corpus paradigm, starting from news discourse and combining evaluation theory to conduct discourse analysis on English reports on the theme of "Yellow River Basin". The aim is to study the attitude resources of China Daily in related reports on "Yellow River Basin", analyze its role in national strategy, regional development, and national image construction, and explore the research paradigm of corpus assisted positive discourse analysis.

3 Theoretical Foundations

Positive discourse analysis, proposed by J.R. Martin, advocates analyzing social facts with a positive and friendly attitude, as opposed to critical discourse analysis, emphasizing harmonious coexistence. Evaluation theory is the main theoretical foundation of positive discourse analysis, focusing on attitudes, emotional intensity, and value expression in discourse. The evaluation theory system includes attitude system, intervention system, and hierarchical system, which are used to analyze the stance of language users. This study, based on evaluation theory, examines the use of attitude resources in news discourse of the Yellow River Basin from three perspectives: emotion, judgment, and appreciation, and their role in image construction.

4 Research Design

Explored the research and design of media image construction and communication strategies in the Yellow River Basin. The research aims to analyze the characteristics, changes, and cultural image of the Yellow River Basin reported by domestic and foreign media, and propose corresponding suggestions and countermeasures. The study selected 110 English reports on the Yellow River Basin from the official website of China Daily from 2003 to 2022 as the corpus and constructed a corpus. The study adopts a positive discourse analysis perspective, using attitude resources as a framework and corpus research methods to analyze the positive meaning of vocabulary in discourse. The research process includes: 1) using text organizers and corpus software to generate topic word lists and collocation word lists; 2) Combining attitude resources to analyze keywords and their index lines, extracting collocation word index lines, and analyzing context; 3) Summarize the characteristics of news discourse, promote the integration of current affairs culture from the perspectives of national image self shaping and external shaping, multimodal image construction, etc., spread the culture of the Yellow River Basin, and expand international communication influence.

5 Research Results and Discussion

This chapter compares the number of news reports on the Yellow River Basin by mainstream media at home and abroad, and finds that the number of domestic reports is on the rise, reaching its peak in 2016. The topics of the reports are mostly related to General Secretary Xi Jinping's inspection of the Yellow River Basin and regional governance concepts. Although the number of reports by foreign media is relatively small, it is also showing an upward trend, indicating that the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin have attracted international attention. Through AntConc 3.5.7 software analysis, it was found that before 2010, domestic media reported more negative news about the Yellow River Basin, such as droughts, floods, and environmental pollution. However, after 2011, positive reports gradually increased, reflecting society's concern for ecological civilization and high-quality development issues. The BFSU Collocator 1.0 software further reveals the intensity of keyword collocation in China Daily's coverage of the Yellow River Basin, showing that the report describes the strategic significance, ecological civilization status, and development prospects of the Yellow River Basin, emphasizing that under the practice of General Secretary Xi Jinping and various government departments, the Yellow River Basin has achieved balanced economic and ecological development.

6 Conclusion

The evaluative significance of news discourse has an indirect impact on readers' viewpoints and is implicit. The corpus research method breaks through the limitations of traditional research. Research has found that foreign news discourse in the Yellow River Basin mainly utilizes judgment and appreciation resources, providing positive context and psychological factors through evaluating vocabulary, and exerting language and social functions. When reporting on the Yellow River Basin, China Daily tends to use appreciation and judgment resources, with less use of emotional resources, reflecting the objectivity of the news, while expressing China's pragmatic attitude through positive emotional vocabulary. The use of ability oriented vocabulary in resource assessment is the most common, reflecting China's efforts to transform the Yellow River from a 'troubled river' to a 'beneficial and peaceful river'. The most commonly used evaluative vocabulary in appreciation resources affirms the significance of high-quality development in the Yellow River Basin and showcases the achievements of governance and development. The mainstream media in China uses the Yellow River Basin as a discourse medium, with environmental protection and green sustainable development as carriers, to create a positive language environment for news discourse in the Yellow River Basin, conveying China's important contributions to global environmental governance through measures taken to maintain the ecological environment, as well as its firm belief in green development and building a community with a shared future for mankind. It constructs a "responsible, responsible, and full of positive energy" image of a major country, which is conducive to promoting China's positive image in promoting global environmental governance reform to the outside world.