| Originating in the1970s, Critical Discourse Analysis (abbreviated to CDA), whichfocuses on investigating the relationship among language, ideology and power, aims to bringhidden ideologies to the surface through detailed linguistic analysis. As a site of powerstruggle and ideology manipulation, news has always been the focus of studies within thefield of CDA. However, a brief review shows that most of the previous studies focus onpolitical-related news or news on such sensational events as war, disaster and sports, whileeconomy-related news, which is considered to be more neutral with reliable figures, has notbeen given enough attention right now.Recently, some researchers have begun to conducting studies concerning economic newsunder the guide of CDA. However, the universality of gained findings still need to be furtherproved by more researches due to the limitation of CDA as well as the on-going developmentof language and broad social contexts. Hence, on the basis of previous researches, the presentresearch tries to apply different analytical tools to investigate the relationship betweenlanguage and ideology reflected in new corpus. The author hopes that the findings cancorroborate and make mutual complement with existing researches.In this sense, the present research has chosen news concerning China’s economic growthin The New York Times as research object so as to explore whether there are some ideologicalmessages behind the selected news samples? If the answer is positive, how is language in thesamples employed to serve for the purpose of ideology investment? What are the possiblefactors contributing to such kind of a construction of these news discourses?In order to answer these research questions, the present research has analyzed thesamples following Fairclough’s three-dimensional framework stage by stage. After thesystematic analysis, the answers to the proposed research questions become clear.First of all, the present research finds that the samples concerning China’s economicgrowth are not totally value-free as claimed by the media practitioners. The rapid economic development of China is portrayed as a threat to relative interests of other nations and a maincause of world environmental problems. The selections of transitivity, modality at the textuallevel and representing modes, news sources, reporting verbs at the discursive level aresignificant in investing ideologies into language.Secondly, such kind of construction is influenced by the broad cultural andsocio-political contexts. Specifically speaking, the critical and commercial nature of Americamedia, the common sense of “manifest destiny” in American culture and the Americanhegemony in economical and political system are main factors affecting the newsconstruction.This thesis consists of5chapters. Chapter1is the introducing part, in which the researchbackground, the research purposes and research questions, the significance of the presentresearch as well as organization of the thesis have been stated sequentially. In Chapter2, theauthor has reviewed the related literature from three aspects: studies on news, studies on CDAand studies on news from the perspective of CDA. Chapter3mainly states the methodologyof the present research. In this Chapter, the procedure of data collection and sample selection,the analytical framework and analytical tools have been expounded and clarified. Chapter4has employed the analytical tools to analyze the samples within Faiclough’s framework in adetailed and systematic way. Chapter5is the concluding part, in which the findings, theimplications as well as the limitations of the present research have been elaborated. |
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