A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Ideology In Kung Fu Panda

Researchers in critical discourse analysis (CDA) hold the view that no language use is completely neutral or objective; in other words, it is always ideological in some way. CDA aims at exploring the relation between language, power and ideology. Since its birth, it has been widely adopted by linguists to carry out critical research on public discourse, especially news reports, political speeches, etc, but it has seldom been applied to investigate ideology in children's world. In fact, writing for children is usually purposeful, its intention being to implant appreciations of certain kinds of social values in children readers; to put it another way, children fictions, including fairy tales, film fictions and so forth, can also be ideological. Therefore, it deserves to do a critical analysis of children fictions.The present thesis is grounded in CDA, and makes an attempt to investigate ideology in children's world. The data chosen for the study is Dreamworks's animated film Kung Fu Panda. Norman Fairclough's three-dimensional model is adopted as the analytical framework. The analysis is done by following the three steps of the model:description, interpretation and explanation. At the description stage, a descriptive analysis of the text is done in terms of wording, grammar, cohesion and textual structure. Formal properties of language use are gained through the analysis; at the second stage of interpretation, the interaction between participants of the discourse, specifically the publishing companies, the playwrights and the audience, are learned by analyzing the production, distribution, and consumption of the discourse. Based on the first two descriptive and interpretive stages, the last stage explanation puts the discourse in social context and studies the social determinants and effects of the discourse. The results of the analysis show that two kinds of American ideology are reflected in Kung Fu Panda: the spirit of American dreams and individualistic heroism.The significance of the study lies in both theoretical and practical sides. On the theoretical side, the study has suggested and proved that ideology does exist in children fictions. Indeed, all kinds of language use are ideology-branded. This can enrich CDA theories and expand its research topics. Meanwhile, it can also provide linguists an effective way to study ideology in children's world. On the practical side, to readers or audience, it may arouse their language sensitivity and awareness of ideological control; to parents and teachers, they may pay more attention to the importance of guidance in children's ideological formation and be more careful about educational techniques; to film-makers and children fiction writers, they may learn how to create better works that have more positive influence on children.