A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports On "the Chinese Baby Formula Scandal" In The New York Times

The present thesis analyzes 15 news reports on the Chinese baby formula scandal from The New York Times under Fairclough's three-dimensional model aided by the analytical tools in Halliday's interpersonal metafunction. The research aims to enrich studies on critical discourse analysis and enhance the dialogue between linguistics and sociology by disclosing the implicit ideologies underlying seemingly objective news discourses through the major analytical tools of Mood and Modality.Chapter 1 introduces the research purpose and research questions, the realistic and theoretical significance of the study, methodology of the study and the organization of the thesis. Chapter 2 presents a brief literature review of previous studies on CDA from home and abroad. Since the originality of the study lies in its transdisciplinary character, some relevant studies in other fields are also reviewed in this chapter. Confined by the length of the thesis, only the most relevant transdisciplinary information to the event are considered, namely, the studies on brand crisis and food safety. This transdisciplinary information can facilitate the explanation of linguistic phenomenon and promotes the dialogue between present study and sociology. Chapter 3 elaborates the theoretical framework of Fairclough's three-dimensional model and Mood & Modality within Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Mood & Modality are the major analytical tools of the present study and their application is clearly demonstrated in Chapter 4. Chapter 4 involves a detailed analysis of the 15 news reports from The New York Times. The linguistic tool of Mood & Modality in Halliday's interpersonal metafunction are applied to uncover the linguistic characteristics of the data, these linguistic features are described by words or demonstrated by descriptive statistics. Then, these linguistic features are compared with the generic features of news reports, as the data are, strictly speaking, economic news– a sub-genre of news discourses. Finally, the linguistic features or the specific reporting modes are explained by taking the background information of the event and relevant transdisciplinary studies into consideration. Chapter 5 concludes the major findings, contributions and limitations of the present study and makes suggestions for further studies.The present study demonstrates the existence of power relations and ideological inclinations underneath the specific reporting pattern as the purpose of news report is not solely to inform the public with updated news but to influence the readers'ideological inclinations and to mind-control them. By taking the linguistic level as starting point of study on specific event under linguistic theoretical framework, on the one hand, the thesis has expanded the application scope of Halliday's interpersonal metafunction and Fairclough's three-dimensional model; on the other hand, the constructed roles of various participants in the Chinese baby formula scandal in The New York Times and the corresponding ideological factors have been obtained after detailed data analysis under Fairclough's three dimensional model and aided by the background information and relevant transdisciplinary studies, in this specific undertaking of critical discourse analysis, suggestions on foreign language teaching for the reinforcement of students'critical awareness are also raised.