The Features Of Internet English News Text (IENT) Viewed From The Perspective Of Language Metafunctions

With the development of science and technology, internet has become one of the media featuring the speediest and the widest information transmission. It serves as a major channel for the public to acquire English news information. As a special type of writing, internet English news (IEN) has attracted more and more attention of linguists and scholars from both China and foreign countries. Most of them are engaged in the research on its lexico-grammatical as well as rhetorical features, while some devote themselves to the study of its cohesion and textual coherence. Based on the previous achievements, the thesis analyzes, from a new perspective—language metafunctions, features of the internet English news text (IENT), namely, saliency of language style, interactivity and coherence.Halliday holds that human's requirements of language determine its functions, which can be concluded into more abstract metafunctions: experiential function, interpersonal function and textual function. The experiential function of language is carried out by the transitivity of text; the interpersonal function mainly deals with speech functions and modality; while the textual function focuses on semantic coherence achieved via the thematic structure and cohesion. It is due to the role the three metafunctions play that IEN is popularly accepted by the majority of readers.In an IEN text, its language style is protruded via the transitivity system of the text. In the transitivity system of an IEN text, most of its processes are material. Supplemented with verbal and relational processes, the material processes greatly protrude the accuracy and objectivity of IEN language and make the news reports dynamic and logical to readers. Furthermore, neologisms and informal expressions flourish in the IEN reports, which is not very commonly seen in newspapers. Compared with newspaper language, IENT language is more versatile and flexible, and greatly highlights the freedom and informality of its language style.The interactivity of IENT reflects the active interaction between the writer and the reader, which is usually manifested in the speech functions and modality. The interactivity is realized in a "question-statement" mode, a "dialogue" between the writer and the readers in the process of the IENT production and interpretation. When constructing a news text, the writer not only answers the questions of 5 Ws + H that the readers may raise in his report, but also foresees the information gap between the readers and himself, and establishes common knowledge for the readers' interpretation. Meanwhile, the modality of IEN language shows the writer's responsibility for what he reports to the readers. He is supposed to objectivize and neutralize his news report by adopting appropriate modality (usually at medium or low modal degree) for readers' acceptance.The textual function of IENT is mainly embodied in the coherence of its news text. A proper thematic progression pattern is one of the important means applied for the news text to achieve textual coherence. According to the research, IENT often adopts three patterns of thematic progression—parallel, centralized and derived—to illuminate and to thematize the topic of the news report so as to ensure its semantic coherence. For example, in the news texts regarding to business or science and technology, the parallel pattern may well clarify the semantic relations between sentences and highlight the theme of the report. Thus, even non-specialists can get a good comprehension of the main ideas of the news which is actually not within their domain.Being one of the most influential media, IEN owns a large number of readers. Accordingly, multifarious studies of IEN have become a must. Therefore, the thesis is of considerable significance to the study of the features of IENT from the perspective of language metafunctions. Grounding on the results of earlier researches, the thesis systematically analyzes IEN textual features at a deeper level and discusses its textual organization and arrangement. It hereby reveals the rules and regularities of the language application and the construction of the IENT. The author hopes that the achievement made in the thesis would help discourse analysts probe into the features of IENT as well as its linguistic functions, and assist sociolinguists in their exploration of the linguistic and cultural background of IEN. The author also hopes that the research could guide English learners to a better interpretation of IEN reports, thereby they could improve their abilities of reading and writing online. Moreover, it may aid those who want to be an IEN writer in constructing IEN texts successfully.