A Contrastive Study Of News Reports On COVID-19 Pandemic In Chinese And Foreign Media From The Perspective Of Transitivity System

Since the COVID-19 outbreak was declared as a public health emergency of international concern,the global pandemic situation and progress have attracted extensive attention from media in various countries.In the crisis of public health emergency,mass media play a significant role in disseminating pandemic information,assisting in pandemic prevention and control,and creating a social atmosphere.Most of relevant researches focus on the framework of pandemic news reports,the agenda setting of COVID-19 coverage and the construction of emergency language services,but less compare pandemic news reports of various countries from the perspective of transitivity system.This thesis selects sixty-five reports on the COVID-19 pandemic in three mainstream newspapers of China Daily,The Guardian and New York Times as the research corpus,and employs Halliday’s transitivity system as the analysis tool.By means of quantitative analysis and quantitative analysis,selected news reports are examined and three questions are answered.First,what is the overall distribution of thematic words and transitivity system in news reports about COVID-19 pandemic of China Daily,The Guardian and New York Times? Second,what are differences in reporting focuses reflected by the distribution of transitivity system in news reports about COVID-19 pandemic? Third,what beliefs and ideologies are reflected by the differences in China Daily,The Guardian and New York Times news reports?The result shows: First,in terms of thematic words,three media mainly construct pandemic news reports about the two major themes of global pandemic situation and people’s health and safety.In addition,“prevention” and “control” in China Daily indicate that China actively takes measures to fight against pandemic;“lockdown” and “restriction” in The Guardian demonstrate three times national lockdowns caused by unreasonable policies;“impact” and “economy” in New York Times discuss the impact and crisis brought about by the pandemic;In terms of transitivity system,three media demonstrate similar distribution features.Material process accounts for the highest proportion,showing various pandemic prevention measures and progress,followed by verbal process,relational process and mental process,recording various speeches,relationships and experiences under the background of pandemic,while the existential process and behavioral process appear few times.When it comes to specific distribution,compared with another two,New York Times takes up the highest proportion of material process and mental process,China Daily applies the highest proportion of verbal process,and The Guardian employs the highest proportion of relational process.Second,by comparing transitivity process in three media,it is found that China Daily presents all kinds of efforts made by government,private individuals and groups through adopting material process.Verbal process creates a good opinion atmosphere for the progress of anti-epidemic works,relational process provides the public with epidemic-related knowledge and expert interpretation and mental process stimulates people’s confidence and expectation for future life;The Guardian points out major issues in fighting against pandemic with material process and responds to the concerns of the public with verbal process.At the same time,relational process and mental process explore the feasibility of anti-epidemic policies,hoping that government and public would change their negative anti-epidemic attitude;Material process in New York Times covers up American unfavorable pandemic condition by discrediting other countries.Verbal process interprets government’s anti-epidemic policies.And relational process as well as mental process emphasize bad influence on economy and society brought by pandemic.Third,China Daily is an important window for Chinese government’s external communication,showing the Chinese government’s spirit of people first and life first,as well as its firm confidence and belief in overcoming the pandemic;The negative anti-pandemic attitudes and strategic mistakes of British government lead to a unfavorable pandemic situation in the UK,The Guardian takes a questioning attitude to trigger thinking and problem-solving;Affected by the new Cold War mentality and partisan struggle,the US pandemic has been getting worse and worse,New York Times unreasonably accuses China and WHO to shirk government’s responsibilities.