A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Western Reports On Ye Shiwen In2012London Olympics

This thesis selects six sports reports from American and British media on YeShiwen’s performance in2012London Olympics. It describes the linguisticcharacteristics of the six reports and exposes the hidden ideology as well as theinterrelationship of discourse, power and ideology.Based on Fairclough’s Three-dimensional Framework and Halliday’s SystematicFunctional Grammar, the thesis analyses the reports from the dimensions of the text,the discursive practice and the social practice:1) The text. The author employs theanalytical tools of classification and transitivity to describe and interpret the featuresof the language.2) The discursive practice. The author gives a description andinterpretation of the characteristics of language from the perspectives of news sourcesand modes of news.3) The social practice. The author seeks explanations for thereporter’s selection of the text and discursive practice from the aspect of culture,which includes Sexism and Nationalism.It can be claimed that although it is said to be fair and objective, sports news isinfluenced by values and ideology. Therefore, the sports news doesn’t reflect thematerial world with fair and unbiased opinions. The selection of language is theproduct of a certain social ideology. The reports make use of the selection of languageto manipulate the readers’ thought. In the reports of Ye Shiwen’s performance, foreignmedia have enormous speculations on Ye Shiwen, suspecting that she has doped andthat China may have a brutal training system. These reports present a negativeChinese image to the world. Through deconstructing the part of discourse, the authorintends to expose the nationalism and sexism hidden in the language of the reportsthat have the potential impact on the readers’ attitude or thought. Therefore, thereaders and the disadvantaged group are intended to get the strategy of anti-manipulation, and urge the advantaged group to weaken the authority ofdiscourse, or even to correct the improper language.The significance of the research lies in three aspects. Firstly, it broadens thestudy of sports news by CDA. Secondly, it improves the readers’ level of criticalreading to avoid being misled by the reports. Thirdly, it offers the disadvantagedgroup the self-protection tools to some extent.