A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On Paris Terror Attacks Of 2015 In Mainstream Media Of China And America

In the 1970s, linguists began to pay attention to the phenomenon of social power in language. The emergence and explanation of discourses,as well as the relationship between discourses and social structure attracted people’s interest. And with the help of some linguists, critical discourse analysis came into being. As a tool of linguistics, its primary goal is to dig out and reveal a variety of ideologies through strategies in texts, especially the things people may ignore, such as distortions,prejudice and discriminations in discourses, social backgrounds and power struggle. Critical discourse analysis provides a new method to study news. Fairclough made a great contribution to critical discourse analysis, and his Three-Dimensional Model theory was adopted in this thesis. It is important to note that linguists choose different methods to study language and social structures, but most researches adopted from Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar theory. The reason is that Systemic-Functional Grammar regards language as a symbol established in the form of layers. The meaning and expression of language are adjusted by vocabulary and grammar, then the contact with external context factors is established. This thesis will adopt Halliday’s Functional Grammar.On November 13, 2015, three teams of terrorists assaulted six locations throughout the French capital - Paris. 197 people were killed,352 people were injured, with dozens left in critical condition. As the worst violence in France since World War II, it paralyzed Paris. French President Francois Hollande said it was an unprecedented terror attack,and declared a state of emergency. Paris raised on the highest terror alert since World War II. The attack caused widespread concern around the world.Twenty news reports on Paris terror attacks are selected from The Washington Post, The New York Times, China Daily and Global Times.With Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model and Halliday’s Functional Grammar, a comparative analysis will be done between America’s media and China’s media. This thesis provides a comprehensive treatment of the news discourse from the perspective of critical discourse analysis, trying to reveal the interactions between the news discourse, power and ideology, and how the discourse functions ideologically in the construction of social belief.The analysis manifests the differences between America’s media and China’s media about the same event. On the descriptive stage, by analyzing transitivity and modality, it is seen that America’s media paid more attention to its own interest and its Middle East policy, while China’s media focuses on various attitudes and brings out ordinary people’s determination to fight with terrorists. On the interpretative stage, by analyzing news sources and reporting modes, America’s media often blurs the information provider’s identity, but at the same time,China’s media shows the people’s identities and the agencies they work for in detail. On the explanative stage, by analyzing the institutional context and domestic and international backgrounds of the Paris terror attacks, America’s media tends to consider its own interests from political, economic and military aspects, while China’s media shows the image of China, adheres to the Principle of Peaceful Coexistence, and shows sympathy for those who suffer from the events.