A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Reports On The Disappearance Of A Malaysia Airlines’ Flight MH370

Critical discourse analysis aims to explore the relationship between discourse and ideology and to reveal the potential ideologies that conceal in language. It provides theories and methods for the study of news discourse,which helps the readers and researchers to understand the real intentions of news reporters.In this thesis, a study on the same event in different media is conducted from the perspective of critical discourse analysis(CDA). By analyzing reports about the disappearance of Air Flight MH370 from China Daily and the New York Times, the differences and similarities of linguistic are discussed, and the hidden ideology behind the news reports is revealed.Adopting Fairclough’s three-dimensional model as its theoretical framework, this thesis applies lexical choice and transitivity in Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar as analytical tools. Twenty news reports on the disappearance of Air Flight MH370 in China Daily and the New York Times are analyzed detailed to reveal the hidden ideology which under the texts.The data analysis is carried out at three stages, namely, description,interpretation and explanation. In the stage of description, the main concern is to analyze the linguistic features at the textual level. And the language features in this thesis are analyzed from the perspective of lexical choice andtransitivity. In the stage of interpretation, the present research mainly analysis of the reported speech in terms of news source and reporting modes.After analyzing the news samples at descriptive and interpretative stages, the reasons why China Daily and the New York Times report the same event differently are informed.The research illustrates that the New York Times makes negative descriptions about the disappearance of flight MH370, and the reporters try every means to distort Chinese and Malaysian images. The news discourse is not neutral, but influenced by ideology. It is proved that CDA is applicable in offering effective analytical tools to expose the hidden ideologies in the research of news discourse on the disappearance of the Flight MH370.