A Study Of Intertextuality In China-Related Environmental News Discourse In The New York Times:Perspective Of Critical Discourse Analysis

Intertextuality is one of the immanent attributes of a text,referring to a text containing the words or indeed fragments of other texts.As intertextuality studies combine text analysis with social context,critical discourse analysis,which focuses on the interaction between language and society,provides an effective analytical model for its study.At present,the intertextuality research of news discourse from the perspective of critical discourse analysis pays more attention to specific intertextuality,especially reported speech.Such research,however,mostly focuses on the form of reported speech and ignores the connotation of the reported content.As such,this paper collected news reports from The New York Times on China’s environment from October 14,2017,to November 30,2022,and established a corpus to examine relevant reported speeches.Based on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model,this paper studied the specific intertextuality incorporating the category of “topoi”,and intends to answer the following three research questions:(1)What is the distribution characteristic of specific intertextuality in China-related environmental news discourse in The New York Times?(2)How do the topoi employed in the high-frequency specific intertextuality reflect the views and attitudes in China-related environmental news discourse?(3)How does the social context influence the views and attitudes implied in China-related environmental news discourse in The New York Times?The results of these three questions are as follows:(1)In terms of reporting modes,the frequency of indirect speech in news coverage is much higher than that of direct speech.In terms of news sources,party and government agencies appear most prevalently,followed by experts and scholars,enterprises and companies,and the general public.The voices of journalists and media,and social groups,were relatively less reported.In terms of source clarity,the frequency of unspecified sources is slightly higher than that of specified sources.Indirect speech from the party and government,specified direct speech from experts and scholars,indirect speech from experts and scholars,specified direct speech from enterprises and companies,and specified direct speech from the general public are the most common categories of the reported speech in the corpus.(2)Topoi such as “threat”,“justice”,“responsibility” and “burdening” are mostly employed in the above common categories of the reported speech.The content of the reported speech justifies the negative other presentation of China,implying that the Chinese government has insufficient governance capacity in environmental protection,and develops the economy at the expense of the environment.However,the study also found that some of the reported speeches employ the topos of “advantage” and the content positively represented China’s environmental governance from a long-term and comprehensive perspective.(3)The social context accounting for the views and attitudes is discussed in three aspects.From the perspective of U.S.policy toward China,the “China threat” theory affects the underlying attitudes and views in The New York Times.From the perspective of the value orientation of American journalism,the political orientation consistent with national interests,and the pursuit of economic interests contribute to negative reports on China’s environmental governance.From the perspective of China’s practice of environmental diplomacy,China actively participates in international environmental governance,allowing the world to see China’s factual governance process,and promoting overseas entities to actively speak out for China’s achievements in environmental governance.This paper,as a case study,supports the feasibility and effectiveness of the incorporation of critical discourse analysis and intertextuality research and provides a new perspective for the analysis of the persuasive connotation of intertextuality.In addition,by understanding the views and attitudes implied by The New York Times China-related environmental news,China can better adjust its external communication strategy so that more international audiences can see authentic and comprehensive Chinese stories.