| Language serves as a means of communication and also a reflection of ideology in asociety. Critical Discourse Analysis evolving from Critical Linguistics, focuses on the integralstudy of the linguistic features as well as social and cultural backgrounds of discourse, andreveals power and ideology hidden in discourse. As an important form of non-literal discourse,news should show events and convey information objectively and impartially. However, newsreports are not always objective and impartial, subject to some factors like discourse power,mainstream ideologies, attitudes and opinions of journalists, and social and culturalbackgrounds. News has been widely regarded as the object of critical discourse analysis inrecent years.This thesis makes a comparative study of ten news reports on the Diaoyu Islands disputebetween China and Japan from Cable News Network (CNN) and China Daily (CD) respectively,bases itself on Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model and Halliday’s Systemic-FunctionalGrammar, and explores the two news agencies’ language, ideologies and attitudes on the DiaoyuIslands dispute respectively. On the description stage, this thesis takes transitivity and lexicalchoice from Systemic-Functional Grammar as direction to analyze the linguistic features anddisparities of the two news agencies respectively. On the interpretation stage, the thesis takesmodes of representation and modality as direction to research on the functions of journalistsfrom the two news agencies in the building process of news reports. On the explanation stage,this thesis takes contexts as direction to conduct an analysis of news reports of the two newsagencies from historical context, social and economic context, and political context and itfurther elaborates on ideological and attitudinal differences hidden in news reports.The findings of the thesis are in the following. Firstly, the combination of critical discourseanalysis and systemic-functional grammar can effectively analyze the ideological and politicaldifferences hidden in the news reports. Secondly, this research also proves that it is it isapplicable to analyze news reports on the Diaoyu Islands dispute from critical discourseanalysis perspective. Next, news reports are not objective and impartial, and are inevitablyaffected by the mainstream ideologies in the society and political stances in the country. Ideologies, attitudes and opinions hidden in news reports are reflections of a country’sideologies and politics. Last, there exists a great disparity in applying transitivity, lexical choice,modes of representation, and modality in news reports on the Diaoyu Islands dispute betweenthe two news agencies, and the thesis explains the reasons behind it from the social-cultureperspective. CNN shows the tendency to support Japan, while CD expresses a strong support toChina’s stance. As a capitalist country and Japan’s important ally, America claims freedom anddemocracy and pursues its maximized national interests. Being a socialist country, Chinaadvocates peace and development, and resolutely safeguards its national sovereignty andterritorial integrity... |
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