| Transitivity approach to discourse analysis can date back to the early1970s. It falls into two types: non-critical and critical discourse analysis (CDA). The non-critical discourse analysis originates from Halliday's transitivity analysis of William Golding's novel The Inheritors. This kind of analysis concentrates mainly on the form and distribution rule of language. The critical discourse analysis (CDA), an entirely new approach, has emerged and gained a firm foothold in recent years. It attempts to reveal how discourse is shaped by the power and ideology in human society, and how discourse exerts the constructive effects upon social identities, social relations and systems of knowledge. 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. So, analyzing the hard news, especially analyzing the'issue reports'of hard news from CDA point of view which has never analyzed before will expand Halliday's transitivity approach in critical discourse analysis and confirm the capacity of transitivity as an analytical tool by expanding its working possibilities.The paper is divided into five chapters. Chapterâ… is the'introduction'. The author first tells us the definition of the critical discourse analysis and the four main analytical tools of CDA. Then, the author introduces the purposes of the thesis. At last, the method and steps of transitivity analysis are presented in this thesis. Chapterâ…¡is the'literature review'. In this chapter, the author first expounds the transitivity system of Halliday. Halliday argues that"transitivity is the name given to a network of system whose point of origin is the'major'clause and"the transitivity systems are concerned with the types of process expressed in the clause, with the participants in this process, animate or inanimate, and with various attributes and circumstances of the process and participants". Language, discourse and ideology are three important issues in critical linguistics. The main aim of the last two sections is to show how they are defined and how critical linguists characterize their interrelationship in Chapterâ…¡. In chapterâ…¢, the author gives the definitions of news and hard news which are used as the analysis materials. This chapter together with Chapterâ…¡will lay down a comprehensive theoretical basis for the sample analysis in Chapter IV.Chapterâ…£is the'operational analysis of data'. This chapter is divided into four sections. In the first section, the author gives two principles in choosing data in CDA. In the second section, the definitions of'event stories','issue reports'and the differentiation between two categories are introduced. In third and fourth section, the materials chosen from the authoritative paper and website are analyzed one by one.In third section, the author analyzes three pairs of hard news which belong to the'event stories'. The first pair of selected news is concerned about the sentence of Saddam. We can see that in two pieces of news the material processes occupy the majority. That is because the material processes are used to describe the happening of an event, and the trial definitely needs a vivid portrayal. The fact that News One has more verbal processes than that in News Two implies that China wants to be unbiased in this matter through giving all-around information from different people, work units and officials. There are more relational processes in News One than that in News Two. As relational processes are to set up and clarify certain relationships, so we can see that America put more emphasis on the situation change of the pre-President of Iraq.News Three and News Four are news from the internet. They are the reports about the Russian spy Litvinenko's death. Comparing this pair of news, we can see that the proportion of material processes in News Three is lower. It shows that News Four tries to show how the British government is making efforts to find out the answers of this investigation. The fact that the percentage of verbal processes in News Three is a little higher shows that the Russian government takes many remarks into account to testify his innocent, since from the beginning, the public opinion is referring to the Russia, and condemning Russia for the assassination of the spy. So the report from Russia certainly contains more voices from many ways to prove its innocence.News Five and News Six are reports about the six-nation talks which aimed at persuading North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms program. By means of analyzing the processes in the two news, we can observe that higher ratio of verbal processes in News Six is to lead readers'thoughts to diverse directions. News Six wants to express the feelings of doubt and uncertainty, so lots of verbal processes are used to state this idea. However, China hopes that this negotiation has a perfect ending, so it tries to quote some active and objective words by the speakers. Taking the whole piece of news into consideration, we can observe the fact that the percentage of relational processes in News Five is higher than that in News Six .The reason is that with the development of North Korea in military force, America has to pays more attention; consequently, the more depictions and identifications of certain relational changes are emphasized on negotiation and situation. In News Five, America-related Actors occupy the majority. It is obvious that China considers that the United States plays the leading role. Because the United States imposed penalties on a bank in Macao in the previous six-nation talks in November 2005, the North Korea boycotted further negotiations. So China puts more emphasis on the role of America. Comparatively, the ratio of North Korea in News Six is higher than other participants. That indicates that America deems whether the satisfactory result will be achieved depends on the attitude of the North Korea.'Issue reports'are analyzed in the fourth section including two pairs of news. News Seven is Bush's comments about Iraq's confusion and mainly about whether the America should increase the troops to Iraq. News Eight is the pre-Secretary of State-Colin Powell's comments about the same problem. After analyzing those data, we find that the proportion of material processes in News Eight is lower and the percentage of relational processes in News Eight is relatively higher. That is to say that News Seven tries to show how those American troops in Iraq endeavor to keep peace and to show the activities taken by American officers in Iraq, which needs more description. However in News Eight, as Powell is not the decision-maker, he has no right to order. So he only expresses his opinion on the event. Thus, the percentage of relational processes is higher. Because in News Eight, many other American dignitaries'remarks are also taken into account, so the percentage of verbal processes in News Seven is a little higher. For the President wants to prove the rightness of his decision-makings, he needs those dignitaries who support him to speak.The last two news reports the state of the illness of Cuban President from different media. It is all known that the Cuba and Venezuela are allies against America. The ratio of material processes of News Nine is lower than that in News Ten. This fact suggests that News Ten presents more descriptions of people's actions in this affair. Relatively, the rate of relational processes in News Ten is higher. We can see that News Ten gives more considerations and judging to the relational changes after the leader Fidel Castro was ill. But in News Nine, Cuban President Castro pays more attention to his old ally's thinking and behavior which America has ignored. That is why the ratio of the mental and behavior processes is higher in News Nine.Chapterâ…¤is the conclusion of the whole thesis. The importance and limitation of the thesis are given. At the same time, some suggestions are also put forward for the future study.
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