A Transitivity Analysis Of Sports News In A CDA Approach

The origin of critical discourse analysis can be traced back to the 1970s. During this period, a large number of linguists put forward their own understandings towards critical discourse analysis, and along with it plenty of competing theories about it have been advanced. Although critical discourse analysts have gradually observed that inconspicuous ideologies exist in various types of discourse and also made attempts to expose them, different critical analysts adopted diverse approaches. Despite the fact that Halliday's systemic functional grammar has been considered as one of these effective analytical tools to critical analysts, transitivity in ideational meta-function of systemic functional grammar has not been well utilized. Meanwhile, although a few researchers took news discourse as the corpus of their critical study, political and social news reports were the main focus of their research. However, as a type of news discourse, sports news did not attract much attention.Drawing on a selected script data concerned with the Paris leg of the Beijing Olympic torch relay from sports news reports in China Daily and The New York Times, the thesis presents a comparison of the applications of transitivity process types under the framework that consists of critical transitivity analysis and objective reporting. The research attempts to see through the distinctions to perceive the covert ideologies. In the analysis carried out in this thesis, the ideological meaning of the language in news reports which is also regarded as the so-called common-sense meaning has been exposed.The results of the data analysis demonstrate:due to different ideologies held by China Daily and The New York Times,the two newspapers differ in their choices of transitivity process types which could be embodied in the five operational approaches of objective reporting. Even if the principal process types are the same, positions of the participants and process types of the transitivity in the subordinate clause are quite different.On the basis of the above data analysis, the further study of the adoptions of transitivity process reveals:First, transitivity as a potential analytical tool could be exercised in a much wider area including sports news reports. Even sports news should be viewed as a kind of social practice and an embodiment of ideologies, rather than a natural phenomenon which emerges straight from reality and is neutral and value-free. Under the goal of objective reporting, China Daily and The New York Times differ in their respective choices of process types of transitivity in sports news reports. Second, the distinct adoptions of process types disclose that the different choices of process types of transitivity and the different ideologies involved in China Daily and The New York Times are significantly related. On the one hand, the utilizations of specific transitivity processes are decided by the ideologies represented by China Daily and The New York Times, which are effectively in accord with the ideologies of the Chinese and American governments respectively. On the other hand, standing with corresponding governments and being subject to their ideologies, China Daily and The New York Times seek to indoctrinate readers with their respective ideologies through a variety of news reports. All these adopted transitivity processes are dedicated to the construction of the same ideologies in readers'cognition so as to determine their stands towards certain matters. Third, the focus of the Chinese and American governments on the issue of Tibet falls on different aspects. The Chinese government considers it as an internal affair of China and would not allow any foreign country to interfere in it, while the American government takes it as a human rights issue that calls for help from the international community. It is the different ideologies that decide the different attitudes of China Daily and The New York Times towards the issue of Tibet and the distinct applications of transitivity processes in sports news.On the basis of the previous critical discourse studies, this research makes a contribution to the application of transitivity analysis, so as to raise students'critical awareness in English newspaper reading and cultivate students'critical ability in English language learning.