A Contrastive Study Of The Reports Of Libya War In New York Times And China Daily Based On Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model

News transmission is increasingly becoming an essential part in people’s daily life. Traditionally, new media is regarded as an institution with a just and objective attitude in reporting news. However, more and more studies have begun to realize that as a carrier of information transfer, language in news discourse has not only provided message, but also implied some particular viewpoints and attitudes of the media. The relevant studies have drawn much attention of a multitude of scholars from various parts. Among them, critical discourse analysis (CDA) which is developed from critical linguistics and is intended to explore the deeper relationships between language, power and ideology, has been considered as one of the important analysis models in the studies of news discourse.As one of the hot spot issues in the world, Libya war has gotten widely attention of all the countries. Due to different political standpoints, the United States and China have diverse opinions towards Libya war. As the crucial news presses of each nation, New York Times and China Daily to some extent can be taken as representative of the two nations’medias.Based on a dialectical and constructive view of language, Fairclough’s three-dimensional model has offered a systemic and comprehensive approach for news discourse analysis. By applying this model as the theoretical framework, together with Halliday’s functional grammar:ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function as a useful analysis tool, the author intends to make a critical contrastive analysis of the twenty news reports on Libya war collected from New York Times and China Daily from three aspects:linguistic practice, discursive practice and social practice. In linguistic practice, the ideational diverse of the two presses has been investigated from transitivity and classification; the interpersonal differences has been examined from modality; the textual part has been conducted from thematic choice. In discursive practice, the differences in news source and reporting modes have been interpreted from the view of news discourse production. In social practice, the explanation of these differences has been explored by the relevant institutional context of the two presses and international social context concerning Libya war. From the above three levels of analysis, the deep-rooted relationships between language, power and ideology of these reports as well as the particular manners for the media to infiltrate its political standing points into news reports could be revealed. What is more, the research could also benefit people in understanding the hidden discourse power and ideologies of news discourse.The study has shown that the reports on Libya war published by the two presses, New York Times and China Daily are really different. New York Times keeps to the stand of NATO who is led by US and France and tends to support Libya rebels. While China Daily is not in favor of NATO’s military action and remains neutral in Libya war, except for some sympathy for Libya government and people who suffered a lot from the war. As a matter of fact, the two medias’different attitudes towards Libya war are primarily taken from US and Chinese governments. Influenced by state power, news media consciously emphasizes certain contents when transferring reports to shape the audience’s ideology. Thereby, the readers should improve their screening and critical thinking ability so as to be more sensitive to the ideological implications in their news reading.