Empirical Study On The Cultural Differences Between Chinese And American News Leads

News leads refer to the beginning paragraphs of a news report, delivering the most important information of a news event. The structure of news leads includes six elements: what, when, who, where, why and how. This paper starts with a review of the literatures concerned with the study of news discourse and cultural studies to introduce the structural study on American and Chinese news leads from an intercultural perspective. Based on the framework developed by Bell (1991),50 Chinese news leads from"Can Kao Xiao Xi","Wen Hui Bao","People's Daily"and 50 American news leads from"The New York Times","Christian Science Monitor"were analyzed through the mixed study of qualitative study and quantitative methods with a descriptive approach. Features of 6 elements in the model structure of news leads (action, actor, setting, background, commentary and follow-up) were analyzed respectively by examining the distribution, type, social functions and preferred choices in American and Chinese news leads, attempting to reveal that structures of news leads are constructed with cultural difference entrenched. Results of this study suggest a cultural preference of different elements. News actors were addressed with preference to individuals in American news leads while with authorities in Chinese news leads. News actions were developed in explicit referred places with different time structure in American news leads. A larger spatial sphere is used to develop actions in Chinese news leads. Among news background, commentary and follow-up, American news leads prefer commentary while background is most preferred in Chinese news leads. The result of the study can be applied to facilitating the second language teaching and enhancing the cultural awareness of the second language learners.