Linguistic Representation Of The Ideological Elements

Modern society has witnessed the increasingly important and indispensable role of mass media in daily life. The publication frequency and modes of distribution encourage people to habituate themselves to consuming newspapers as a fixed part of their daily routine. For the majority of people, reading daily newspapers makes up their most substantial and significant consumption of printed discourse, which is second only to television as a window to the outside world.As an important means of communication and a particular type of news discourse, international political news report (IPNR) serves the source of international information, mouthpiece of domain ideology, as well as a shaper of perception, behavior and institutions. Therefore, IPNR deserves the particular concern of critical discourse analysis (CDA), thanks to these functions.The ideology embedded in language is characterized by the opacity and obscurity.Therefore, news reports may seem quite objective and impartial, but implicitly express different ideological meanings in a roundabout way and exert subtle influences on the readers. CDA researchers and adherents have displayed deep interest, devoted to the study of the hidden ideology with a view to denaturalizing those ideological elements in news discourse. In their previous researches, few have conducted the critical discourse analysis of IPNR; relevant studies in China are particularly rare. The present research is intended to contribute to the currently developing field of the IPNR discourse. It is an attempt to explore the linguistic representation of ideological elements in IPNR discourse from the perspective of critical discourse analysis and meanwhile, to shed some light on the cultivation of critical awareness in language teaching and learning.The thesis is mainly composed of four chapters. Chapter 1 is a literature review of previous studies on IPNR discourses. A retrospection of the development of the studies on news discourses in general at home and abroad is conducted at the start of the literature review. Chapter 2 deals with the theoretical framework and research design adopted in the critical study on IPNR discourse. Fairclough's Three-Dimensional Model (TDM) as well as Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar (SFG) is explicated respectively. Chapter 3 is devoted to the critical study of IPNR about 15 British sailors'detention by Iran from highly representative newspapers The New York Times and People's Daily in US and China. The practical analysis is conducted from the three-dimensional perspective—text, discursive practice and social practice. Chapter 4 concerns conclusion drawn from the critical analysis of the IPNR discourse and implications for IPNR discourse teaching and learning as well as translation practice.The significance of this study lies in its linguistic analysis of IPNR discourse and in its revelation of the ideologies expressed in the sampled discourses under certain social contexts.This study appears rather preliminary and tentative in nature, however, it is still hoped that it can offer modest contribution to the current research of IPNR discourse.