A Study Of "objectivity” Of American News Reports From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Presupposition

Newspaper, as one of the mass media, plays a very important role in people’s daily life. When its news report is conveying information, it is also influencing people’s judgments on the subject of its news report.Therefore, to be objective, fair and authentic is very critical in the news reports. However, the main media in America are always condemning that the media in China and other countries serve the governments and that their news reports are far from objective and fair. Instead, the American media boast that they abide by the principle of objectivity and fairness in their news reports. In fact, their news reports are far from objective and fair, especially the news reports about China and other countries with different ideology. But the audiences have a tendency to believe their news reports are objective for they have used some editing strategies in their news reports. To disclose the hidden subjectivity in their news reports, the researchers have studied the news reports from the perspective of using reported speeches and rhetoric. Few have studied the news reports from the perspective of pragmatic presupposition. With the assumptions that pragmatic presupposition is used to make their news reports seem "objective" and the ratio of three types of pragmatic presupposition used in the news reports is different, the author begins his research. The research is expected to help the audiences enhance their capability of independent thinking in order to avoid being controlled and misguided by American so-called objective facts and opinions. In addition, it will inspire our domestic journalists to apply the theory to our news reports. By means of it, our news reports will be more objective andbe accepted by more people.To determine the purposes of research, the author makes the following research hypotheses.(1) Pragmatic presupposition is used in the American news reports about China, their hostile countries and the event in America.(2) The ratio of the three types of pragmatic presupposition used in the news reports is different.(3)The function of pragmatic presupposition used in news reports is to make their news reports seem "objective".With three hypotheses, the research randomly selects 50 pieces of news reports about China, the event in America and their opponents from the American main media such as Washington Post, The New York Times,USA Today and so on. By carefully reading and analyzing the collected news reports, 25 pieces of news reports consisting of 37 pieces of discourses are related to the use of pragmatic presupposition. In the first place, a qualitative analysis is used to analyze the 37 pieces of discourses from three categories of factive presupposition, viewpoint presupposition and belief presupposition. The analysis gets a major finding that factive presupposition is used in the 19 pieces of discourses, viewpoint presupposition is used in the 16 pieces of discourses and belief presupposition is used in the 2 pieces of discourses. In the second place, a quantitative analysis is used to figure out that the ratio of each pragmatic presupposition used in the news reports is different.Based on Halliday’s Systemic-functional Grammar, language has three metafunctions including ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function. And transitivity system including six kinds of processes mainly realizes the ideational function of language. Factive presupposition is realized by the nominalization of material process and existential process. The nominalization of modality system can realize viewpoint presupposition and modality system is a main means of realizing the interpersonal function of language. When the journalists report the news, they presuppose a settled belief that America is good andits hostile countries are evil. It is a main means of realizing belief presupposition. By the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the discourses in the American news reports, the author gets major findings:(1) The theory of pragmatic presupposition is used in the selected news reports.(2) The ratios of each pragmatic presupposition used in the news reports are respectively 51.3%, 43.2% and 5.5%.(3) The function of pragmatic presupposition used is to make the information conveyed in the news reports seem "objective" and "fair" in order to be accepted and acknowledged by the audiences.