A CDA Approach To The News Reports On Gaza Conflict

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a new branch in linguistic analysis which combines the achievements of scientific research in the field of linguistics, psychology, the mass media etc. in the study of language use. Ever since the birth of CDA, numerous practitioners have displayed great interest in media discourse and devoted their attention to news discourse in particular. News discourse is a specific type of media discourse. In this thesis, the author intends to make a detailed analysis of the news discourse from the media of two conflicting parties in order to demonstrate the inseparable relationship between language and ideology.The present thesis is mainly based on Fairclough's three-dimensional model which provides the major theoretical framework, and Halliday's systemic functional grammar (SFG) which provides the specific analytical tools. Within the framework of CDA, ten news reports concerning Gaza Conflict on December 27, 2008 are extracted from Ma 'an News Agency in Palestine and Haaretz in Israel, and a comparative analysis of them is conducted in order to identify the major differences in the discourse representation and the diverse ideologies hidden. Corresponding to the three-dimensional model of CDA, the sampled news reports are analyzed at three different levels: the textual level, the discursive level and the social practice level. Through the specific tools of lexical classification, transitivity and intertextuality, the thesis attempts to identify and decode the ideologies embedded in the news reports.Following a close comparative analysis of the ten news reports concerning Gaza Conflict, similarities in the distribution of process types and discourse representation modes can be found. However, striking differences in the lexical classification and news sources can also be identified. Those discrepancies, embedded in various textual strategies and discursive practices, illustrate that news discourse is not neutral, transparent or objective. News discourse is determined by the underlying ideologies and social contexts, and in turn contributes to the maintenance and reproduction of ideological assumptions. The findings of this study are consistent with those of the studies conducted by the previous CDA practitioners. They also testify that Fairclough's three-dimensional model is applicable in the comparative study of news reports from different sources and the framework of CDA is a powerful instrument to uncover the relationship between language and ideology.The findings have some practical, especially pedagogical implications. The findings reveal that it is necessary to raise the critical language awareness of ordinary people when they are reading news reports, so that they will be able to read critically, have a thorough understanding of the news events, and realize the ideologies hidden. The findings also provide a suggestion that in language teaching, the study of the social and cultural contexts should be included, and critical reading skills of the English learners should be trained and enhanced in order to ensure students can become familiar with some naturalized linguistic strategies applied in news reports which reflect the ideologies embedded.