A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On "Appreciation Of RMB" In American Broadsheets

The issue of the appreciation of RMB has long been the concern of scholars from home and abroad in various fields, for it is essential not only to the economical development of China, but also the social stability. Furthermore, it is related to the peace and development of the whole world. From March in 2010, the conflict triggered by the"exchange rate of RMB"was sharpened seriously. America has been laying pressure on Chinese government to raise the value of RMB, in order to transfer the contradiction within the America, under the influence of the financial crisis.The present thesis adopts the linguistic perspective to analyze the news reports in American broadsheets on the appreciation of RMB, by means of critical discourse analysis (CDA). It intends to expose the hidden ideologies under the language surface to provide enlightenment for the Sino-America relationship and the Chinese currency policy. At the same time, the readers'critical awareness can be improved, to deeply recognize the nature of American hegemony and power politics.Based on Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar, the analysis process is divided into three stages, according to Fairclough's three-dimensional model. The eleven chosen samples are from the websites of the American broadsheets, the www.nytimes.com, www.washingtonpost.com, www.latimes.com.In the first stage, transitivity and grammatical metaphor are adopted as analytical tools, to study the process of clauses, nominalization, metaphor of modality, and so on, in order to get conclusion on the common used process types and the means of ideology concealing. In the second stage, intertextuality is adopted to study the relationship between clauses and the formation of the coherent discourses. The quoting clauses are analyzed in perspective of news source and reporting mode, in order to perceive the hidden meaning under the linguistic surface. The third stage is to explain the relationship between discourse and the social, cultural factors, which is the practical significance of this thesis.The research findings show that although the news reports are claimed to be objective and unbiased, they are influenced by the ideologies and thoughts of certain interest groups. In the eleven chosen news reports, all kinds of linguistic devices have been used to construct an American government image of peace and democracy and to conceal its hegemonic ideas and politics. To see through the nature is important for China to maintain its independence and development.