A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Language And Ideology In News Reports

On March 1, 2014, a group of identically dressed terrorists from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region rampaged through the Kunming railway station in southwestern China, killing at least 29 innocent people and wounding 143 with long knives and daggers, shocking the nation with an act of unfathomable terror. The Chinese people of all ethnic groups and international society then all strongly condemned this serious terrorist attack. Mainstream media abroad have published a series of news reports on the event which is labeled “the March 1st terrorist attacks in Kunming railway station”. From the academic perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis(CDA), this paper aims at analyzing the linguistic features and disclosing the underlying and implied ideologies of the news reports on “the March 1st terrorist attacks in Kunming railway station” by The New York Times and British Broadcasting Corporation and presenting how the producers of the news reports use language to convey their own stance and ideologies by adopting Fairclough’s three-dimensional model as the basic theoretical framework, Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar(SFG) and intertextuality as the analyzing tools, and the qualitative method combining with the quantitative method as the approaches of the research. The paper totally selects eight pieces of news reports on “the March 1st terrorist attacks in Kunming railway station”, of which four samples are selected from The New York Times, and the other four are selected from British Broadcasting Corporation.Specifically, the analyzing of the news reports on “the March 1st terrorist attacks in Kunming railway station” by The New York Times and British Broadcasting Corporation is mainly conducted at three levels: text practice, discursive practice and social practice. Firstly, at the level of text practice, classification and modality are chosen as tools for the analyzing process. Secondly, at the level of discursive practice, news sources and reporting modes are analyzed to explain the process of discourse production by adopting intertextuality as the analytical tool. Finally, at the level of social practice, broader backgrounds, such as political, economic and social factors are taken into consideration to fundamentally explain the different choice of ideologies respectively at the levels of text practice and discursive practice.From the perspective of CDA, the critical analysis of the eight samples illustrates that the news discourses reported by The New York Times and British Broadcasting Corporation is far from being objective, but with obvious ideological preference. A negative Chinese government’s international image is shaped by these news reports, and some negative impact on the impression of people worldwide towards China, or even on the Chinese diplomatic relationships with foreign countries.This paper aims to promote the readers’ critical awareness and critical sensitivity when they read the news discourses reported by foreign media, disclosing the hidden ideology embedded by reporters, making independent judgment, and avoiding being misled. It is also conducive to give the Chinese media workers the implication that they should pay more attention to the tactics and strategies in the news discourses when reporting the issues related to Xinjiang and terrorist attacks in China, and at the same time should pay much attention to protect the international image of China and Chinese government.