| Transitivity approach to discourse analysis began in the early 1970s when M.A.K. Halliday made a transitivity analysis of William Golding's novel The Inheritors. Then, transitivity analysis has been applied to various types of discourse for decades. Most of the past research is on literary works. However, news text, as a type of public mass media discourse, has aroused more and more linguists' interest in recent years. The present study will be on the transitivity analysis of crime news texts in English newspapers.In earlier study of news texts, transitivity analysis was usually confined to the comparison between the headlines or single clauses of two pieces of selected news. It seems that transitivity analysis, of these previous works, of news texts need to be expanded upon. Intending to further explore the transitivity analysis in news texts, the thesis tries to prove that the quantitative study of transitivity can be applied to analyzing crime news texts in order to fulfill the objectivity of working out the transitivity features of crime news and thus revealing the pragmatic functions of transitivity types in crime news texts.Throughout the quantitative transitivity analysis and discussion of 8 crime news texts which are selected from three elite American and British newspapers, the aim of the study has been achieved: the four main process types occur almost regularly in certain parts of crime news texts, and the participants to each transitivity type usually occur regularly. Moreover, the pragmatic functions of each transitivity type in crime news are revealed along with the analysis.Material processes are frequently attributed to the suspects to reveal their criminal activities. Most of verbal processes take the authority as the Speaker, denoting that the main information source is the authority, and their status and importance are enhanced in this way. Mental processes may take any party in the news as the Senser, while nearly all the Phenomena are usually concerned with the suspects, in order to supply adequate evidence in convicting or capturing the suspects. Relational processes mayevoke the readers' interest in the news story by offering the background information and the descriptions of the state in which the protagonists of the news are.Recognizing transitivity patterns in crime news texts is the first important step to being able to decode the hidden meanings. Once they have been made visible, then texts become clearer in their ideological and other orientations and it is easier to start explaining why some choices might be 'better' or 'worse' than others.It is hoped that after reading this paper, English newspaper readers can raise the awareness of perceiving unconscious viewpoints in news texts and be guided to have deeper cognition towards news and penetrate the language itself. |
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