Rhetorical Construction of COVID-19 News in Chinese Context—A Corpus-Based Study

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Introduction
Ever since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has attracted a lot of attention from the news media worldwide owing to its widespread impact. How to construct the discourse on the pandemic and how to report on the national strategies to fight the disease have become the focus of the mainstream media in various countries. The news coverage of COVID-19 will have an impact on how people view the disease and the pandemic as well as how they respond to the control measures as news is not only the major source to access information, but also a powerful means to shape people's values, beliefs, and behaviors. Thus, the study of COVID-19 news will disclose the stance and attitude underlying the discourse, the goal of the news coverage, and how the news is constructed to affect people's ideas and responses to it. Local media, which is a significant component of the national mainstream press, directs to a more specific audience and has a greater influence on local residents. The investigation of COVID-19 news in local media is conducive to examining how COVID-19 is presented on a different level and what discursive strategies are employed to mobilize the residents and shape the region's image.
dimension of the news discourse has been long recognized. Rhetoric, as a long-standing multidisciplinary theory, will increase our grasp of the persuasive mechanism of news construction and throw light on news discourse study.
This study aims to show that news discourse is a rhetorical construction that is situated in a specific rhetorical situation and works to persuade through rhetorical strategies, providing a new perspective and empirical reference for the study of COVID-19 news discourse as well as a guide for readers to interpret news critically using rhetorical tools. With these objectives in mind, this study applied a corpus-assisted approach to assessing the linguistic features of the COVID-19 news on the website of In Zhejiang (http://www.inzhejiang.com), the English official website of China's Zhejiang province. Next, through the analysis of lexical keyness, concordances of keywords, and high-frequent wordlists under the rhetorical framework, this study investigated the rhetorical mechanism, i.e., rhetorical invention, strategies, and style of COVID-19 news on In Zhejiang (IZ), revealing how COVID-19 news affects the public in the Chinese context and the purposes behind the news discourse.

The Rhetoric of News Discourse
Rhetoric is the study and practice of how to influence people's thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors through language or other symbolic means (Liu, 2004). Persuasion has been regarded as the main function of rhetoric both in classical and modern rhetoric theories. Modern rhetoric further extends the scope of rhetoric and recognizes it as "a way of knowing" that shapes people's ideas, knowledge, and cognition about the world.
As language is never neutral or value-free, we are inevitably engaging in rhetoric, whether consciously or unconsciously, to seek persuasion daily. Discourse is in nature rhetorical, as Foucault pointed out, "discourse didn't merely represent the real but was part of its production" (McHoul & Grace, 1997, p. 35). According to Herrick (2001, p. 7), discourse is rhetorical as being "(a) planned, (b) adapted to an audience, (c) shaped by human motives, (d) responsive to a situation, and (e) persuasion-seeking". As many previous studies have shown (Conboy, 2010;Min, 1998;Fowler, 1991), news is a social construction that is inevitably laden with a set of social values and ideology. Situated in a specific context, news is constructed to impart ideas or values to a specific audience for certain purposes. As a result, the news discourse is essentially persuasive. News reporting is a complex process in which the agent (rhetor), within a specific social and cultural context, performs an act intended for a group or groups of the audience with a particular motive ---whether it is to inform, entertain, or shape ideas. Characterized by these features, news discourse is inherently rhetorical. Rhetorical analysis of news discourse will equip us with better knowledge about how news discourse is meant to deliver the desired message, affect people's opinions, and even elicit action.

Rhetorical Invention
"Invention" is derived from the Latin term Inventio, which means "to find" or "to come upon". As the first in the five canons of rhetoric, invention refers to searching for and developing appropriate and effective arguments. In the procedure of rhetorical invention, the rhetors usually employ two approaches to discover persuasive arguments-stasis and topics (Herrick, 2001).

Stasis
Stasis means "struggle" or "stopping point". The points of stasis divide a complex case into component parts or questions. Thus, the stasis system guides the rhetors to think about the argument by following the struggle or stopping point at which disagreements may arise (Ibid). In the art of rhetorical invention, a skillful rhetor always knows to divide the argument into component parts where the likely conflict points or disagreements are going to be resolved.

Topos or Topic
In addition to the stasis system, there is another system for discovering and organizing arguments, which is known as topic or topos in Greek. In rhetoric, topic is defined as "a place or store or thesaurus one can resort to finding something to say on a given subject". Specifically, it refers to a general head or line of argument that provides elements that could be utilized as proofs (Corbett & Connors, 1999, p. 19). Both Aristotle and Cicero distinguished different types of topics, proposing general and special lines of arguments that can be used in the development of any subject (Herrick, 2001). The rhetor employs the topical method to think about topics or prospective arguments that the audience is likely to find relevant. Thus, the topical system suggests ways for rhetors to think through a complex rhetorical problem.
News discourse covers general subjects, such as scientific discoveries, current affairs, global issues, common concerns of mankind, public health events, and so on, as well as specific subjects to meet the audience in certain rhetorical settings. Different media outlets will focus on different aspects of the same event, depending on the aim and the needs of the audience. The coverage of different topics exposes the purposes of the news discourse, such as how the journalists approach the event, what the journalists want the audience to notice and react to, what sorts of messages the journalists aim to send, and so on.

Rhetorical Strategies
Aristotle (1991) identified three means of persuasion in his work On Rhetoric, known as three textual appeals: ethos (appeal to the authority of the rhetor), logos (appeal to the systems of reasoning), and pathos (appeal to the emotions of the audience). The three appeals correlate and work together toward persuasion in any discourse.

The Appeal of Ethos
Ethos is generally defined as the good character, authority, virtues, and consequent credibility the rhetor inscribed in the discourse (Liu, 2008). Although the rhetor's conduct and characters in real life can be reflected in discourse to some extent, the audience is convinced by the ethos that the rhetor has constructed or represented in the discourse since in most cases the discourse is frequently consumed and disseminated at a distance from the author (Covino & Jolliffe, 1995). Thus, for rhetorical analysis, it's practical to examine how the rhetor constructs favorable ethos in discourse and how the discourse inscribes the ethos to achieve persuasion.
Ethos possesses the most powerful persuasive power. Rhetoric usually deals with two possibilities or two opposing points of equal force, and so is the case for most human affairs (Liu, 2004). Since rhetorical arguments are built on probabilities, it is difficult to determine which argument is more convincing based purely on logos. If the audience responds poorly to the speaker's character, even the strongest case for reason may fall short (Covino & Jolliffe, 1999). In these cases, ethos emerges to be the most controlling factor in persuasion. When all other rhetorical resources are equal, the speaker who appears to be more trustworthy, sincere, and knowledgeable wins. In other words, if people believe that a speaker has good sense, moral integrity, and benevolence, they are more inclined to accept as true what that speaker says. The role of ethos in persuasion is prevalent in our daily lives and more acute in news discourse. A piece of news represents only one possible interpretation or point of view of the events. Its argument is founded on commonplace or less-than-definite probability, which does not always have a strong epistemological standing. As a result, the credibility of news institutions, the excellent character of the journalists, a good sense of the news report, and the like play a critical part in the success of news discourse.
News discourse constructs ethos from various sources: (1) The news organization's credibility. Since the audience would not accept news delivered by any news agent they do not trust, all news organizations have long asserted objectivity and fairness as news reporting criteria and moral codes for the entire profession. For instance, the Society of Professional Journalists has established truth, accuracy, and impartiality as journalism criteria (Wu, 2005). By doing so, news organizations generate trust or credit between their agents and their audiences, imbuing every news discourse they produce with the ethos they have established. (2) Credibility and authority from other agents such as specialists, witnesses, well-known figures, celebrities with good reputations, etc. Journalists frequently quote from several sources to uphold the standards of objectivity and fairness. These sources either offer more precise information or specialized knowledge for the news, or they are asked to speak directly for the news. By doing this, journalists effectively appropriate other agents' authority and credit, boosting the truthfulness of news discourses and establishing the reliability of their reporting. (3) The ethos established through the discourse itself. Journalists employ a variety of strategies to show the news' objectivity and truthfulness in their reporting. First, they use statistics or specific data to demonstrate that they are giving precise and accurate information. Second, use specific nouns and active verbs more frequently to avoid personal judgments, thus convincing the audience that they are reporting facts rather than opinions in the news (Ibid). Third, provide details from witnesses and experts to ensure accuracy and fairness. Through all these tactics, journalists apply the values of impartiality and fairness to news discourse, establishing the necessary ethos to persuade their audience.

The Appeal of Pathos
Pathos, also known as emotional appeal, refers to the feelings, emotions, preferences, and values that influence the audience's decision-making (Liu, 2008). In practice, reasoning is frequently insufficient to compel people to act. They are more often prompted to accept something or do something by their passions or emotions; thus, pathos plays a vital role in the persuasive process. Aristotle (1991) emphasizes that when we are in different emotional states, we do not make the same judgment. Things do not seem the same to those who hold opposite feelings towards them. It is also normal for us to be propelled into action through aroused passions in our daily lives. Every effective discourse should somehow activate or appeal to the sympathies or emotions of the audience in a specific context. The appeal of pathos, according to Aristotle (1991Aristotle ( , p. 1358a, means "placing the audience in the right frame of mind". This suggests that pathos is not necessarily an illogical and irrelevant component of persuasive discourse, but rather a sensible response to certain circumstances and arguments (Herrick, 2001).
The newspaper often reports news that appeals to pathos by presenting facts with attitudinal and emotional dimensions. Some tactics are used in news discourse to elicit emotions. (1) The journalists elicit an emotional response from the audience by vividly describing a scene. In doing so, the journalists often appeal to the imagination through sensory and specific details (Corbett & Connors, 1999). Sometimes, they also use visual images, for example, photos, pictures, or cartoons, to enhance the emotional impact.
(2) Another technique journalists use to arouse emotions is the effective use of emotion-laden language. The journalists choose between honorific or pejorative terms or words with favorable or unfavorable connotations. However, they should conceal the artifice of wordplay and act naturally. Otherwise, the news discourse will lose its persuasive force if people feel that they are manipulated by emotional appeal.

The Appeal of Logos
Logos refers to patterns, commonplaces, and proofs that the audience finds persuasive (Liu, 2008). In other words, Logos refers to the means of persuading with reason, using facts and figures. Logos plays an indispensable role in persuasion. As rational human beings, people are more willing to accept a proposition through the logical argument. Thus, a discourse should be established on logical reasoning and sound arguments while also being delivered in a pattern or style that makes sense to the audience; otherwise, the audience will not accept what the discourse conveys. For the appeal of logos in a rhetorical situation, the rhetor should first know what the audience holds as common assumptions and invoke them in the discourse, then presents a premise about the situation, and finally draws a conclusion that follows the assumptions and the premises. Since the audience for news discourse is educated enough to think rationally, logos is extremely crucial in persuading. Every news discourse should be founded on reasoning toward a persuasive end.
In news discourse, several strategies are commonly used to appeal to logos. First, construct news based on facts. Facts are the origins of news and are very compelling because news consumers tend to be persuaded by concrete news facts which are rational and trustworthy. Some tactics are utilized to enhance the veracity of news: (1) a straight account of ongoing events to provide facts. (2) Using evidence from seemingly trustworthy sources, such as eyewitnesses, authorities, experts, and professionals, to support the argument. (3) Using numbers to denote accuracy and precision for persons, times, events, and so on (van Dijk,1988). Second, create a strong rhetorical context for facts to be presented to make them more acceptable and understandable. This type of strategy includes: (1) mentioning prior occurrences as causes or conditions and projecting the next events as likely consequences.
(2) Making arguments familiar and ideologically cohesive by using commonly accepted assumptions or well-known concepts as premises. (3) "Inserting facts into a well-known situation model in order to make them relatively familiar" (Ibid, p. 85).
In any discourse, the three appeals work together as a whole for persuasion. Ethos convinces the audience by instilling trust in the rhetor's credibility. Pathos arouses the emotions of the audience to effect change. Logos mobilizes the powers of reasoning (Covino & Jollife, 1999). In news practice, the three appeals frequently correlate and work together to achieve the desired effect. First, a reliable ethos ensures the legitimacy and plausibility of news, as well as the successful appeal of pathos. The ethos established from various sources, such as statements from authorities and witnesses, enhances the sincerity of the events and the dependability of the information (logos). And facts that elicit strong emotions (pathos) are more likely to be accepted and remembered. Finally, the presentation of facts and reasonable deduction (logos) in news enhance its ethos as rational, sensible, and consequently trustworthy.

The Rhetoric of Style
Throughout the history of rhetoric, there have been numerous discussions about style. In classical rhetoric, style is primarily conceived as the vehicle of thought, or specifically, how thoughts are collected and put into words in delivery (Corbett & Connors, 1999); Style is crucial in rhetoric because it affects how an audience receives a discourse and how the rhetor constructs his or her works to achieve the goals. Style, as defined by Jonathan Swift as "proper words in proper places" (Liu, A Short History of English Literature, 2005, p. 170), is a rhetorical decision that is suited to the occasion and audience. Modern rhetoric has commonly recognized that style is more than just an ornament or decoration of discourse; it is another viable tool of persuasion-a means of seeking identification in the audience and constructing the correct ethical image (Corbett & Connors, 1999). Thompson (1997) suggests in his book Rhetoric Through Media that news style should be tailored to the audience because the audience's understanding is influenced by word choice, syntax, and, to some extent, ideology. Butler (2007) defines style in written discourse as the use of rhetorical resources to produce and communicate meaning, which includes text patterns, rhetorical options, and purposeful decisions at the sentence and word level.
As was previously discussed, rhetoric deals with the selection of the most effective forms among a variety of available options in language. Once there is a choice to be made, rhetoric comes into play. Thus, the rhetoric of style means the best choices of diction, syntactic patterns, and figures of speech. The rhetorical analysis of news language style is concerned with determining how language features are fitted to a given style pattern. An examination of style in news discourse offers valuable insight into the micro levels of language use in the news as well as how to utilize them effectively in relation to the subject matter, situation, and audience.
As a special type of public discourse, the style of news discourse is constrained by some general features. First, news discourse strives to communicate and shape ideas to large audiences of varying educational levels; hence, news content should be provided in clear, precise language about its subject, audience, and space. Language, according to Aristotle (1991), cannot effectively persuade people unless it conveys a clear meaning. Thompson (1997) also remarked that the simpler and clearer our language is, the more accessible the concepts are to the readers. Second, news discourse is designed to be impartial and impersonal in style. The news discourse frequently presents a distance from implicit readers. Except in quotations and occasionally editorials, there is no "you" in the news and no reader-addressed speech acts. Individual "I" is also missing from news discourse, unless names are signed as supplementary identification of institutional voice (van Dijk, 1988). Third, because news discourses are built on a set of widely shared knowledge, beliefs, and values, news style retains the imprint of these presuppositions in topic selection and word choice. Fourth, news discourse exhibits characteristics of formal communication styles. Everyday colloquialism and spoken language style are inappropriate except in quotations. Fifth, the syntax and lexical style of news discourse display the features of objectivity and formality. News sentences are usually complex, with embedded clauses and nominalizations. The word choices also reflect the degree of formality, institutional voice, and most importantly, the attitudes and ideologies of the speaker (Ibid).

Methods
In this study, the official English website of Zhejiang Province In Zhejiang was selected as the corpus source to illustrate how rhetoric works in news discourse. Samples of all COVID-19 news have been collected from December 9th, 2021, the first piece of COVID-19 news on the website, until June 8th, 2022, the most recent item of COVID-19 news, to create a specialized corpus of 27456 words and 32271 tokens. A bigger COVID-19 corpus with 224,061,570 words and 280,762,172 tokens available in Sketch Engine is used as the reference corpus.
Based on the rhetorical framework for news discourse analysis, this study first employed Sketch Engine's "keywords" function to generate a keywords list relative to the reference corpus; functional words in the keywords were removed, leaving 50 keywords for further analysis. Following that, the 50 keywords were ranked from highest to lowest keyness to gain an overall knowledge of the media coverage, or topics, of COVID-19 in the target corpus. Second, different categories of high-frequency words in the target corpus (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) were gathered to examine the word choices of COVID-19 news, which reveals the rhetorical strategies of the news discourse. Third, keywords and high-frequency words were chosen to analyze their contextual meanings using the "concordance" function to comprehend the implications of the words in context, revealing attitudes and rhetorical purposes of the news discourse. Finally, the results were evaluated under the rhetorical framework to assess the rhetorical strategies of the news discourse and their effectiveness in communication.
As Egbert (2016) points out, corpus-based research alone rarely provides insight to justify the selection of linguistic items. While the corpus research methods employed in this study can compensate for the lack of quantitative data in traditional rhetorical studies, the rhetorical framework of news discourse contributes a social, or rhetorical lens to explain the variation of linguistic features in the news.

Topics and Purpose
A quantitative result of the keywords list of the top 50 keywords was presented in Table 1, which reveals the main topics of COVID-19 news covered on the website of In Zhejiang. Each media has its perspective and choice in selecting the events and forming the topics to report (Zhang et al., 2022). The study of news topics reveals the true purposes of rhetorical invention, as was noted in Section 2.
According to the analysis of the keywords, the topics of COVID-19 news on IZ are generally classified into three categories: (1) the COVID-19 epidemic itself, including information about cases, virus, time and places of the outbreak, the origin, and progress of the epidemic, as indicated in keywords such as Hangzhou, confirmed, omicron, asymptomatic, imported, epidemic, citywide. As is shown in Table 1, geographical names were used frequently. Most of them are Zhejiang province cities or districts that were once affected by the epidemic, such as Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Ningbo, Shangyu (a district in Shaoxing city), Binjiang (a district in Hangzhou), Yiwu, Jinhua, Wenzhou, Huzhou, Taizhou, etc. Other areas outside Zhejiang province were also included in the coverage of COVID-19 news, such as HKSAR, Tianjin, Henan, Guangxi, Suzhou, Guangdong, and Xianyang. These areas had all experienced relatively serious outbreaks of the epidemic at some point. All these keywords indicate that IZ mainly delivered information about the epidemic situation of COVID-19 in the country, particularly the occasional outbreaks in the cities within Zhejiang province to raise the public's awareness of the epidemic situation.
(2) epidemic prevention and control, as is shown by the usage of keywords such as anti-epidemic, zero-COVID, quarantine, anti-pandemic, closed-loop, and closed-off. A closer look at the keyword concordances, taking Hangzhou as an example in Figure 1, reveals that the contents were concerned with not only control and prevention measures but also the restoration of living orders. This is evidenced by phrases from the context such as launched a platform, gradually resume, no longer required to, etc., which shows the effort and sense of responsibility of the Zhejiang government.

Figure 1. Concordances of the keyword Hangzhou
(3) comments on the epidemic's prevention measures and the spirit of citizenship shared by all. From the concordances of Hangzhou (No. 8,9,16,and 17), it can be seen that the news reports conveyed a positive attitude towards the epidemic, applauding the efficiency of the measures, the resolute determination of the citizens, and the compassion shared by Zhejiang residents throughout the epidemic.
Through these topics, it can be seen that the COVID-19 news on IZ is a timely response to the outbreak of the epidemic at various times. The COVID-19 news on IZ provided timely and transparent information about the epidemic situation, mostly in the province and in certain other parts of the country. By covering this topic, Zhejiang's official media aimed to show the effort and sense of responsibility of the Zhejiang government while informing its citizens-both locals and foreigners-about the epidemic in an open and transparent manner. Additionally, the media intended to inspire the citizens of the outbreak cities to adhere to the prevention policies and fight the epidemic collectively by publicizing the prevention and control measures, ensuring the efficient implementation of these measures. On the last topic, IZ has conveyed a positive attitude towards epidemic prevention, complimenting the effort and achievements in fighting the epidemic as well as the dedication of ordinary citizens and boosting people's morale to overcome the difficulties.

Rhetorical Strategies
To study the rhetorical strategies of the COVID-19 news on IZ, this study ran a textual analysis through high-frequency words (lemma) of various parts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, from the corpus of In Zhejiang. They were then divided into three categories that correspond to the three rhetorical appeals, ethos, logos, and pathos, as shown in Table 2. The context was also examined through the concordances to reveal how these three appeals were used in COVID-19 news respectively. Functional words were removed.  (27); help (20); prevent (15); control (15); contain (14); strengthen (14); adjective medical (53); good (18) effective (17) anti-epidemic (15); low (14); adverb quickly (11); fully (9); completely (7); (1) For the appeal of ethos, the lexicon comprises words associated with trust, authorities, and sources of credibility and trustworthiness. First, as the official website of Zhejiang province, IZ represents the Zhejiang government and many Zhejiang citizens, and thus it is naturally endowed with the authorities of the Zhejiang government and people. With words such as Zhejiang, government, people, authority, policy, provincial, municipal, and report, the news media IZ has invoked its ethos as the authorized channel for Zhejiang residents to obtain creditable information regarding the COVID-19 situation in Zhejiang. Second, the news has also constructed the ethos by appropriating the authority of other agents such as experts and professionals to convince the audience, as is displayed in words such as experts, official, committee, university, and research. A further investigation of the concordances of the lemma say in Figure 2 also shows that the ethos was constructed from a variety of sources, including a foreign science journalist, health experts, senior officials, epidemiologists, a foreign spokesman, and ordinary people who have first-hand experience. By doing this, the news outlet IZ not only established the credibility and truthfulness of its reporting but also a closer psychological distance from the audience.

Figure 2. Concordances of the lemma say
(2) For the appeal of logos, the lexicon includes informative and factual content, such as words related to numbers, places, time, and quotations. First, as is shown in Table 2, numbers, words of places, and time were frequently used when the news described the COVID-19 cases in the current situation, making the news reports more precise and objective. Second, quotations were also used to support the arguments in the news, as is indicated in the words say, report, and accord. Third, the news texts on IZ reveal that logical reasoning, including enthymeme and examples, was commonly used when the news intended to establish or refute an idea. In general, the news presented an assumption or a counter-argument, then conducted reasoning through data, examples, and quotations to support its opinion. For instance, in the news article titled "Every country will have the right to manage the pandemic in the way that fits, veteran scientist journalist Debora, Mackenzie says," a counter-argument was first presented, which assumed that "omicron is not serious and can be treated like flu, thus we can lift restrictions on the virus." This argument is composed of two premises and a conclusion, presented in Figure 3. The first premise is that "omicron is not that serious, which can be treated like flu" and the other implied premise is that "strict regulations on the pandemic will hinder the economic recovery and further affect people's happiness, leading to the conclusion that "we should lift restrictions on the virus to make people happy." The news on IZ refuted the argument by first disproving the first premise, demonstrating that COVID is far worse than flu and causes more harm to human health, as supported by evidence quoted from Mackenzie, a science journalist with expertise in disease reporting, and a study published by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Next, the article also refuted the second premise, stating that "China regards people's lives to be the top priority, and we are working on a balance between economic recovery and pandemic management." The news then discredited the assumption's conclusion and established its own conclusion that China has the right to choose her own way to curb the pandemic in our country and that our measures towards COVID-19 have been proven effective based on our national circumstances, which is the true purpose of this piece of news. (3) For pathos, the COVID-19 news on IZ generally appeals to the positive emotions of the audience. The lexicon of pathos includes: a) words relieving people's anxiety. For instance, the use of words such as prevention, prevent, control, contain, and low indicated that the news was intended to reassure the citizens that the epidemic was basically under control. The words measure, treatment, medical, and help showed that positive measures were taken to control the infection and cure the patients. And as can be seen from the concordances of the lemma ensure in Figure 4, the news was delivering the message that the people and pets involved were well taken care of and that living orders were being restored. News of this kind reassured people that the government and society were doing everything to safeguard people's lives and restore the living order, thus reducing public panic and stabilizing people's minds.  China has the right to choose her own way to curb the pandemic in our country We are working on a balance b) words boosting people's morale to defeat the epidemic together, such as strengthen, effective, anti-epidemic, quickly, fully, and completely. This type of news suggested that strong efforts had been taken to contain the outbreak and that we had achieved some progress, strengthening people's confidence in our ability to combat the disease. c) words arousing people's compassion, kindness, and sense of community, such as help and volunteer. The concordances of volunteer in Figure 5 show that the COVID-19 news on IZ has honored the contributions made by people from all walks of life such as doctors, police, community staff, volunteers, etc., demonstrating how people were united together to overcome the difficulties and the compassion and kindness people shared during the epidemic and thereby awakening the citizens' sense of the united community, which was articulately expressed in the following extract: "An MV called 'This is Love in Zhejiang' expressing love paid tribute to all the frontline workers, such as doctors, police, volunteers, and so on. Believe in Hangzhou speed, believe in love in Zhejiang!" ("Music video shows the Hangzhou speed and love amid the COVID-19 Pandemic", In Zhejiang, 4 February 2022) Figure 5. Concordances of the lemma volunteer

Style
From a rhetorical perspective, the style of news discourse is shaped based on its purpose, audience, and shared beliefs and values in a culture, as was stated in Section 2. First, in accordance with the above-mentioned rhetorical purposes for news reporting, the COVID-19 news on IZ adopted a positive discourse mode when reporting the epidemic, creating positive, cooperative, and harmonious images of society and people in all aspects. The positive aspects of epidemic prevention were highlighted, such as the coverage of the effective measures taken to curb the virus, the contributions from different social groups, and the kindness shared during difficult times. At the same time, positive words were employed to describe epidemic prevention, such as effective, quickly, completely, fully, etc.
Second, as the official media, the style of news on IZ primarily conforms to the conventions of Chinese journalism, in which news stories are reported in an objective and neutral manner, focusing on the groups and reflecting social responsibilities (Zhang et al., 2022). All these elements can be found in the COVID-19 news on IZ. According to the analysis of rhetorical strategies, logos and ethos played a more dominant place in the news, whereas emotion-laden words were used less frequently. The government and social groups were primarily covered while reporting on the measures and efforts are taken to combat the disease. Individual narratives were not emphasized. When reporting on the outbreak of the epidemic, the news focused on describing the epidemic itself, using more impartial and objective words such as cases, COVID-19, epidemic, omicron, and disease. This was particularly evident when the news reported the current status of the epidemic. Only factual information such as the number of cases, time, and cities involved was included, as in the following extract: "From 0:00 to 24:00 on May 5, 24 new local positive cases were reported in 11 cities in Zhejiang province, among which 23 cases were detected in centralized isolation sites and 1 case was detected in home isolation. Control measures have been implemented for all cases. Eleven cities reported 24 new asymptomatic cases (6 in Ningbo, 13 in Jiaxing, 1 in Jinhua, 3 in Taizhou, and 1 in Lishui)" ("Zhejiang reports 24 new local positive cases on May 5", In Zhejiang, 6 May 2022).
Third, as the official website of Zhejiang, the content and style of the COVID-19 news on IZ were characteristic of Chinese customs and local dimensions. However, as an important channel of international communication in Zhejiang, the audience of the website is not only limited to local residents but also includes foreign friends and potential partners. Since most of the news on IZ was translated from Chinese versions, which was noted in its original source, it is noticeable that the layout, language, and reporting style of the news cater more to the needs and tastes of domestic readers. For the foreign audience, especially the Western audience, who are accustomed to stimulating language, powerful scenes, and individual narratives (Ibid), the lengthy titles, unfamiliar syntactic structures, and a seemingly more authoritative tone derived from the translation sound less attractive to them. Even though photos were inserted in the news, they served more to illustrate than to engage the audience. These are the limitations of the English news on IZ.

Conclusion
The results reveal that since its establishment, IZ has provided timely and transparent news to inform the public about COVID-19. The analysis of the corpus shows that IZ focused on the delivery of information about the pandemic itself and prevention measures, conveying the determination and the spirit of the Zhejiang people to overcome the difficulties together, which reflected the media's social responsibility and functions to the public. The news employed rhetorical strategies, either consciously or unconsciously, to appeal to its audience while yet following the conventional pattern of Chinese journalism. Thus, the style of COVID-19 news on IZ was more adapted to the taste of Chinese readers. However, as an English official website, IZ also takes on a role in international communication. In this regard, more adaptions in reporting style and patterns should be made to appeal to a broader range of foreign audiences. In fact, since the outbreak of the epidemic, both the government and the civilian groups in Zhejiang Province have been disseminating knowledge and information about the epidemic through various channels and formats, with positive outcomes (Zhu & Liang, 2021). All of these can be used as rhetorical resources to appeal to a wider variety of international audiences and boost the effectiveness of international communication for future works.
The COVID-19 news on IZ was a rhetorical construction that responded to the COVID situation in Zhejiang province and China with its intended aims. As the study shows, rhetoric is essential to the construction of discourse at every stage, from the invention of the topic to the use of discursive strategies and the development of style. The rhetorical analysis of the COVID-19 news sheds light on how rhetoric works together with motivations in news discourse to affect the audience's reception of the complicated messages of public health events, raising the readers' awareness to interpret news discourse critically from a rhetorical perspective. Meanwhile, by demonstrating that news discourse is a rhetorical construction, this study strengthens the disciplinary link between rhetoric and news communication, providing implications for new media, especially Chinese media, to approach the audience rhetorically to enhance the persuasiveness of the new reports and a new framework for the study of the news of public health crises. On the other hand, the collection of COVID-19 news discourse on IZ is currently limited due to the recent establishment of the IZ website in 2021 and the fact that COVID-19 is still ongoing. Future studies are therefore recommended to use a longer timeline and a larger corpus to conduct more thorough and in-depth research.

Funding
This research is sponsored by the "General Research Project of Zhejiang Provincial Education Department" (Grant# Y202146510).